Humbug!

It was bound to start sooner or later. The humbug is now on our TV screens and in the papers and magazines. President SBY's Democrat Party and its claims to have reduced fuel prices have already been discussed - the humbug element is that he raised them in the first place and that in neighboring Malaysia, according to Tempo magazine the other week, prices have been reduced not thrice but seven times...

Then there is the United Development Party (PPP). In the celebrations of its 36th anniversary on Saturday (24/1/09), party chairman Suryadharma Ali said, "the United Development Party was born because Indonesia's Moslems missed having a vehicle for their political struggles". Er... no. They had those in the pre-PPP Islamic parties. The PPP was born out of a desire by the authoritarian President Suharto to reduce the number of opponents. He forced all the Islamic parties to merge into the easily controllable PPP in 1971. This same PPP is now losing political ground to newer Islamic parties and is frantically scrambling for support - hence that masterpiece of misinformation from Ali.

One of the PPP's rivals is the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), a party with its support basis among urban Moslems. It seems to feel it should run ads, but isn't quite sure what to say. "We are Islamic"? - too risky - might want support from nationalist parties later on. "We are anti-corruption"? - been done before. Ok then, "we are jolly good" - which is what they seem to have settled on.

And the opportunity for large-scale humbug comes today - Chinese New Year. Already we have had ethnic Chinese on TV thanking President SBY and saying there is no discrimination any more. Er.. well it was President Megawati who lifted the ban on celebrations of Chinese New Year and frankly to say there is no discrimination is ludicrous. Meanwhile Pemiloopy hasn't seen a Democratic Party ad for Chinese New Year, but he is sure it exists. As for the Gerindra Party, its leader loathes the Chinese, so unless he thinks he can get votes by attacking them, he will probably stay quiet. The rest of the parties seem unsure what to do - court the ethnic Chinese vote or pander to racism among their supporters. Time will tell, but there will be plenty of humbug one way or another.

STOP PRESS: Well! Pemiloopy is almost beside himself having just watched a TV ad by the Gerindra Party in which the Chinese-hating Prabowo Subianto wishes voters "Kong Xi Fa Choi" - Happy Chinese New Year. Dear God, that must have stuck in his throat. Far be it for Pemiloopy to repeat unproved allegations about the alleged involvement of disgraced former general Prabowo in the organization of the riots and mass rapes of ethnic Chinese in Jakarta in May 1998, but that ad was breathtakingly hypocritical. If this was a spoken blog, you'd hear sputtering! It's like George W. Bush appealing to followers of Michael Moore; Golkar sucking up to communists; Nelson Mandela courting white supremists or Margaret Thatcher cosying up to Arthur Scargill (readers from other nations will have to come up with their own analogies...) Ha!

What do the People Think?

The latest issue here is about opinion polls. It seems that some parties have been "ordering" opinion polls with the results they want to see. Meanwhile, a section of the electorate seems thoroughly disillusioned by the whole process.

Firstly, look at the varying opinion poll "results". For example, over the last three months, according to Tempo magazine (19/1/2009), President SBY's Democrat Party has been on top in the polls by between 2 and 9 percent. Then suddenly two polls from the Indonesian Survey Circle (Lingkaran Survey Indonesia) and the National Survey Institute (Lembaga Survei Nasional) show Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) ahead by 11.7% and 8.8% respectively. Funny that. To help readers work out if anything untoward is going on, see if you can guess the answers to these questions:

1) Do the polling organizations have the same HQ and leadership?
2) Is the Indonesian Survey Circle acting as a political consultant for the PDIP?

More astute observers will have correctly guessed the answer is "YES" to both. Not exactly known for its principled stance on anything, the PDIP is up to its usual tricks to try and convince undecided voters that it is popular and therefore worth a vote.

Meanwhile, Kompas newspaper has been printing text messages sent in by its readers. Here are some example comments:

• "First the candidates hurt the trees by nailing their pictures up. Then they hurt us by conning us"
• "The people don't believe any more. What's the point in an election: it's a waste of money. After all the result will be new corrupt people...."
• "Do you want a big salary, a house and respect? All you have to do is turn up, listen, sit quietly and you receive money for 5 years. Register now as a legislative candidate"
• The main reason ... why candidates stand in the election is that they want to be rich... not to help the people."
• "As long as parties and their members are still as corrupt as they are now, the most realistic choice is not to vote. Don't legalize corruption by voting in the election."

Of course these are just the mobile phone-owning newspaper-reading classes. The parties must be praying it is easier to pull the wool over the eyes of the silent majority.

It's that Man Again

So the New Year is upon us. The campaign remains quiet with a few notable exceptions. The most prominent is the Democratic Party of incumbent president SBY. Goodness me, that man gets around. Every single day of the slightest significance prompts another TV ad. Just before Christmas it was "Happy Mother's Day from the Democrat Party and SBY". Then there was the 2009 New Year and the Islamic New Year (two for the price of one there). The man's face is everywhere on posters. And in the latest TV ad spectacular, the party has the bare-faced cheek to take credit for lowering fuel prices (forgetting to mention that SBY's government put them up in the first place). So scared is SBY of taking any decisions that might cost him election glory, he is in the process of missing a golden opportunity to get rid of fuel subsidies (which cost the country Rp132 trillion a year - four times the number 2 budget item - education!). Now oil prices are low, all he has to do is remove subsidies: if they rise again it would no longer be the government's fault!

Meanwhile, Gerindra, the party of disgraced former "special" forces commander Prabowo (and former murder suspect Muchdi) continues to run expensive ads targeted at the poor - whom Prabowo presumably hopes will have forgotten his inglorious past in the human rights field.

In at number three in the TV ad splurge is vice-president Jusuf Kalla's Golkar Party, which is playing the "protector of national stability, force behind national development" card. Again, hopes must be high of collective amnesia.

The rest of the parties have gone rather quiet, and only a few are bothering to replace the wind-shredded party flags and banners. Among these are the Crescent Star Party, Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and a tiny new party headed by the daughter of a national hero, the National People's Concern Party. Not really sure why they're bothering, unless they know something we don't...