Amien wants Megawati replaced immediately
Amien wants Megawati replaced immediately
Muhammad Nafik and Ainur R. Sophiaan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Surabaya
People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) speaker Amien Rais on
Thursday launched a harsh attack on President Megawati
Soekarnoputri and in an indirect way called for her ouster.
"Our national leaders do not have self-confidence anymore.
They would be better off just becoming servants in other
countries. Foreign entities like the IMF can easily dictate
Indonesia. We are now like a car whose driver needs to be
replaced," Amien said in the East Java capital of Surabaya on
Thursday.
He did not name the "driver" in his tirade but was apparently
referring to Megawati, whose administration has drawn sharp
criticism from many for her contentious policies considered to
have victimized the public.
It was Amien's staunchest criticism of Megawati to date, whose
rise to the presidency in July last year was helped by Amien. He
had a hand in unseating her predecessor Abdurrahman "Gus Dur"
Wahid from power through a special MPR session.
A few months before the MPR managed to oust the Gus Dur, Amien
had also used the same term of "driver" in reference to him when
campaigning for a new president.
It was unclear whether Amien, chairman of the National Mandate
Party (PAN), was serious about actually launching a special
session to replace the president on Thursday or was merely
engaging in political maneuvering ahead of the 2004 election.
Claiming not to be against foreigners, the MPR speaker lashed
out at most of the top government leaders for favoring other
countries in efforts to cope with the nation's economic crisis.
He criticized the government's intentions to sell several
state-owned enterprises, which he proclaimed to be "in a healthy
condition", to overseas conglomerates.
Cited as examples were Pertamina, Semen Gresik and Telkom,
which Amien claimed had been offered to foreign investors.
"Pak Kwik (Kian Gie) and I can't imagine why a certain party
wants to sell those assets," he said.
Kwik, state minister of national development planning, is the
staunchest critic of the government's policy to cooperate with
the International Monetary Funds (IMF) reform directives.
Amien also lamented the government's inaction in dealing with
the "huge economic leakages", (corruption) including the high-
profile scandal of the Bank Indonesia Liquidity Assistance (BLBI)
funds, which caused Rp 160 trillion in losses to the state.
"To this point, very little, if anything has been done on the
BLBI case," he added.
He questioned the extension of the contracts with American
companies such as PT Freeport Indonesia in the country's eastern
most province of Papua, where uranium was also discovered by
American scientists with the gold and copper mining company.
"It is time for the government to take over the management of
such natural resources of the nation. They should never have been
sold to foreigners," he added.