Legislators are supposed to represent the people, but they are known stereotypically for behaving with the arrogance of the 1%.
On Saturday evening, council member A. Salam of the Jambi Regional Council (DPRD) lived up the stereotype when he allegedly parked his car illegally on a drop off zone at Jambi City’s Sultan Thaha Airport as he went to pick up his family. When security guards asked him to move his car to a parking area, Salam went on an angry rant against them and even appeared to slap one of the security guards.
All of this was caught on camera and then posted on social media for the world to see.
In the video, Salam can be heard screaming, “Do you know who I am?” to the security guards, who did well to remain calm given the stressful situation in front of them. Salam went on to say that he knows the governor of Jambi (Zumi Zola) and therefore, “If I say I’m right, you must respect me!”
Salam then appeared to reach the boiling point of his rage when he looked to slap the face of a security guard, which, if the airport management is to be believed, he missed.
“He (Salam) didn’t slap, he was going to pull his (the security guard’s) ear, but missed,” said Sultan Thaha Operation Services Manager Indra, as quote by Jawa Pos yesterday.
Indra added that the security guards eventually escorted Salam inside an aviation security office, where he eventually calmed down and apologized for his actions.
That said, the airport management still reported the incident to the Jambi DPRD, where the incident, and Salam’s fate, is being reviewed by the Ethics Council.
Speaking to Detik, Salam said he would accept getting fired from the DPRD as a result of the incident. Despite apologizing, he also said he hopes that security guards would be more polite when reprimanding people, which he said was what set him off in the first place.
“That night, my blood pressure was high. Previous [to the incident], I ate durian,” Salam said, as quoted by Detik.
Ah, that explains it, then. So if we ever do anything questionable in the future, we can make like our politicians do and blame it on fruit.
