Promises must be kept

Promises must be kept

From Media Indonesia

In the last few days we have been reading media reports on the controversy of whether or not ministers in the reform Cabinet will be permitted to join election campaigns following the aspirations of their respective political parties. This controversy has drawn our attention considerably, in view of the threat made by several parties that they will withdraw from the General Election Commission (KPU).

In my opinion, in our struggle toward a better future, we must learn to adopt a more mature attitude and place public interests above those of groups or parties. Are we really willing to sacrifice the fate of over 200 million Indonesians, who are sure to be in a worse condition than now if the upcoming election fails, only because we wish to defend the fate of, say some 30 Cabinet ministers, whose participation in the election campaigns is yet to be finally decided?

Stop pulling people's legs with various election slogans and promises. It is now time for political parties to give priority to program orientation, and introduce their programs to the people during the election campaigning period, rather than being generous with promises in order to obtain the majority of votes through the mechanism which all these years has proved useless to voters themselves. The most important thing for a political party to do is to make public its program as a moral obligation which must be fulfilled once the new government is established.

If it turns out later that the party winning the majority of votes, or those forming a coalition, fail to fulfill the promises they have made to the people, they must be ready to leave the arena altogether. Our people, now better able to distinguish wrong from right, will certainly have the courage to ask elected members of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) and House of Representatives (DPR) to be made accountable.

Certainly, we all wish to see the DPR resulting from the June 1999 general election as the strongest in the Indonesian history. It will be the DPR in the real sense of the words. It will really be the manifestation of the people's aspirations and one which the people can pin their hopes on. It will be a clean DPR and one that commands respect. Finally, it will be one that can take the New Indonesia to an era of correct and honest national awakening.

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Jakarta