Q

uestioning the government'€™s outlook and policies during the first 100 days of the administration, activists in Bandung, West Java, have initiated the Jan. 22 Movement to prevent reforms from furthering the growth of business oligarchies.

Activist Donny Setiawan of the Initiative Association said that the government'€™s 2015-2019 national middle-term development plan (RPJMN) only protected the economic interests of a few groups of big investors.

'€œFuture economic development only pursues high economic growth and large-scale investment. This will not narrow the economic gap,'€ Donny said in Bandung on Thursday.

Apart from the Initiative Association, a number of other elements of the community were involved in initiating the Jan. 22 Movement.

They included the Legal Aid Institute (LBH) Bandung, the West Java branch of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), the Independent People'€™s Federation, the West Java University Students Front and the Bandung Activists'€™ Forum.

In the rural economic development sector, according to Donny, the new government'€™s policies also had not yet guaranteed the people'€™s independence in managing the production process.

In its budget, Donny said, the government needed Rp 3.9 trillion (US$312.5 million) in funds until 2019. Of this, however, only some 10 percent could be provided by the government, while the rest would be procured through the use of third-party interventions.

'€œSome are also to be funded using foreign loan schemes. How could we be independent?'€ Donny asked.

Another activist, Sapei Rusin, said that all the policies made by the government of President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo were only beneficial to industrial practitioners with big capital.

The infrastructure development policy, similarly, would only decrease the number of households working in the agricultural sector, he said.

The Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) reported in 2003 that there were 14.2 million households working in the agricultural sector. In 10 years, the figure decreased to 14.1 million because of changes in occupation and a decreasing number of agricultural fields caused by land conversions.

Budiana of the Bandung Activists'€™ Forum said that the public had placed big hopes on Jokowi and Vice President Jusuf '€œJK'€ Kalla to thoroughly complete the reform agenda.

Yet, he said, instead of developing a slim and professional government, implementing pro-people policies by avoiding corporate interests and putting an end to past violations against human rights, the current government was just continuing the agenda of the former administration'€™s development policies.

'€œWe consider that the Jokowi-JK'€™s administration is denying the people'€™s trust and has no will to finish the reform agenda,'€ said Budiana.