Confusion

If I may be frank, the start of the 2004 election campaign has caused confusion among many people, educated or otherwise, mostly due to the large number of parties contesting the elections (24 to be exact).

I am afraid, that only a few foreign ambassadors stationed in this country know by heart the names of all 24 parties and their leaders. Many observers may also fail to pick up on the programs all these parties are offering to voters.

My own impression is that there are too many of the same campaign promises to improve social welfare, reduce unemployment and bring general prosperity through economical recovery.

It is no wonder, therefore, that a numbers of listeners of a well-known radio station suggested that those political parties with identical slogans and programs come together and unite in the name of efficiency.

Yet nobody is thinking of stopping the war of words and the march of political ambitions. This chance of a lifetime must be seized at any cost by the newly hatched politicians. After all, only in Indonesia can anybody be president or a legislator, while we know that not everybody can be a visionary statesman or an exemplary legislator or governor.

GANDHI SUKARDI, Jakarta