Tifa Asrianti, Jakarta – After seven years in power, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono still has much work to do in law enforcement and economic development.
The overwhelming number of corruption cases faced by his administration' officials have become synonymous with the country's high poverty rate.
Research and political consultancy firm Indonesian Voices Network (JSI) conducted a recent survey that showed that 53.2 percent of the public were satisfied with the President's leadership and 44.8 percent were satisfied with Vice President Boediono.
Collecting 1,200 respondents, the survey cited economic development and law enforcement as the two major failures of Yudhoyono's presidency. The public viewed Yudhoyono's failure to stem corruption and curb terrorism as his major law enforcement failings.
JSI executive director Widdi Aswidi said that the survey noted that the public was most dissatisfied (70.7 percent of respondents) with the unemployment rate, 68.8 percent with the poverty rate, and 61.7 percent with migrant workers protection.
The survey seemed to run contrary to the relatively rosy reports on the declining open unemployment rate and poverty rate recorded by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).
"These are three of the 15 campaign promises that the President has yet to fulfill," Widdi said. Yudhoyono secured in 2009 his second term in office after delivering on many of his promises in his first term.
He pledged to support democracy, guarantee human rights protection, enhance Indonesia's standing internationally, improve food security, equally develop regions across the country, and eradicate corruption and nepotism. Political observer Ryaas Rasyid said that the survey showed most of the public still supported the President.
"The most problematic political problem in Indonesia is corruption. The President must really pay attention to this issue. In the era of former president Soeharto, corruption was bureaucratic, but nowadays it is political – done by politicians and officials," he said.
Marking the seventh year of his tenure, the President added six new ministers and one high-ranking official and 13 deputy ministers in his move "to strengthen" bureaucracy, a move critics brushed off as an empty promise aimed at improving his image. Yaury Tetanel, a coordinator of the Indonesian Partnership Committee for Poverty Eradication, said Yudhoyono pampered his administration.
"The 2012 budget plan is the worst of the last five years. We can clearly see the inequalities with Rp 215.7 trillion allocated to pay the salaries of 4.7 million civil servants, compared to the Rp 50 trillion for the 31 million poor people," Yaury said.
Yuna Farhan of the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (FITRA) said that an overemphasis on bureaucratic costs was evident in the growing amount of allocations for civil servants.
The government allocated Rp 89.5 billion for the post in 2011, higher than that of Rp 73.5 billion in 2009. He also pointed out that Rp 278 billion was allocated to buy expensive vehicles for state officials.
"The President should be the workhorse agent in budget saving, especially in cutting down official junkets and spending on state official's facilities," Yuna said.
Zaenal Muttaqin from the Agrarian Renewal Consortium (KPA) said that the government failed to respond to the needs of farmers, citing that the agrarian reform granted certificates only, rather than distribute unused land to farmers.
He said that of the 28 million farmer households in Indonesia, 6.1 million in Java did not own any land and another 5 million farmer households outside of Java did not own land. He added that the farmers that did own land only owned around 0.36 hectares on average.
Yuna said that during the seven years of Yudhoyono's government, the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) found that Rp 103.19 trillion had been misused. He said that only Rp 1.8 trillion had been returned to the budget. "The government should follow up on the agency's audits and evaluate its bureaucracy," Yuna said. (msa)