Megawati best choice for president

Let me first express my compliments on your newspaper, especially in relation to the editorials. Upon reading the articles I often have an urge to comment on and sometimes to express my bewilderment with the (to me as a westerner) incredible happenings in Indonesia.

Intelligent people who express good (often front-page) ideas and who show quite a bit of insight into Indonesian matters fail to see the importance of the presidency of Megawati. These often very intelligent people think they know better than the people and in fact they do. The problem, however, is that man is not governed by his thinking or rationale alone. Man is an emotional being that uses his rationale to control his desire (at which he is in general very unsuccessful). In the last election it was the emotions of the people that were shown, not their knowledge of democracy.

Take the example of Amien Rais. A very capable outspoken man who deserves to become the next president of Indonesia. Still the people ignored him and I'm glad they did. It's because the people need someone with a heart who cares for them. Amien Rais is an intellectual who will cooperate with other intellectuals who are far from those of the ruling elite.

In my home country, Holland, we have a queen who represents the state. Her contribution to politics is almost zero. Many people want to get rid of this tradition that only costs taxpayers a lot of money. Then what's the use of having a queen? For the majority of people she's a symbol of unity. They feel safe with her. And we're talking here about one of the most modern countries in the world! It's the same in many other western "advanced" countries such as Britain, Belgium and Sweden. Why was Sukarno called Bung and Soeharto Bapak. Same reason.

The monetary crisis has shown that we cannot trust our Bapak. So people voted for justice and therefore reform. Now they feel that nobody can be trusted and that corruption should not be underestimated. People are forced to learn about politics. It's an inevitable evolution. And since most Indonesians know very little about politics there is still a long way to go before we can even start with a reform movement. So, that also means that there's an even longer way to go before we can, at village level, expect critical voters to help improve the lives of their fellow citizens and follow through with reforms because corruption is definitely not something limited to the big cities of this country.

In order to motivate people to do the right thing we need a credible government that appeals to them. In this view Megawati is by far the best choice. She cares. She may not be able to voice this aspect of herself very well but she does care and the people see that. She wants justice done, something which is desperately needed in Indonesia. She is ready to serve -- the essence of politics. She doesn't need to be on television every night.

So I would like to say to all those intellectual writers: Please try to listen to the hearts of the Indonesian people and not just to your head.

HUUB NEYS

Kuta, Bali