Short-sighted rules for aspirants

Maligning the weak will produce misfortune, so the saying goes. Various attempts have been made to fail presidential candidates. Some have demanded that nominees should have experience in presidency, others have required that they should be college graduates.

Still others have tried to include the criterion that presidential aspirants must not be mentally and physically disabled or legally flawed. All of them have been withdrawn because of their tendentious nature.

Yet the most tendentious of all was the requirement that presidential hopefuls must not have impaired eyesight. Everybody knows whom this criterion has been targeted at, and who has been maligned. Ironically, nobody has seriously come to the defense of the target.

In fact, it is simpler and more objective to follow the law in force, while leaving the choice to people as voters. In this way, there will be no foul play and the nation will not encounter misfortune.

H. IFRAD SUKANTO, Jakarta