President election in Indonesia is approaching very rapidly. Just like in any political campaign season, the next thing we know is seeing all of these humongous signs with campaign promises popping up every where.

General Wiranto; the current Chairman of Hanura Party as well as a Presidential candidate made bold statements, such as: “KEMISKINAN HARUS DI HENTIKAN” (Poverty must be eliminated).

And further on the same board he stated that: “SAYA BERSUMPAH DAN MEWAKAFKAN SISA HIDUP INI UNTUK IKUT MENJEJAHTERAKAN RAKYAT INDONESIA” (I pledge to sacrifice the rest of my life in the name of God to participate in making Indonesian people to live in prosperity).

I have a lot of respect for General Wiranto and commend him for his service to the country of Indonesia. However, his political statements make me wonder sometimes.

Will he pledge the same thing and willing to commit such a sacrifice before GOD to fight for the interest of Indonesian people if he is NOT running for President? Or, he said what he said just because he wants the number #1 job, to be the President of Indonesia. What contribution did he make when he was a top Commander of Indonesian Arm Forces to eliminate poverty?

Further more, those statements are such a bold claim but the questions that I have for him are this:

1. HOW is he going to eradicate poverty in Indonesia? What plan does he have? He did not say or mention anything about his proposed plan to eradicate poverty. 

2. What plan does he have to pay off Indonesia’s $136 billion public debts? How about other debts with Asian Development Bank (ADB), Japan Bank International Cooperation (JBIC) and the World Bank? Unless those country’s debts are paid off, how will he get the money or a mean to eliminate poverty?

3. If his plans involved massive project to rebuild Indonesia’s broken infrastructures, where does he get the money from?

4. What bench mark does he have to measure its success for his proposed plans and how long? 

These simple questions shall be raised to challenge General Wiranto and other Indonesia’s Presidential candidates. Unless they can come up with a comprehensive plan to address those questions and to resolve the issues, their words are nothing but empty slogan and empty promises in a campaign season. It does not surprise us, does it?

This is where the Indonesia’s journalists play a critical role to question those Presidential candidates to make statement on the record. Unless we do that, there will be no public accountability and that is not good in Democracy. For this very reason, I have drafted 14 pages document to challenge those Presidential candidates. For more detail, please click link below.

http://www.indonesiamatters.com/2431/presidential-debates/

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