Government wasting money on itself

Wed, 04/30/2008 1:10 PM | Opinion

The legislative and presidential elections are still one year off, but judging by the behavior and attitudes of our politicians they may as well be in a couple of weeks.

From President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice President Jusuf Kalla to the Cabinet members and those who believe only under their own leadership will Indonesia regain its lost international stature -- these politicians all continue to make promises, while starvation, severe poverty, poor health facilities and massive unemployment are in urgent need of attention and help.

We need to remind the people in power that what they are doing now can backfire in their own political futures. The general public is not as stupid as they are often portrayed.

In our opinion, there is no need to create new laws or government regulations to prevent politicians from abusing their power to win next year's election. No matter how perfect the regulations or laws are, if there is no good will among them, they will violate restrictions regardless.

They use any possible rationale to justify their shameful actions without realizing that while most Indonesian citizens have a low education and income, the general population fully understands they are being cheated by 'leaders' and will punish them in next year's election.

Politicians are competing to lure voters by using any means, including state facilities, for their campaigns. No matter how well hidden politicians may think they are, people know they abuse state facilities for their own interests.

Politicians in the House are busy helping their political parties get more funding for the elections, while they fully realize this means sacrificing money which could have been spent on people who really deserve it. The House allocates funds people need, for vested-interest purposes.

None of our politicians, including our presidential aspirants, have had the courage to act as statesmen and to tell the nation we have no choice but to raise fuel prices because the world oil prices will continue to increase in coming years. They realize it is a time bomb, but they would prefer to see the bomb explode (at the expense of the entire country) than to defuse it.

The President has made frequent visits to regions, to show off the achievements of his government since 2004, and is busy trying to blame global problems on his failure to improve Indonesia's gigantic unemployment, skyrocketing food prices and the deterioration of its inadequate infrastructure.

The Vice President, meanwhile, has also visited regions in his capacity as the country's second-in-charge and chairman of the country's largest political party -- Golkar.

It is also disturbing to see how much of her energy Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari spent criticizing the United States and the World Health Organization. Her anti-western stance easily won support from nationalists and narrow-minded members of the community. Just look at the case of the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2 (Namru-2), Central Jakarta.

As part of Yudhoyono's Cabinet, Siti should be acting as part of the government, not as an independent member of her own party. What the nation hopes for is for Siti to provide the community with improved medical services. She needs to ask herself whether she has developed the health sector, and stop criticizing other nations when she herself cannot do much for her own nation's public health.

Outside Cabinet, former president Megawati Soekarnoputri suddenly became talkative in criticizing the ruling government. She may forget or pretend not to remember that she herself failed to realize many of her own campaign programs. Megawati did not have enough courage to raise fuel prices in 2004, because she thought it would have been political suicide in the presidential elections at that time -- but the community chose not to reelect her anyway.

Former president Abdurrahman Wahid, meanwhile, should accept that he does not deserve the right to become president for a second term. It is shameful that he cannot see his ruling days are over.

We want to remind our politicians and leaders that the elections are still one year away. If they want to win the hearts and minds of the people, they should compete to provide concrete actions which improve our economy and provide food, jobs and health facilities for the community.

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