Letter: SBY popularity drop

Thu, 07/03/2008 10:38 AM  |  Reader's Forum

This is a response to an article titled "Popularity drop sends 'a yellow light' to President,'" (The Jakarta Post, June 2).

The bottom line is there is nobody else better than Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Megawati Soekarnoputri turned her back on everyone when she was in power and it was always about face.

SBY acts with reason and will even take time to meet you in person regardless of who you are. The entire world has issues with oil and Indonesia is not isolated in this aspect.

SBY can help Indonesia by asking OPEC to increase output and also by taxing vehicles higher that are considered non-friendly to the environment.

If the price of gasoline was an issue you would see a reduction of vehicles on Saturday and Sunday but the opposite has happened and traffic is worse.

The people that need help are in the outlying villages and I expect the government to continue with financial subsidies. It's important for the government to update the country on current issues such as inflation, prices on commodities and why gas has increased.

Please understand that villagers may not understand what is GDP or words such as inflation so it should be socialized in plain words so that all understand and can reelect him as he's doing a good job with the team he has.

It's also important that where subsidies are lifted then money should be moved to education. We need to look at it on a graph, subsidy for gas versus education, whereas the contrasts are shocking that hardly anything goes to education.

Make a bold move and educate the young and Indonesia will become the next Hong Kong or Singapore.

KEITH HARDING
Jakarta

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