President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s appeal to open talks with student protesters has been rejected, with several university student bodies dismissing the possibility of any meeting unless the country’s leader answers their demands.
Roughly three days after tens of thousands of university students nationwide started a wave of protests, Jokowi conveyed his plan on Thursday to “directly listen” to the aspirations of protesters at a planned meeting on Friday.
But the students have not been so easy to appease, even after the President put on the table the possibility of issuing a government regulation in lieu of law (Perppu) to revoke the controversial revision of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Law, which was one of the protesters’ demands.
In a statement received by The Jakarta Post on Friday, members of the National Association of University Student Executive Bodies (BEM-SI) said the students had two conditions that Jokowi must fulfill should the President want to sit together with them.
BEM-SI comprises BEM from a number of universities across the country that joined the protest in front of the House of Representatives on Monday and Tuesday.
They demanded that the meeting be open to the public and be broadcast live on television and that Jokowi must issue concrete policies to follow up seven demands the protesters had outlined for both the government and the House.
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