Abdul Khalik – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice President Jusuf Kalla have stepped up visits to regions across the country, a move many criticize as an attempt to win over voters ahead of elections.
Yudhoyono and Kalla, each escorted by a different group of Cabinet ministers and officials, left Jakarta Wednesday and Thursday respectively to visit various regions across the country, leaving Jakarta void of leadership and prompting questions about the urgency of their travels.
With scores of Cabinet ministers using their working visits as a cover for campaigning both personally and for their parties across the archipelago, intensified regional visits by Yudhoyono and Kalla have been slammed as unnecessary and indirectly condoning improper campaign activities by ministers, many of whom have postponed their respective ministry's development programs.
Despite a planned government decree calling for ministers contesting the legislative election to resign from office while campaigning, recent actions taken by the nation's top leaders have led election observers to call the decree nothing more than lip service.
"Ministers have conducted campaigns for their own benefit using state funds, while both the President and Vice President follow suit. What this means is that many government programs will be left untouched for several months. There will be no development.
"If this continues, the credibility of the government will be at stake," Daniel Sparringa, a political expert from the University of Airlangga in Surabaya, said Friday.
After opening a special economic zone in Batam, Riau province, Yudhoyono went to Sorong and Manokwari in West Papua to speak with victims of the recent earthquake. While there, he handed over around Rp 150 billion (US$14 million) to the people under the guise of the National Program for People's Empowerment (PNPM).
"This fund will continue to be offered to us [West Papuans] if the President is reelected. That's why I pray he will be our President again," West Papua Governor Abraham Atururi said to Antara News Agency during Yudhoyono's visit.
The President and First Lady Any Yudhoyono smiled upon hearing the speech, with PNPM being one of Yudhoyono's key programs since it was first launched 2007.
Aside from PNPM funds, the President also handed over billions in aid funding and soft loans to Papuan victims of the quake.
En route to Papua, Yudhoyono dropped by Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi to meet with local officials of his Democratic Party, and late Friday the President was scheduled to meet with Balinese people.
If Yudhoyono was garnering votes outside Java, then Kalla was working the campaign trail inside the island, wooing Islamic clerics in East Java.
Before 12,000 students from the Lirboyo Islamic School in Kediri, East Java, Kalla said the government was not making enough of a distinction between Islamic scho ols and public schools as far as budget allocation was concerned.
"The highest budget allocation in this country is for education, and you see, we make no distinction between public schools and religious-based schools," Kalla said.
Lirboyo clerics welcomed Kalla, saying the Islamic school opened its door to Golkar.
Afterwards Kalla, accompanied by party officials, addressed hundreds of supporters, the majority of them farmers, and promised to keep the price of rice high enough so they would not suffer.