The country is losing money

The country is losing money

From Koran Tempo

I have so many questions to ask of President Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid and his supporters, but as they are all preoccupied with the upcoming special session, through this letter, I would like to vent my frustrations and express my views about him:

First, to the best of my knowledge, right from the very beginning I noticed that the issuance of the first and second memorandums of censure, to be followed by the special session, were closely tied to his personal problems.

Never before have we heard of alleged financial scandals being included in the agenda to be addressed at Cabinet meetings. Gus Dur thinks the cases are insignificant matters that he can immediately resolved by himself. However, it is surprising that when it comes to giving an accountability report, Gus Dus instead makes all his ministers think hard of ways to salvage his presidency. But, mind you, this salvage operation has cost the country a lot of money because the ministers involved are not paid from the pocket of the cleric from Ciganjur.

Second, political maneuvering styles exhibited by National Awakening Party (PKB) figures and his supporters are characterized by remarks and expressions that give the impression that they were the only ones against the New Order regime and the Functional Group. And yet, it is really funny when all of a sudden, kyai (Muslim elders) Yusuf Muhammad, Hasyim Muzadi and Nur Iskandar become eloquent and accustomed to saying: "That's the style of the New Order regime, that's the political maneuvering of the New Order regime, and so on."

Why are they imitating the cliche used by Democratic People's Party, Collective Forum (Forbes), City Forum (Forkot) activists?

I am really baffled! It was possible for these cleric to establish huge Islamic boarding schools due to their close relations to New Order regime figures.

What I demand to see is their own political identity, not just mimicking leftist-tainted movements -- the enemy of the New Order regime.

BILAL SUKMONO

Bandung