Markus Junianto Sihaloho – A veteran opposition legislator has lashed out at the singing of a song composed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during a ceremony on Monday to mark the 47th anniversary of the purported communist coup attempt.

Tubagus Hasanuddin, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said the decision to get the military choir to sing Yudhoyono's "Kuyakin Sampai di Sana" ("I'm Sure We'll Make It There") was inappropriate.

The former two-star military general said that at all such events, there was a strict set of protocols that should be followed, including a list of the songs to be sung.

Those songs, he went on, have always been common patriotic songs. "You can't just throw in a privately penned song, even if it was written by a president or an emperor," Tubagus said. "And if it's a commercial song, then that's just distasteful."

The song performed on Monday at the Lubang Buaya Monument in East Jakarta was taken from Yudhoyono's album of the same name, released in 2010. It was the third of the president's four albums.

Tubagus said it appeared inappropriate and even narcissistic for the president to have one of his own songs included in the official protocol for a state event. "A leader must be able to differentiate between respecting state protocol and stroking his own ego," he said.

Tubagus, the deputy chairman of House of Representatives Commission I, which oversees defense and foreign affairs, said his objections to the incident did not stem from him being an opposition legislator, but were founded in concerns about maintaining the dignity of state events.

"Would it be appropriate for a me to have a jaipongan dance that I choreographed performed at an official state ceremony? Of course not," he said.

Monday's event was held to mark Pancasila Sanctity Day, in remembrance of the failed coup attempt in 1965 blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). The event was not the first time that Yudhoyono's song was performed at an official function. The song has been used several times during meetings of the president's Democratic Party.