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Yudhoyono tweets response to public outcry
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono finally answered public outcry on Wednesday after being slammed insistently on Twitter through hashtags such as #ShameOnYouSBY, #RIPDemocracy, #ShameOnYouAgainSBY and #WelcomeMrLiar for five days regarding the decision by the Democratic Partyâs lawmakers who walked out of a plenary session to vote on the regional election (Pilkada) law at the House of Representatives
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resident Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono finally answered public outcry on Wednesday after being slammed insistently on Twitter through hashtags such as #ShameOnYouSBY, #RIPDemocracy, #ShameOnYouAgainSBY and #WelcomeMrLiar for five days regarding the decision by the Democratic Party's lawmakers who walked out of a plenary session to vote on the regional election (Pilkada) law at the House of Representatives.
Through his account @SBYudhoyono, Yudhoyono said that he understood public outcry against him regarding the walkout by his 129 lawmakers, which caused the replacement of direct elections for regional heads with indirect elections across Indonesia, the third-largest democratic country in the world.
'Please give me five minutes to explain. My stance is clear. I disagree with regional heads being elected by councilors because the possibility of vote-buying in indirect elections is bigger [than that in direct elections],' he said on Wednesday as quoted by tempo.co.
Yudhoyono, who will leave office on Oct. 20, said that the newly passed law would also give more benefits to politicians from big political parties. Therefore, he was drafting a government regulation in lieu of law (Perppu) to bring back direct elections.
Many netizens gave negative feedback to Yudhoyono's tweets. For example, the owner of the account @SetraNugroho said,' If you [Yudhoyono] knew that indirect elections were vulnerable to vote-buying, why did you let your lawmakers walk out?'
Since #ShameOnYouSBY was launched on Friday last week, the hashtag has put the spotlight on Yudhoyono, who was elected twice in direct presidential elections in 2004 and 2009. It became a trending topic worldwide in only a few hours, however, it mysteriously disappeared on Saturday evening.
Netizens across the archipelago have not been slow to slam their sixth president with new hashtags such as #ShameOnYouAgainSBY, #SukaBohongYa and #WelcomeMrLiar. (alz)
