Monday, December 7, 2009
Indonesia president fears plot amid protests
JAKARTA (AFP) - Indonesia's top brass met Monday to discuss a supposed threat
to the country after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono warned that unnamed
forces were planning to use an anti-graft rally to topple him.
The heads of the armed forces, the police and the intelligence agency were
called to the security ministry to examine the alleged threat to the government
surrounding the anti-corruption march scheduled on Wednesday, officials said.
The meeting came after Yudhoyono cryptically told a gathering of his Democratic
party on Sunday that the rally was a front for a "hidden political scenario".
"I've prayed in the middle of the night with my wife and family to find out
what is going on behind this slander and character assassination," he said.
"My common sense says that such political behaviour will at least in the short
term shake, discredit or if possible topple SBY," he added, using his nickname
to refer to himself in the third person.
Yudhoyono is under mounting pressure over corruption allegations that have
besieged the administration since his landslide election victory in July on the
back of promises of good governance and economic growth.
The softly-spoken ex-general has been slow to discipline the officials involved
and has seemed out of touch with public anger over the endless stream of
corruption scandals.
His taciturn exterior was shaken when he angrily rejected suspicions that money
from a 6.7-trillion-rupiah (710-million-dollar) government bailout for a failed
bank found its way into his campaign coffers.
Yudhoyono's latest claims of a secret plot to oust him from power -- he made
similar comments after a terror attack in July -- have been dismissed as
"paranoid" by his critics.
Anti-graft activists have also blasted suggestions that their rally is anything
but a popular movement against rampant corruption. They called on Yudhoyono to
stand by them rather than portray them as threats to the nation.
Coordinating Minister of Political, Security and Legal Affairs Djoko Suyanto
said Yudhoyono was an astute judge of threats to his power.
"He's always on alert over things like that. A gathering involving mass people
is usually easily used by freeloaders," Suyanto told reporters after the
security meeting.
"What the president wanted to say is that don't let them disrupt the aim of the
rally."
He did not explain who the "freeloaders" might be.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
