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Jakarta Post

A promising New Year

The past week brought the closing of 2010

The Jakarta Post
Sun, January 2, 2011

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A promising New Year

T

br>The past week brought the closing of 2010. New Year’s Eve celebrations were observed in mixed moods on Friday evening. Mass celebrations were held routinely with joy in the capital and throughout the country. Muslims and Christians alike held solemn religious ceremonies welcoming the New Year in several areas throughout Greater Jakarta.

Closing the year 2010 on a positive note, all festivities and prayers were organized and conducted peacefully. Still, the national soccer team’s failure to secure the 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup trophy undoubtedly dampened the festive mood. Should the Indonesian soccer team have won the regional championship title, it would have been a perfect weekend to end the year.

Although Indonesians’ expectations of a sweet soccer victory failed to materialize, the home team did manage to defeat the visiting Malaysian team 2-1 in the second leg of the final matches on Wednesday. Overall, the Indonesian team lost the final by an aggregate 2-4 score.

Closing 2010, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s government expressed optimism for Indonesia’s economic sector in the years ahead. His economic team met in Bogor on Thursday to finalize a long-term economic master plan that envisioned Indonesia’s growth to becoming one of the 10 largest economies in the world by 2025.

Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa elaborated by projecting GDP of up to US$4.7 trillion.

“Our vision for 2025 is that GDP will reach between $3.7 trillion and $4.7 trillion, with a per capita income of between $12,800 and $16,160. That way we will be among the world’s top 10 [economic] powers by 2025, and top six powers by 2050,” he said. Referring to medium-term goals, Hatta said the government was aiming at economic growth of between 7 and 8 percent beginning from 2013.

Executives and stock market officials gathered on the trading floor on closing date Thursday, Dec. 30, to celebrate the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) as the Asia-Pacific region’s best-performing stock market in 2010. As Deputy Finance Minister Anny Ratnawati rang the bell signaling the end of trading, the benchmark Jakarta Composite Index (JCI) stood at 3,703.51. The JCI rose a spectacular 44 percent in 2010.

The bourse’s gain was the highest in the Asia-Pacific region, and even rivaled the top performing major global indexes, IDX president director Ito Warsito said.

Malaysia’s KLCI gained about 20 percent Singapore’s Straits Times rose about 10 percent in 2010.

Other major global indexes showed modest performances in comparison, with the United States’ Dow Jones and London’s Financial Times both up about 10 percent for the year, while Tokyo’s Nikkei was down 3 percent.

The last week of 2010 was also colored by increasing political maneuvering, especially by the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) – a nationalist political party led by the eldest daughter of founding president Sukarno, Megawati Soekarnoputri.

With rifts apparently growing within the Democratic Party-led ruling coalition, Taufiq Kiemas, the chief patron of the main opposition party, hinted at possibly working with the President’s party in the next elections. “We’re willing to field a vice-presidential candidate for the Democrat Party’s presidential candidate for the 2014 presidential election,” PDI-P boss Taufiq said Tuesday after meeting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the State Palace.

Taufiq, who is also the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) speaker, added that it was time for both parties to begin talks without any commitment to allocations of ministerial posts as a condition of a future union.

Visible tensions are destabilizing the solidity of the ruling coalition, which is comprised of the Democratic Party, the Golkar Party, the United Development Party (PPP), the Prosperous  Justice Party (PKS), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the National Awakening Party (PKB).

The past year tested the coalition with power struggles between the Democratic Party and Golkar Party, the two largest parties in the coalition, and high-profile cases in the House of Representatives, such as the Bank Century fiasco and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) sagas.

Feeling stifled by rivalries and tired of being omitted from the coalition’s decision making processes, PKS and PAN leaders expressed a possible split from the coalition and a potential union with PDI-P.

PDI-P’s top brass rejected the prospect of serving as their lifeboat, should they leave the coalition, saying the party  would not accept any offer to coalesce with the two if the parties did not give up their ministerial posts in the Cabinet.

The Presidential Palace signaled its growing impatience with conflicts and threats from minor coalition partners, saying 2011 would be a “cathartic” year. “We have thousands of reasons to be disappointed. It is becoming clear who our friends and foes are,” presidential spokesman Daniel Sparringa said.

PDI-P and Democratic Party leaders dismissed Taufiq’s statements after Tuesday’s visit, saying they did not signify anything — not even a strategy for 2014.

PDI-P politician Ganjar Pranowo said it was too early to talk about the issue because anything could happen before 2014. Democratic Party advisory board member Ahmad Mubarok said Taufiq’s offer was “positive, but sounds impossible”. Mubarok denied suggestions that the ruling coalition’s joint secretariat was bogged down by friction and bickering.

Megawati, Taufiq’s wife, has repeatedly stressed that the PDI-P would remain an opposition party. The PDI-P announced its firm stance on not becoming part of a coalition power after Yudhoyono won the 2009 presidential elections.

— Imanuddin Razak

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