Jakarta – The University of Indonesia Student Executive Council (BEM UI) has criticised President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and Vice President Ma'ruf Amin for the lack of achievements over the last three years of their leadership.
Through a 16-second video uploaded on the BEM UI's official Twitter account @BEMUI_Official, they portrayed Widodo with an elongated nose resembling the figure Pinocchio and Amin behind him holding Widodo's shoulders tightly.
The image was completed with the message, "Work, work, work, but futile". Not only that, the BEM UI also included the hashtag #EnoughAlready: We're Exhausted (#CUKUPSUDAH: KAMI LELAH).
The BEM UI believes that Widodo has never paid attention to the voices of the people who voted for him to become the head of state and has instead worsened the lives of the ordinary people.
"Jokowi is a good example for us of a president who was elected by the people's vote, but has never shown any partiality to side with the ordinary people and often worsens the mainstays of the people's lives", wrote the BEM UI on the upload on Tuesday October 25.
According to the BEM UI, Widodo's leadership has been worsened by the presence of Amin whose role is little more than symbolic and for display in front of primary school classes, referring to pictures of the president and vice president displayed on the walls of schools and government offices.
"Who can we possibly advance if this country is led by a liar and a photography display?", asked the BEM UI.
They said that all of the sweet things expressed by Widodo and Amin during the presidential election campaign were just empty talk for the sake of smoothing the way towards power without ever realising any of the promises.
The BEM UI said that to this day, not one of the pair's political promises has been completely fulfilled. "It is more than half-way through Jokowi and Ma'ruf Amin's term in office but not one of their political promises has been completely fulfilled", the group said.
So far the Presidential Palace has not yet responded to the BEM UI's criticisms. (ina/bmw)
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "BEM UI Kritik 3 Tahun Jokowi: Kerja, Kerja, Kerja Tapi Sia-sia".]