The camp of chief welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie, one of the four candidates for chairman to replace the outgoing Vice President Jusuf Kalla, began handing out money to each member of the party's regional branches from across Indonesia, a day after the congress opened on Monday evening.

Your comments:
Who does Aburizal Bakrie think he is fooling. Buying votes is not a kick-back? If you pay for a vote, receiving the vote IS the kick-back.

Of course, Bakrie still lives in the time of the New Order and has never grown out of the belief that money can buy all and everybody.

Perhaps he is right, since his election to the chairman of the Golkar Party attests.

I wonder where all the money he doled out came from. Wasn't the Bakrie company on the brink of insolvency? Of course, being the Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare is not a job without influence and not muddy influence at that!

Jose Dinoy
Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara

This is definitely a case of democracy gone wrong. Vote buying is only for those that worship money as their God. It totally subverts the democratic selection of candidates according to merit.

Those that are prepared to accept money to change their allegiance and vote are surely morally bankrupt. This is nothing more than unashamed naked corruption on stage.

Any party that condones such payments is bound to find an easy transition to condoning corruption if elected into our government. Round one and Golkar has put money before merit. Will this philosophy permeate all their thinking? A society that is prepared to accept that it is legitimate to buy political power with money will surely end up governed by the wealthy - for the wealthy.

Nairdah
Sydney

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