A look at the Indonesian elections and Politics...

Wednesday 10 September 2008

The "My Republi Party" [sic]

The "Partai Republiku" successfully took the General Election Commission (KPU) to court as they wanted to participate in the election. In a rather confusingly worded ruling (and appeal), the judge did not actually make it clear why it should be allowed to. After all, the party failed the verification process by the KPU as it does not have representative offices in enough provinces. More than 66 parties wanted to take part, but in the end, only 38 will do so nationally.

So why so desperate. After all, the "Partai Republiku" doesn't have a hope of winning a significant number of seats, yet alone a majority. Could it have anything to do with the fact that parties will receive state funding? It could indeed!

And in their haste to set up a party, the people behind it couldn't even be bothered to come up with a proper name. In Indonesian, 'republik' means, unsurprisingly, 'republic'. The suffix 'ku' means 'my'. So 'My Republic Party' is 'Partai Republikku', with double k. But 'Partai Republiku' means 'My Republi Party'.

Now what's the indonesian for 'plonker'?

No comments: