Jakarta. Activists who fought for reformation in 1998 strongly rejected presidential candidates that have bad human rights records or those who supported former president Suharto’s regime, which was tainted with human rights violations.
Poengky Indarti, executive director of the Indonesian Human Rights Monitor (Imparsial), said some of the candidates that are running in the presidential race have negative track records, especially related to human rights.
Poengky cited Wiranto, Prabowo Subianto, and Aburizal Bakrie as candidates that have bad track records, but given the current political landscape, Wiranto would have difficulties to run.
With Wiranto out of the picture, there are two presidential candidates activists consider problematic: Prabowo and Aburizal.
“Prabowo is problematic because he is strongly believed to have been involved in the kidnapping of activists and the riots of May 1998,” Poengky said on Monday.
Aburizal is considered to have baggage because of the Sidoarjo mud volcano.
“They should be eligible to run only after they have been tried at a human rights tribunal and proved themselves innocent,” she said.
Poengky expressed concern that the country’s enforcement of legal and human rights would be weak if one of the two men was elected president.
“How can a person, who had allegedly committed human rights violations, protect people’s human rights?” the executive director of Imparsial said.
Komeng, a spokesman for the 1998 activists, said any candidate who supported the Suharto regime would have to be rejected.
He therefore expressed his support for Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, presidential candidate for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s (PDI-P).
“Indirectly, we are supporting Jokowi because he is not linked to the 1998 tragedy,” Komeng said, referring to the chaotic political situation in 1998 when several activists were kidnapped and students were shot dead during the riots that led to the downfall of Suharto’s three-decade-old regime.
Another activist, Kasino, said the best presidential or vice presidential candidates for Indonesia are those that have integrity and who are free from any corruption, collusion and nepotism practice.
“They should also have competence, moral integrity, and an international network. Most importantly is that they can handle the economy. It would be much better if they understand Indonesia’s economic problems,” Kasino said.
Topan, also a 1998 activist, said he was looking for a presidential candidate who can manage Indonesia’s economic system in line with the 1945 Constitution, saying that the economic system that had been implemented over the past 43 years made use of the New Order system, which just made the rich become richer.
“ We are looking for a person who can manage the economic system, to stop moving towards neoliberalism,” he said.
Topan said that he would step in the frontline and organize protests should Prabowo or Aburizal be elected as a president.
“We will fight back. I will personally protest if ARB [Aburizal] or Prabowo was elected. We will take to the streets to show we do not accept them,” he said.
Despite the concerns of the veteran activists, analysts and political watchers felt that alleged rights abuses were not high on the list of voters’ concerns and that PDI-P had failed to capitalize on the so-called Joko effect, with some expressing concern that the party’s electability could suffer if it cannot harness its candidate better.
A researcher said the electability of Jokowi, who has topped polls as the likely winner in the presidential race, could even be exceeded by his closest rival Prabowo.
“Looking at the current trend, Jokowi is weakening and Prabowo is strengthening. In the next two months, Jokowi could be defeated by Prabowo if he chooses the wrong running mate and applies the wrong campaign strategy,” Sirojudin Abbas a researcher at Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC), said on Sunday.
Sirojudin said Joko’s electability had been declining over the last five months while Prabowo’s position was strengthening.
He attributed Joko’s declining electability to his popularity stagnating while other presidential candidates were working hard to lift their electability.
“In March 2014, Jokowi’s electability reached 56 percent, while Prabowo’s was 27 percent. But in April Prabowo surged to 36 percent, Jokowi dropped to 52 percent.
“So, in the next two months, Jokowi and Prabowo could be the same,” he said.
Jokowi is not the only presidential candidate suffering in surveys. Golkar’s Aburizal had dropped below the percentage of votes that his party garnered during the legislative election.
With the trio competing in the presidential election, it’s likely that the election will go to a second round because, based on a simulation by SMRC, none of the candidates received a majority of support above 50 percent.
The research company predicted that Joko would likely go head-to-head with Prabowo in the second round.
Source/Fuente: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/pdi-p-struggling-maximize-jokowi-eff...
