Indonesian mining tycoon Aburizal Bakrie has secured the Golkar party’s nomination as its candidate in 2014 elections, taking a step toward the presidency of Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
Bakrie, 65, will be a leading candidate in what is expected to be a tight race to succeed President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is due to step down after two terms in office.
Indonesia recently received investment grade status from ratings agencies and its strong economic growth, relatively stable fiscal framework and big domestic market make it a focus of investor attention.
“Pleading for guidance from God almighty, the faith to build a more developed Indonesia, a strong will and support from all of you, with humility I officially and openly accept this nomination,” Bakrie said on Friday.
He was speaking in a hotel owned by his family’s property arm, the building decked out in yellow, the party’s color.
Bakrie’s nomination had been widely expected. The party’s chairman, he is midway through a campaign-style roadshow across the archipelago nation to introduce himself to voters and test out his formidable financial and organizational muscle.
Recent opinion polls show him trailing other possible candidates, including former general Prabowo Subianto and former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of the country’s first president.
Golkar, the second largest party in the ruling coalition, is gaining at the expense of Yudhoyono’s Democrat Party, which has been rocked by a series of corruption scandals. Yudhoyono is yet to nominate a candidate.
“The meeting showed that Bakrie has quelled dissent within Golkar and ended internal political plays,” said Kuskridho Ambardi, an analyst from the Jakarta-based polling agency Indonesian Survey Institute.
Bakrie said his target is to win the presidency and a third of the seats in parliament.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
CONFIDENCE BOOSTER: ’After parkour ... you dare to do a lot of things that you think only young people can do,’ a 67-year-old parkour enthusiast said In a corner of suburban Singapore, Betty Boon vaults a guardrail, crawls underneath a slide, executes forward shoulder rolls and scales a steep slope, finishing the course to applause. “Good job,” the 69-year-old’s coach cheers. This is “geriatric parkour,” where about 20 retirees learned to tackle a series of relatively demanding exercises, building their agility and enjoying a sense of camaraderie. Boon, an upbeat grandmother, said learning parkour has aided her confidence and independence as she ages. “When you’re weak, you will be dependent on someone,” she said after sweating it out with her parkour classmates in suburban Toa Payoh,
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
‘TOXIC CLIMATE’: ‘I don’t really recognize Labour anymore... The idea that you can implement far-right ideas in order to stop the far right is nonsense,’ a protester said Tens of thousands of people on Saturday marched through central London to protest against the far right, weeks ahead of local elections and six months after Britain saw one of its largest far-right demonstrations. Organized by hundreds of civic groups, including trade unions, anti-racism campaigners and Muslim representative bodies, Saturday’s Together Alliance event was billed as the biggest in UK history to counter right-wing extremism. A separate pro-Palestinian march had also converged with the main rally. While organizers claimed 500,000 had turned out in total, the police gave a figure of about 50,000. Protesters carrying placards with slogans such as
RSS