Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono can be forgiven for feeling smug ahead of Wednesday’s presidential polls — he is overseeing one of the best performing economies in the G20 amid a global crisis.
The liberal ex-general has a huge lead over his main rival, former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, and is hoping to avoid a September runoff by winning a clear majority in the first round of elections.
Indonesia’s economy is growing at more than 4 percent and is expected to rebound to around 6 percent next year on the back of strong domestic demand and revived export sales.
PHOTO: AFP
Such numbers should make Indonesians of all political stripes pleased as Punch, especially after the mauling the economy received during the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, when the country virtually went bankrupt.
But not so. Almost by virtue of his administration’s economic success, the soft-spoken president known simply as SBY has come under attack as a “neo-liberal,” a free-market zealot and stooge of foreign capitalists.
His opponents have offered an alternative economic vision based on national “self reliance” and raged against the allegedly uneven exploitation of the country’s vast natural resources by foreign mining and forestry companies.
All well and good, except that no one seems to know exactly what any of the candidates are talking about when it comes to economic policy in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.
Center for Strategic and International Studies economist Pande Raja Silalahi said attempts to paint Yudhoyono as a “neo-liberal” were no more than negative campaign tactics and populist sloganeering.
“There’s no such thing as ‘neo-liberal’ in this country. Those who rant about it don’t understand what ‘neo-liberal’ means,” he said.
Megawati’s running mate, former special forces commander Prabowo Subianto, has attacked Yudhoyono as a “neo-liberal” and jumped on the “self-reliance” bandwagon.
The third candidate in the race, Vice President Jusuf Kalla, has taken the same line, saying that if Indonesia wants to be a “big country” it has to shun outside influence and go it alone.
What that means in practice, though, is hard to fathom.
“Ideally, self reliance is possible for Indonesia but in practice it can’t work,” Silalahi said.
“There are no countries in the world that practice the economy of Robinson Crusoe. Self-reliance is a silly idea. International trade is done on the basis that nations can create better welfare for their people,” he said.
Prabowo and Kalla have not given a detailed set of proposals on how they plan to make Indonesia a self-reliant agrarian paradise.
“Don’t accept the idea that we are destined to be a poor nation forever,” Prabowo said in a recent campaign speech. “Don’t accept the verdict of the neo-liberal agents who are not honest, who are afraid to admit to themselves that they are neo-liberal.”
“As the election approaches they pretend to be nationalists but the nation’s assets are being sold one by one,” he said.
Kalla described it in even starker terms.
“Don’t let the blond-haired businessmen rule Indonesia ... we can become the masters of our own country,” he said during a televised election debate.
Yudhoyono has hardly done a better job of explaining his economic strategy, but vehemently rejects the “neo-liberal” label.
“I choose an economy of the middle-ground and will not leave everything to the market, or what you call fundamentalist capitalism or neo-liberalism,” the president said in his first campaign speech last month.
When Yudhoyono ousted Megawati in a landslide in 2004, foreign direct investment excluding oil, gas and banking was valued at US$4.57 billion. It had increased to US$10.34 billion by 2007 and US$14.87 billion last year.
Most economists believe more foreign direct investment (FDI) is needed, especially in infrastructure and energy projects.
“The rising value of FDI doesn’t mean the government is neo-liberal. Capital and labor in the globalization era are mobile and cross-border,” Standard Chartered Bank economist Fauzi Ichsan said. “Even during Megawati’s term, foreign direct investment increased,” he said. “FDI is good because it creates more job opportunities and decreases the number of poor people.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS