No `neolib' issue, no singing, in VP candidates debate

Kornelius Purba ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 07/01/2009 12:13 PM  |  Headlines

Imagine, if during Tuesday night's television debate among our three vice presidential candidates, moderator Fachmi Idris had the authority to repeat what Gwen Ifill told the then United States vice presidential candidates Senator Joseph Biden and Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin during their Oct. 2, 2008 debate.

"Neither of you really answered that last question about what you would do as vice president. I'm going to come back to that... " Ifill then said.

If (again if) that happened, we could have really enjoyed last night as there would have been a fierce debate, especially between former Bank Indonesia Governor Boediono and former Kostrad (the Army Strategic Reserves) commander Lt. Gen. (ret) Prabowo Subianto on people's welfare issues, and more particularly on Prabowo's foreign debt rescheduling plan.

By nature, as a professor of economics, Boediono will be in the front line in opposing the plan, because its negative impact would be no less severe on the country's position in international market.

All sides, however, clearly refrained from attacking each other.

As a businessman, and the son of one of the country's most respected economists, Prof. Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, Prabowo surely realized his economic jargons were not that easy to implement.

Boediono, who partners incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, described Prabowo's determination to reschedule the country's foreign debt as "unrealistic".

Meanwhile, Prabowo teased Boediono, saying "Pak Boediono's answer is too normative. It is not wrong, but it is an academic answer".

As in the previous debate, Prabowo came up with populist economic policies.

Prabowo boasted that along with his running mate Megawati Soekarnoputri, the money from the debt rescheduling would be used to fund programs on education, health, family planning, and to help 100 million Indonesians, whom he said were living under poverty line.

There was actually a big chance that during the second debate, Boediono, Prabowo and Gen. (ret) Wiranto, a former Indonesian Military commander during the Soeharto era, would debate their accusation Boediono belongs to the "neolib" (neo liberalism) economics school, which the former central bank governor has repeatedly denied.

Unfortunately, the chairman of the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI), Fachmi Idris, could only raise standard questions although he had boasted there would be a good opportunity for the spectators to witness interesting debate among the candidates.

But even in the beginning, Fachmi asked the three candidates to comment on each other.

Of course, they tried to be polite to each other on TV although in their outdoor campaigns, the camps of Jusuf Kalla-Wiranto and Megawati-Prabowo continued branding Boediono "neolib".

There had also been an accusation that Boediono's wife is a Catholic.

Practically, there were no significant differences among the three candidates on issues asked by the moderator, including the possible restriction of number of children in a family, cigarette industry restriction, and social security program.

All agreed on the need to revive the family planning program, in which families are encouraged to have only two children.

However, they are not into copying the Chinese government's mandatory rule that one family can only have one kid.

"I am not a smoker... I support smoking restrictions. But we must face these concrete problems in a balanced way," argued Boediono, while Wiranto and Prabowo said the fate of millions of tobacco farmers should also be protected.

Wiranto has repeatedly told his supporters that if he and running mate Jusuf Kalla (incumbent vice president and Golkar Party chief) won, they could do everything "faster and better" than the other two pairs.

Although there is still one more public debate session on TV among the three presidential candidates, only in the 2014 presidential elections could we Indonesians expect to hear the way Gwen Ifill scolded Biden and Palin.

Wiranto had tried to follow Kalla's way of approaching the audience by walking around the stage, but unfortunately failed to impress them.

He also failed to keep his promise that he would sing again in the second debate.

For journalists who were familiar with Wiranto when he was still active as an Army general, he was known as a calm and polite person in answering questions but often with little substance in his comments.

Journalists often felt scared to question Prabowo when he was still in the military, plus his status as a son-in-law of then president Soeharto.

How about Boediono? His performance last night was not very different from his style in announcing a new Cabinet economic policy when he was a minister.

It is very difficult to expect that on the July 2 presidential debate, Yudhoyono, Kalla and Megawati will demonstrate a significant breakthrough.

Like what happened last night, the three presidential candidates will likely be polite to each other although when they are not together on one stage Kalla and Megawati tend to launch severe criticisms against Yudhoyono.

Don't be surprised though if Yudhoyono's way of answering the criticism will be much different from Boediono's last night.

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