On top of Wiranto's platform: More jobs, revenue
On top of Wiranto's platform: More jobs, revenue
Zakki P. Hakim, Jakarta
Retired general Wiranto promises to establish macroeconomic
stability, in addition to creating more jobs, boosting the
nation's revenue and more fairly distributing that revenue if he
were elected.
Other priorities for an administration led by him would be to
create economic justice and boost the nation's competitiveness by
mastering science and technology, according to his economic
platform.
Unlike the economic agenda laid out recently by incumbent
President Megawati Soekarnoputri, which is full of figures of
economic targets, such as gross domestic product (GDP) and
employment, the platform prepared by Wiranto's team made
available to the Jakarta Post does not contain any figures and
only focuses on steps to reach five main goals.
Wiranto is the candidate of the Golkar party, which garnered
24.5 million votes, or 21.6 percent, of the total in April's
legislative election -- the top vote-getters among the 24
parties. He is paired up with Muslim cleric/human rights activist
Solahuddin "Gus Solah" Wahid whose base of support includes the
40-million strong organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), mostly
based in East Java.
In order to reach his goals, Wiranto will enact "structural
economic transformation", the term used in his economic platform.
This, he states, will be achieved by boosting job
opportunities, reforming the labor market and increasing
productivity, as well as reforming the real sector (agriculture,
manufacture, trade, services and others), optimizing the
management of natural resources and empowering the "people's
economy".
He promises to also seek to create certainties for businesses
by strengthening the market economy and enforcing all the
existing economic laws.
The economic platform was formulated by politicians and
academics, including former rector of Bogor's Agricultural
University (IPB) Prof. Soleh Solehudin, who was also former
Minister of Agriculture in Habibie administration; Sutrisno
Iwantono and Said Didu, both from the Association of Indonesian
Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI) and Airlangga Hartarto, an
entrepreneur and an executive at Kosgoro, a Golkar-affiliated
youth group.
Aside from the five goals mentioned above, the economic
platform also spells out a 24-point development program over a 5-
year period.
On top of the 24 programs is the control of prices for primary
goods in order to ensure that people can afford the basic
necessities, combined with the efforts to improve their welfare.
The second program is to maintain monetary stability. In this
respect, Wiranto and Gus Solah will strengthen the coordination
between the government and the central bank to keep a strong and
stable rupiah, low inflation and low interest rates.
Wiranto's economic team seems to have paid special attention
to agriculture, as the platform gives a relatively detailed
elaboration on plans for that sector.
With regard to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), they will
form a special institution accountable to the president to
coordinate the SMEs. This agency is similar to the Japan Small
Business Corporation (Jasmec) or the Small Business
Administration in the U.S., the Industrial Development Center in
Nigeria, and Small and Medium Industry Promotion (SMPIC) in South
Korea.