Prabowo says no to imported milk

Dicky Christanto ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 07/03/2009 8:41 AM  |  Presidential Election

For the second time, vice presidential hopeful Prabowo Subianto signed a political contract Thursday promising that he would stop importing milk, which has affected local producers.

Witnessed by thousands of supporters at Soreang traditional market in Bandung, West Java, the running mate of presidential hopeful Megawati Soekarnoputri said if the pair were elected they would stop importing milk, which has affected millions of milk farmers and domestic producers.

Prabowo previously signed a political contract with the All-Indonesian Student Executive Body (BEM) at the University of Indonesian in Jakarta that he would return educational responsibility to the state, annul the much-criticized 2008 education entity law, provide health care schemes, cheap text books and education credits for students.

Later on Thursday, the duo attended a marathon trail in Karawang, West Java, and Palembang, South Sumatra, to convince their supporters of their strong political commitment to implementing a people-based economy if they were elected to lead the nation in the coming five years.

In Jakarta, the Megawati-Prabowo campaign team expressed their scepticism about a free and fair election due to what they described as poor election management.

Hasto Kristiyanto, the team’s spokesman, said the lack of preparation was evident from the alleged electoral roll frauds in many provinces, the low quality of ballot paper and the poor vote-counting system.

He said even though the KPU managed to garner 5,129,573 additional voters from the previous 176,367,056 to 176,395,015 of eligible voters registered at the recent fixed voter list, it was still not enough.

“The additions are not significant when compared to various findings regarding the amount of lost votes in the legislative elections,” Hasto told a press conference Thursday.

Various findings predicted the figure of the lost votes during the legislative elections varied from 30 to 40 million.

Commenting on this, Hadar Gumay from the Centre of Electoral Reform (Cetro), said the KPU could still fix the problem with the electoral roll if they wanted to.

”Just allow everybody whose names are not listed on the electoral roll to vote on the balloting day.”
He said such a breakthrough was necessary as criticism regarding the electoral roll were coming from
everywhere.

However, he realized that it would also require a lot of guts from the KPU to implement a regulation that would allow people that remained unregistered to vote.  

“So the real question is, will the KPU consider the issuance of such regulation is as a solution to the problem or not?”

In Jakarta, Jusuf Kalla and Wiranto were campaigning in five areas to assure Jakartans of their political commitment to acting quickly in efforts to allow the nation to catch up with neighboring countries.

SBY-Boediono campaign team also held a press conference to clarify certain issues raised to discredit the pair. The team said they have never politicized religious and ethnic issues to attack other presidential candidates.

Presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng denied it was impossible for figures from South Sulawesi to become a president in the coming five years, a statement that provoked a strong protest from the people in the province.

“A president can be emerged from the province but not now because President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is still the best for the next five years.”

Hundreds of people staged a demonstration in Makassar on Thursday to protest Andi’s campaign speech in the city on Wednesday.

Subhan Jaya Mappaturung, who coordinated the demonstration, said Alfian’s political statement not only insulted presidential hopeful Jusuf Kalla, himself a Bugis descent, but all those from Sulawesi and was against the Amended 1945 Constitution guaranteeing the right of every Indonesian citizen the possibility of becoming president.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.