Screenshot of the police’s Change.org petition asking the public to support Badrodin Haiti and Budi Gunawan
Last week, while most of the media was focused on The Asian-African Conference and the various world leaders that descended on Jakarta to attend the event, the National Police quietly elected former graft suspect Budi Gunawan their deputy chief.
It’s not hard to guess why the police wanted to make Budi’s ascension to deputy chief as quiet as possible, considering the bitter fight his nomination to National Police Chief caused between the Geckos and the Crocodiles (ie the Corruption Eradication Committee and the Police), which ended with President Joko Widodo dropping Budi’s nomination. After all of the furor he caused anti-graft activists, Budi just ended up as Indonesia’s #2 cop instead of #1.
Presumably as part of their PR campaign to get the public onboard with Budi’s new position, somebody at the National Police Public Relations unit had the bright idea of creating a petition on activist website Change.org asking people to show their support for both Budi and the man who took the job he was once gunning for (and helped secure his new job), National Police Chief Badrodin Haiti.
Why should you sign a petition supporting the National Police’s new leaders? As explained in this Facebook post from the National Police Public Relations unit:
Yeah… So we’re not really sure the police understand the purpose of Change.org. It’s supposed to host petitions intended to create change in the world. It’s not StatusQuo.org.
At any rate, 248 people have signed the police’s petition.
Another Change.org petition, one asking Jokowi to fight corruption and support the KPK, has 34,658 signatures.
Which one are you going to sign?
