http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20070903.A06&irec=5
Golkar out for business backing in 2009: Experts The Jakarta Post, Jakarta A planned meeting between Golkar and businessmen will be aimed at building political alliances for the 2009 election, experts say, despite official statements that the meeting would only discuss economic development. "Each political party must have a certain agenda at every meeting, especially Golkar which has long been associated with authority. This (meeting) must be related to the party's consolidation (of support) for the 2009 election," Joseph Kristiadi, a political expert from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said Sunday. Kristiadi said Jusuf Kalla, the current Vice President and Golkar chairman, was moving to build up the party's support base before for the election. Kalla, bank representatives and some 300 businessmen are expected to attend the meeting in Jakarta on Wednesday. Another political expert, Arbi Sanit from the University of Indonesia, said that if any political party -- such as Golkar -- was talking about supporting the interests of Indonesian businessmen, "then we can likely consider it an effort to get financial support from them". However, Golkar's deputy secretary general Iskandar Mandji said the meeting was merely an attempt by the party to engage with fixing Indonesia's poor infrastructure. "We've noticed that the government hasn't built any infrastructure projects since the first Indonesian Infrastructure Summit two years ago. Now its our turn to encourage the country's businessmen to kick-off the projects," he was quoted as saying by news portal detik.com on Sunday. He said Golkar would use the meeting to channel the complaints of businessmen directly to the government. "We hope that the result of the meeting will be the acceleration of the development of vital infrastructure networks in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Irian before 2009," Iskandar said. He added that the development of such infrastructure would in turn improve the economic wellbeing of local people in the regions. Golkar has long been criticized for being too business-oriented, even by its own former chairman, Akbar Tandjung. Akbar said previously that the fact that most Golkar leaders had backgrounds in business meant they were unable to relate to the problems facing the majority of Indonesians. Arbi and Kristiadi said they agreed with Akbar's statements that Golkar was almost exclusively the party of business. "Their relationship is based on advantage for both sides, they haven't yet thought about benefiting for the country and the people," Arbi said. "It widens the social gap between the elite and the people," he added. Kristiadi said Golkar "only fights for the sake of certain groups, not for the interest of wider groups or the people". (05/10) printer friendly Post Your Comments [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
