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