The political maneuvering of the insidious Merah Putih Coalition, led by losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, allowed the opposition group to get their man, Zulkifli Hasan of the National Mandate Party (PAN), elected as the speaker of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) on Wednesday.
The MPR, as you may remember, has some serious powers, including the ability to impeach the president. But don’t worry, Zulkifli says he will work for the betterment of the entire nation, not just Merah Putih. He also said he wouldn’t try to block the inauguration of Jokowi.
“There is no agenda for package A [Jokowi’s coalition] and package B [Prabowo’s coalition]. [My only agenda] is the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia,” Zulkifli said as quoted by Antara.
So should we trust Zulkifli with upholding our democracy? Harrison Ford would probably tell us “Hell no!” (assuming he couldn’t get a scriptwriter to come up with a wittier way to say ‘no’).
You see, Ford met with Zulkifli about a year ago when he was shooting a documentary, “Years of Living Dangerously.” Ford, a nature-lover who has been involved in many environmental causes lately, came to Indonesia and witnessed the rampant and completely illegal deforestation and destruction of Tesso Nilo, a national park in Sumatra.
After seeing the grim landscape of environmental ruin, Ford went to meet Zulkifli, who was the Minister of Forestry at the time. They did not have a polite conversation:
Zulfiki said he was shocked by Ford’s rudeness and claimed he was not given an opportunity to properly explain his ministry’s actions. As quoted in Antara, Zulkifli said, “The time was very short. I was only given an opportunity to speak one or two words during the interview.”
Well the words he used in the interview were particularly poor. The worst quotes from Zulkifli would have to be:
“This is not America. It is different. We have just started what we call reform. This is new. Now people are just starting to taste freedom. Sometimes we have too much freedom.”
Remember, Zulfiki said this just one year ago.
The Ministry of Forestry has long been known for its awful corruption, which has allowed so much of Indonesia’s forests and biodiversity to be destroyed for short-term profit.
During Zulfiki’s tenure, budget watchdogs said the Ministry of Forestry lost Rp. 7.1 trillion in missing money. And by his statements, we know he thinks “too much freedom” is a bad thing.
So we’re gonna go with Han Solo on this one and say no, we shouldn’t trust him.
