political update

It was a bad week in Indonesian politics. At least it was for the politicians. Consider: last week Wanda Hamidah from PAN was caught up in a drug bust at the home of TV celebrity Raffi Achmad. More fool her. However the real news was the hilarious demise of Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq on corruption allegations along with the salacious arrest of his bag man, Ahmad Fathanan,  who was arrested wearing nothing but a surprised look in a Jakarta hotel. Whats makes this funny and ironic is that Pak Lufthi was hitherto chairman of the PKS or the local franchise of the muslim brotherhood in Indonesia. The same PKS that cloaked themselves in religious self-righteousness as the only party free from corruption. The same PKS that championed the pornography law. The same PKS whose parliamentary cadre was caught viewing pornography(on a government PC!) while sitting in on house deliberations. Oh how the pious have fallen.

Predictably the PKS brass have blamed everyone else for their erstwhile leader's poor judgement citing mysterious forces, foreign powers, and even the Joos.  I suppose when facts or evidence are not in abundance playing on the prejudices of the nation is the best that a desperate party can come up to save their sorry asses. I thought that I was a cynic but these guys must have tattooed  the insides of their eyelids with  HL Mencken's insight, (and I paraphrase here) "you can never go broke underestimating the intelligence or the American Indonesian public".

The only good news from all this is that with elections just around the corner there is some opportunity to rid the nation of the parasites who feed upon it. Hopefully Indonesians will demand more from their leaders then the cynical cloaked-in-piety lot that they are stuck with till 2014. Kudos too to the KPK who are ever so slowly landing bigger and bigger fish in the corrupt pool of Jakarta politics.


 

On Egypt

The events happening over in Egypt are certainly dynamic. I've been following The Sandmonkey both on twitter and on his blog. The man has found himself at the centre of things. CNN has also been providing a lot of coverage on this issue as well as events elsewhere in the Middle East. Twitter is actually a  useful tool in keeping up with events.

 Meanwhile closer to home...
Indonesian leaders have a history of making bizarre public statements. Here is another. The Secretary General of the PKS Anis Matta claiming that thousands of his supporters are over in Egypt actively assisting in the overthrow of a soverign government? Imagine for even one moment if a European or American politican said something along those lines a few years back here in Indonesia. The conspiracy mill would be gristed for years to come.

Whats going on in Egypt will eventually be sorted by Egyptians. Given that foreigners have been targeted by the Egyptian police and pro Mubarak demonstrators its astounding that Anis Matta would make such a foolish and potentially inflammatory statement. Indonesians abroad have a tough enough time without having to worry about about being rounded up as foreign agitators.

Update - the police in egypt can read the news...poor guy

Fail: Operasi Valentine

The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) seems to have found itself in the news lately. What with their members turning up in massage parlors, threats to prosecute Jaipongan under the porn law, and its support of the porn law itself, seem to contradict their stated appeals to be a more inclusive political party. In light of this I really did not know what to make of the PKS's Depok branch recent operasi valentine initiative , a program to deliver chocolates and flowers to young people in the hope that this largess will garner votes in the upcoming election. Now its a pretty cynical assumption on the critical powers of the electorate if you think that you can sway them with candy, but what really surprised me was the words valentine's day and PKS being mentioned in the same sentence. I thought that the PKS didn't like valentines day. Were they turning over a new leaf of was this whole operasi Valentine just another cynical ploy?
Miraculously my musings were answered today when the chairman of the PKS put the official kaybosh on the Depok chapters little plan. To quote party chairman Tifatul Sembiring “The plan has been aborted because the Shariah Council bans it. The reason is because [Valentine’s Day] is related to Jewish culture (wtf?? Jewish culture?). We would never celebrate anything that is not in line with Islamic culture..So it turned that the PKS Depok branch were not being cynical or inclusive - they were merely simpletons who acted on their own before checking with the big bosses. All of this begs the questions:
a) How can the PKS claim to be inclusive when their leaders repeated claim the contrary;
b) If their own cadres don't know what the PKS represents then how can they sell a platform to the electorate?

It will be interesting to see how the PKS fares in the upcoming election.

Notes
The PKS has their own site here (in indonesian)
Their mission statement along with summaries of other political parties can be found here (in english)
Jaipongan - A dance form from West Java