Bakrie eyes presidency - Straits Times

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JAKARTA - INDONESIAN tycoon Aburizal Bakrie, who wants to run for president in 2014, believes that better infrastructure is more likely to attract foreign investors to South-east Asia's biggest economy than fighting corruption.

Mr Bakrie, who is chief social minister in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's government, is a member of the Golkar Party, the political machine which dominated parliament for decades under former President Suharto but which has lost much of its support in Indonesia's post-Suharto democracy.

Mr Bakrie, whose family controls coal-miner Bumi Resources, plantations, property, and telecoms firms, is regarded as a holdover from the Suharto era.

He is an opponent of Ms Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the finance minister and coordinating economic minister who has promoted reform and the fight against graft.

Mr Bakrie also owns infrastructure businesses such as toll roads.

'What they (investors) want is infrastructure,' followed by less red tape and more transparency, Mr Bakrie said in an interview with Reuters on Monday.

'During the Suharto era, total investment per year was much more than now, and at that time the corruption was a lot compared to now, yet they (foreigners) invested.'

Suharto Family Angling to Re-Enter Indonesian Politics - The Jakarta Globe

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Analysts said on Friday that the irrepressible Suharto family was courting its former bedfellow, the troubled Golkar Party, for a possible comeback.

A string of recent political events involving the two amounts to a “testing of the waters” for possible re-entry into politics, analysts said.

After keeping a low political profile since Suharto stepped down in 1998, members of the dynasty are now back in the news headlines.

Suharto’s youngest son, Hutomo “Tommy” Mandala Putra, speaking through an aide earlier this month, raised eyebrows when he floated his candidacy for the chairmanship of Golkar.

In a second instance related to Suharto’s family, a young rising Golkar figure, Yuddy Chrisnandi, held meetings with Tommy and his eldest sister, Siti Hardiyanti “Tutut” Rukmana, to drum up support for his own play for the Golkar throne.

Political analyst Ikrar Nusa Bakti from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) believed that both Tommy and Tutut were testing public reaction over the possibility of a return to political life. Tutut and another Suharto sibling, Bambang Trihatmojo, had previously been active on Golkar’s executive board, while Tommy served as a member of the Golkar faction in the People’s Consultative Assembly from 1992 to 1997.

“They want to see whether the public is still against the Suharto family or if things had now changed,” Ikrar said.

Burhanudin Muhtadi, a senior researcher at the Indonesian Survey Institute, said the Suharto clan still exerted substantial influence among Golkar elites, and recent moves indicated Tommy and Tutut were testing the party’s reaction.

He said the two saw Golkar as their most likely political vehicle to carry them toward the elections in 2014.

Golkar’s deputy secretary general, Rully Chaerul Azwar, said public perception of the Suharto clan, also called Cendana after the name of the Menteng street where the family compound is located, had changed.

“After years of reform, I see that many political stances against Cendana in the past have now softened because we see the reality that we can’t put the blame solely on Cendana,” he said.

Stop the Jostling, Allies of SBY Told

Political parties that supported President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s re-election are being told to calm down amid increasingly rabid and public jockeying for cabinet seats.

One of the most intense battles appears to involve the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), which on Thursday publicly called on the Golkar Party to join the opposition in the legislature and end its attempts to squeeze into the ruling coalition. This comes after the president issued a statement saying he hadn’t even started arranging the composition of the cabinet for his second term.

Senior Democratic Party leader Anas Urbaningrum called on parties in Yudhoyono’s coalition to cool down in discussing the ministerial posts, saying the president was determined to create “an ideal cabinet.”

“The elected president has an opportunity to appoint cabinet members from any party,” Anas said. “The party coalition will surely be respected, but it does not mean the door is closed to parties outside the coalition.”

The Islam-based PKS, which has three seats in the outgoing cabinet and backed Yudhoyono’s campaign, said Golkar should accept the consequences of running Vice President Jusuf Kalla as its candidate.

“It would be better if Golkar served in the opposition for the sake of checks and balances in the House,” PKS leader Zulkieflimansyah said on Thursday, denying accusations the party was worried it might not get as many posts in the next cabinet.

“We don’t want people to get the impression that we are rejecting [Golkar] because we are afraid of losing our position,” Zulkieflimansyah said.

Priyo Budi Santosa, a senior Golkar member, countered by saying, “Don’t worry, we will not take over the ministerial seats.”

Yudhoyono’s camp has said ministerial posts for parties that supported him would be divided based on the number of House seats they won in April’s legislative polls, which are still being tabulated. PKS is set to get the most, having won 7.8 percent of the vote, while the National Mandate Party (PAN), United Development Party (PPP) and National Awakening Party (PKB) all won 5 percent to 6 percent. Golkar finished second with 14.4 percent.Yudhoyono appears to have been re-elected by a wide margin, and his Democratic Party won over 20 percent of the vote in April.

Some political analysts said that even if Golkar wasn’t in the coalition, the Democrats still needed the nationalist party and its grassroots political machine to help run the country and provide balance against Islam-based parties like PKS and PAN.

Meanwhile, asserting that his party would not beg for cabinet spots, PAN secretary general Zulkifli Hasan said, “If Golkar decides to ally with the Democratic Party, it’s their right to do so.”

Denny JA, director of the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), said that Yudhoyono, who bucked the trend of megacoalitions by choosing former central banker Boediono as his running mate, shouldn’t reward smaller coalition members with cabinet seats.

“Yudhoyono has a strong position in setting up his cabinet independently, objectively and without pressure from anyone because he has a strong mandate from the people and his party dominates the House,” he said.