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Readers' Hopes: Will SBY take this challenge?
In 2010, President Yudhoyono will go “hammer-and-tong” against institutional corruption
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n 2010, President Yudhoyono will go “hammer-and-tong” against institutional corruption. In my total span of association with Indonesia did I ever see or dream that a day would dawn when gecko (cicak) would win against crocodile (buaya) (at least the first round has gone to KPK’s two deputies who were apparently charged wrongly for corruption). President Yudhoyono has achieved the impossible. Many people in high places: ministers, CEOs, senior bureaucrats, senior-most executives of banks, including Bank Indonesia were caught, prosecuted, found guilty, sentenced and spent time in jail, something unimaginable in 1984 when I first came to Indonesia.
Presently also the battle lines are drawn between buaya and cicak.
The high-profile case of Antasari for the murder of Nasruddin Zulkarnaen is currently under prosecution stage and is showing the wrong faces of those who are supposed to act in favor of innocents and not against.
This is SBY’s second (and last) term; he has a unique opportunity to achieve an all-time goal of being the President who eradicated the country’s chronic desease — “corruption” — for which this otherwise wonderful country has always been looked down upon and ridiculed.
Actually, he has a lot on his side. He won the elections, 2004 and 2009, with a thumping 60 percent majority irrespective of who his VP candidate was.
We saw many incidents reported widely about their differences and even some decisions taken by President quietly being laid to rest.
And he has nothing to lose this time. As long as he takes decisions that are for the benefit of the man-on-the-street, he has nothing to worry about. His popularity may see some rise and fall (like now due to some problems that the parliamentary inquiry team is investigating) during these five years, but his good decisions are the ones that will finally decide his effectiveness and the legacy of his Presidency.
In these next five years, he should give priority to reduce costs of medical treatment and costs of medicines in Indonesia. This must be changed.
He should make laws that doctors write generic medicines in their prescriptions and not branded medicines. The medicines should have the contents and their maximum retail prices printed on each strip, bottle and carton.
K.B. Kale
Jakarta
