Megawati and Kalla: Dream Team?

Opinion Column - Jakarta Globe. Writer: Aleksius Jemadu.

When Golkar Party stalwart Akbar Tanjung told the media that former Vice President Jusuf Kalla was considering approaching former President Megawati Sukarnoputri to form a ticket in the 2014 presidential elections, the news immediately attracted much media attention.

There are at least two reasons why the idea of pairing Megawati with Kalla in the 2014 presidential election is newsworthy.

First, both Megawati and Kalla still command wide respect within their parties, and therefore their popular base of political support cannot be underestimated. While Megawati can capitalize on the loyalty of her traditional supporters within the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Kalla still has great influence within Golkar, especially in his own province of South Sulawesi, one the party’s strongholds outside Java.

Second, Megawati and Kalla also have had extensive experience in the government, as a former president and vice president respectively. Thus, they are in the best position to understand the weaknesses of the current government and might also have some fresh ideas on how to make it work better.

Two approaches can be used to evaluate the merit of the pair. First, we can evaluate them on the basis of their own credentials as political leaders without comparing them with their possible contenders in the 2014 presidential election.

Megawati has never been successful in a direct presidential election. She tried in 2004 and 2009 with different vice presidential candidates but she failed in those elections. Kalla was successful when he ran as the running mate of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2004 but then when he tried again as presidential candidate in 2009 he failed.

Now if Megawati and Kalla want to run again in 2014, the question that they will have to answer is this. Is there something new in their latest nomination that makes them more worthy of popular support than in the previous trials? They may have a plan to correct their past mistakes but that alone is not a guarantee that people will trust them more in the coming presidential election.

The second approach involves making a comparison. In any competition, the strength of the candidates is always relative because voters will compare them with their contenders. As things stand today, the most serious presidential contenders are Aburizal Bakrie from Golkar and Prabowo Subianto from Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra).

It is interesting to note that Golkar leaders seem very careful when they comment on the partnership of Megawati and Kalla. The only reason behind their reluctance to condemn Kalla’s exit from Golkar is that they know all too well that Kalla is still popular among the Golkar rank and file. On top of that, they may realize that if Megawati and Kalla succeed in 2014 it will be easy for Kalla to orchestrate his comeback to Golkar and marginalize a defeated Aburizal.

Regardless of their popularity within their respective political parties, Megawati and Kalla will face an uphill battle. Megawati’s biggest challenge is mobilizing popular support beyond her “captive market” of PDI-P traditional loyalists. How can she convince the Indonesian public that she has the ability to reproduce the success of the current government in sustaining high economic growth and political stability despite the world economic slowdown? After all, it was President Yudhoyono who managed to fix the mistakes of her 2001 to 2004 presidency so that Indonesia could accelerate its economic growth.

When Kalla ran for president in 2009 with retired general Wiranto, their electoral achievement was mediocre. One reason for their poor performance was that incumbent President Yudhoyono was quite strong. Now the political landscape has changed. Whether Megawati and Kalla can spectacularly increase their electoral support will depend on the public’s perception of their synergy in addressing the shortcomings of the current government.

Time will tell whether Megawati’s nationalistic and populist proclivities combined with Kalla’s aggressive entrepreneurship can make their shared dream come true.

Aleksius Jemadu is dean of the School of Government and Global Affairs at Universitas Pelita Harapan in Karawaci.

On the Hobbit trail in New Zealand

With the film of The Hobbit due out next month, New Zealand is preparing to welcome a fresh wave of visitors keen to follow in Bilbo's hairy footsteps around Middle Earth

Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf on the Hobbiton set near Matamata on New Zealand's North Island 

There are three stories you'll hear about The Lord of the Rings in New Zealand. The first is the tale of a wealthy man, a Tolkien fan from the US, who asked the makers of the movies' One Ring to come up with a costly gold replica, then hired a helicopter to fly him over Mount Doom, where he threw it into the flaming inferno. At least, that's how they tell it in Wellington. In Nelson, it's a woman, a spurned lover, who threw her One Ring wedding band into the mouth of the volcano. Then there's the story of the six-foot-three German tourist who arrived at Hobbiton dressed as, well, a very tall hobbit, who felt so at home in one of the hobbit holes there that he squashed himself into it and refused to leave for 12 hours. In Auckland, they'll tell you he was Belgian.

The Lord of the Rings has been big business in New Zealand ever since Wellington-born director Peter Jackson decided to film his trilogy here, back in the late 1990s. Now, with the imminent release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – the first instalment in the new movie trilogy spun from the far shorter book – there's another opportunity to attract Tolkien devotees.

People involved with Middle Earth-related tours talk wearily of copyright back-and-forths with the Tolkien estate and with New Line Cinema; it was, initially, hard for them to market anything local as an official Lord of the Rings experience. There's very much a sense that the tourism which followed the films' release took all parties by surprise, and they're preparing for it properly this time.

The biggest name in the game right now is Hobbiton, a sheep farm that doubled as the Shire for both trilogies. It's about two hours' drive from Auckland, near Matamata; stop in any of the creaking cafes in the small towns along the way ("Collect your Hot Mail here!" reads the proud sign on one) and you'll bump into a minibus full of pilgrims on the same journey. If you're very lucky, one of the lesser-spotted costumed devotees may make an appearance, though on a brisk early spring day, you need more than just a cloak to keep you warm, so we didn't spy any Gandalfs.

Jackson's location scouts saw potential in Alexander Farm's rolling green hills, lake, and, crucially, large pines – one of which would eventually become Bilbo's party tree. After filming was completed in 2004, the set was dismantled, before anyone realised that a massive opportunity had been missed. When it was rebuilt for The Hobbit, the farm fought to keep its hobbit holes.

The artwork on the sides of the mini-buses that take people down to the main site still bear the scars of its cobbled-together past. The post-LOTR hobbit holes resembled a Changing Rooms project gone bad, with plain MDF facades fronting holes to nowhere, and though those early visitors may have been disappointed, they did get the option of feeding lambs at the end of the tour, a tradition that still stands today. Sure, you could survey a bit of grass where Elijah Wood once placed his hairy prosthetic feet, but in its original incarnation, these moments required Tolkien-esque powers of imagination.

These days it's far slicker operation, though there is a peculiar feeling to flying for 26 hours only to find yourself in a place that has been chosen for its resemblance to the Malvern Hills. Then there's the fact that the 37 hobbit holes vary greatly in size to accommodate the different heights of the actors playing hobbits and dwarves at any one time. Oh, and that oak tree that sits majestically above Bag End? Its plastic leaves, imported from Taiwan, blow off in the wind, and have to be replaced every year or so because visitors keep pinching them as souvenirs.

So while it may feel like you're taking a gentle stroll around a lusciously green film set, it can be quietly disorientating. Avoid going the day after you land, lest any remaining jetlag tip you over the edge. Perhaps that's what happened to the giant German/Belgian hobbit who claimed he had found his home here.

View of Hobbiton Village

Hobbiton may be the main event for now, but Wellington, on the southern tip of the North Island, is about to take over, renaming itself "The Middle of Middle Earth" at the end of November in time for the world premiere of The Hobbit. Back in September, there was little sign of the mania to come, though it already drew on its LOTR history. We spent an afternoon on a Lord of the Rings Movie Tours minibus, along with a couple of hardcore Tolkien fans, who made Hobbiton's gentle visitors look like pathetic amateurs.

It's a winding drive – as are most of them in the terminally bendy-roaded New Zealand – up to Mount Victoria, which is less of a mountain and more of a hill, but which hosted a number of the scenes set in the Hobbiton woods in The Fellowship of the Ring: its paths are marked by cute "hobbit-height" posts.

Our Movie Tours guide, Alice, had brought along a laptop, so we could view clips while standing on the very spot in which they were filmed. She also had props. I proudly reenacted a Sam and Frodo breakfast, a deleted scene restored to the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring (again, this is not for amateurs), complete with pipe and replica frying pan.

Next, we came to the hill down which the hobbits roll when they're on the run from Farmer Maggot. "Do you want to make a hobbit pile?" asked Alice.

"Go on then," we shrugged, preparing to throw ourselves on the floor. I looked over at the other couple on the tour with us, who, judging by their furrowed brows and the number of questions they were asking about the minutiae of the trilogy, were taking it rather more seriously than us. They stared back, appalled. We did not make a hobbit pile.

Mount Ngauruhoe, on the North Island, starred in the Mordor scenes.

I asked Alice if she'd been a fan of the movies before she took the job. "I wasn't," she admitted. "I know everything about them now, though."

This seems to be how it is in New Zealand. Everyone has taken up their Hobbity associations with enthusiasm, from the two mountains that stood in for Mount Doom – Mount Ngauruhoe and Mount Ruapehu, with additional help from scale models and CGI – to the small family-owned vineyard in Nelson, on the South Island, which won a licence to stick Middle Earth on the labels of its surprisingly delicious wines. You can hire a helicopter to fly out over more remote locations, or visit the gold and silversmith who made the One Ring for the movies.

You can't drive for more than an hour without somebody pointing out a waterfall that might have had Orlando Bloom underneath it or a restaurant that Sir Ian McKellen liked to have his dinner in. What's nice about it is that the famous laid-back New Zealand character is in the fabric of everything. It doesn't feel opportune so much as a country going along with something that happened to come its way.

One of Hobbiton Movie Set and Farm Tours homely Hobbit holes 

In fact, what may have been our most authentic Hobbit experience wasn't marketed as one at all. The Waitomo Caves, on the North Island, offer a series of "adventure options" that range from a leisurely underground stroll to look at glowworms to the Haggas Honking Holes challenge, which earns a maximum eight Rambo Points in the brochure. With hindsight, I would recommend you respect this points system, and not undertake an intensive caving experience thinking that mild claustrophobia and a fatal lack of upper body strength would be minor considerations.

The name refers to a hollow cavity deep underground that "honks" back at you when you put your head into it and shout, but it sounds like something straight out of the Shire. And at no point did I feel more like a plucky hobbit than the moment I emerged into the sunlight after two hours of abseiling into underground caverns, crawling through freezing streams on my belly and squashing myself through inhuman gaps in the walls. When Bilbo Baggins and the dwarves journey over the Misty Mountains, they shelter from a storm in a cave that turns out to be a goblin hotspot. As I peeled off my wetsuit and examined the bruises that were just starting to appear on my hands, I realised I would have done well to heed Tolkien's warning in chapter five: "That, of course, is the dangerous part about caves: you don't know how far they go back, sometimes, or where a passage behind may lead to, or what is waiting for you inside."

by Rebecca Nicholson - The Guardian, Friday 16 November 2012 22.44 GMT

Taken from HERE.

Jakarta aims to reduce traffic by 40 percent in 2 years

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Headlines | Tue, November 13 2012 - Paper Edition | Page: 2

It is now one of the most frequently asked questions: “Does the new Jakarta administration have an effective method to ease traffic?”

The answer is that not only one, but four methods would be applied at the same time to reduce the capital’s gridlock problem by 40 percent, by 2014.

City traffic police deputy director Adj. Sr. Comr. Wahyono said on Monday that his division and the Jakarta Transportation Agency had met on Friday to discuss several measures deemed effective to control the number of vehicles on the road.

“We have agreed to resort to the implementation of an electronic road pricing (ERP) system, firm enforcement of regulations on both traffic and spatial planning as well as vehicle limitation to achieve the targeted 40 percent reduction,” he said.

The police and the transportation agency were currently working on details on the traffic policy, Wahyono added.

Last week, newly installed Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Putut Eko Bayuseno had promised to make “breakthroughs” in easing the city’s heavy traffic.

Jakarta is estimated to suffer from total gridlock by 2014 as the number of vehicles on the road has been rising by 11.26 percent every year, while the number of new roads has only increased by 0.01 percent each year.

Currently, according to traffic police data, 20.7 million people go in and out of the capital on a daily basis and 56.8 percent of them use their own vehicle.

The data also shows that on average, commuters need 120 minutes of travel time to get to their destination, with only 40 percent moving time.

Jokowi had previously said that he was optimistic about the implementation of the pricing system next year after the central government finally approved the pivotal legal basis for its execution.

The police had suggested that the administration set an ERP trip charge somewhere between Rp 50,000 (US$5.20) and Rp 100,000.

The city, however, has said that a trip charge of between Rp 6,500 and Rp 21,000 for the planned ERP system would be enough to reduce private vehicle use, reflecting inflation and economic growth.

“The pricing system is expected to discourage motorists from using private cars and use public transportation instead. But, we need a gubernatorial regulation for the implementation,” Wahyono said.

Besides the pricing system, Wahyono said that the police and the administration had also agreed to crack down on-street parking and sidewalk vendors to create more space for motorists.

“On-street parking and sidewalks vendors occupy space for motorists, narrowing the roads, leading to congestion,” he said.

Wahyono said that the police and administration would also deploy a number of transportation agency officers, Jakarta Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) and traffic police officers to 70 congestion-prone areas in the capital.

“The sources of congestion in those areas vary, besides they serve as main and busy roads. Officers from the agency and the Satpol PP are required to clamp down on on-street parking, sidewalk vendors and public transportation vehicles that stop illegally,” he said.

Wahyono, however, said that nothing mentioned above would work well if the numbers of vehicles in the capital kept increasing.

He said that the police and the administration would look over possible ways to limit the number of vehicles running on the city streets, deeming that banning Jakartans from buying new vehicles would be impossible.

“Banning people from buying cars may violate free trade, so the best we can do is to allow only certain vehicles — either by color, manufacture year or the number on its license plate — taking turns to run on the streets only on certain days,” he said.

• Total road length: 7,208 km
• Road growth: 0.01% per annum
• Total numbers of vehicle: 13,347,802
• Motorcycles: 9,861,451 
• Passenger cars: 2,541,351 
• Commercial vehicles: 581,290 
• Buses: 363,710

Taken from HERE.

The Coin Game

Can you write clear, concise rules and tips that will fit on the back of a shoe polish tin type container?

The players. The equipment. The Set up. How to play. How to win. Tips. Use the comments feature...

Will Indonesia Kill Off the Death Penalty?

Salim Osman - Straits Times | November 06, 2012

Is Indonesia on the cusp of abolishing the death penalty, which is used as a sentencing tool against terrorism, premeditated murder and drug trafficking?

Although the death penalty is rarely handed down, it is still the focus of human rights groups, which want the government to end capital punishment because of its rights violation and its supposed ineffective deterrence of crime.

Two recent developments have prompted the question.

First, it has emerged that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been quietly using his constitutional prerogatives to grant clemency to convicts, including those on death row, since 2004 after winning the election.

The clemency has reduced the sentences of 19 drug offenders, including four on death row, whose lives have been spared from certain death by firing squad.

Three of the condemned men were Indonesians, while the fourth was a foreigner. Their sentences were commuted to life in prison.

Two of the Indonesians were former civil servant Deni Setia Maharwa and his accomplice Meirika Pranola, who were caught with a third accomplice at the Jakarta International Airport before a flight to London in 2000. They were found to be members of a syndicate trying to smuggle heroin and cocaine.

Deni was granted clemency in January this year, and Meirika in November last year, on humanitarian grounds, as they were deemed couriers, not traffickers. It was not revealed when the third accomplice received his clemency.

Earlier last month, a three-judge panel of the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of drug lord Hengky Gunawan, converting it to a prison term of 15 years.

Hengky was convicted in 2007 of running a major ecstasy production and distribution ring from Surabaya in East Java.

The judges said that the death sentence in Hengky's case was antithetical to the Constitution, which enshrines a right to life.

Second, Cabinet members have come out not only to defend the granting of clemency to drug offenders on death row, but also to link it to advocacy for Indonesians in foreign prisons.

In separate remarks, Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa and Deputy Justice Minister Denny Indrayana said that the decision to commute the death sentence handed down to drug convicts was part of a wider push to move away from capital punishment.

Marty said recently that globally, more countries had stopped using the death penalty, although it remained on their statutes, as it does in Indonesia.

"The policy of commuting a death sentence for a drug crime is not something that happens just in Indonesia," he said.

"This policy is also practiced in other countries, and Indonesians are among the beneficiaries of such clemency."

Even as they spoke, Malaysia announced that it was considering abolishing the death penalty for drug offenses.

For the first time, Denny admitted that the main reason behind this softening on capital punishment has been the need to free Indonesian migrant workers who are on death row overseas.

What prompted this was the public outrage over the execution of an Indonesian maid, Ruyati Sapubi, 54, who was beheaded for murdering her abusive employer in Saudi Arabia in June last year.

Since then, the Indonesian government has set up a fund to pay "blood money" to Saudi families to seek the freedom of its citizens.

The Deputy Justice Minister told Kompas newspaper on Oct. 23 that there were a total of 298 Indonesians on death row in other countries as of July last year.

Through its advocacy efforts, Indonesia managed to persuade foreign governments to commute the death sentences of 100 of them, including 44 drug offenders on death row.

"Frankly, if our President is to make an appeal for clemency for our citizens jailed abroad, we can strengthen our case by offering clemency to foreign convicts here," Denny said.

There is no certainty that this would work as the Indonesians, including those on death row for murder and drug trafficking, are jailed mainly in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia. No Saudis or Malaysians are known to be on death row in Indonesia.

Indonesia may have second thoughts on the death penalty, but it is still too early to say that it will abolish capital punishment any time soon. It is also not certain that Yudhoyono will grant clemency to the remaining 100 still on death row.

The majority of Indonesians still view the death penalty for drug traffickers as justified.

While it is seen as a rights violation by human rights lobbyists, many Indonesians also view drug abuse as a rights violation of the victims, who cannot lead normal lives because of their dependence on drugs fed by the traffickers.

Hence, it is not surprising that the clemency granted by Yudhoyono to the four condemned prisoners and the leniency given to the drug lord by the Supreme Court unleashed a storm of criticism from public figures that underscored the overwhelming sentiment supporting the death penalty for drug traffickers.

The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), which is the highest authority on Islam, and the largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama criticized the clemency decisions, saying that they were a setback to the fight against drug trafficking that posed as serious a threat to the nation as corruption and terrorism.

"The three are extraordinary crimes and should be dealt with seriously through the imposition of extraordinary punishments or the death penalty," said MUI executive chairman Ma'aruf Amin.

It is clear that according clemency to drug offenders goes against the grain of majority opinion in Indonesia. Most people still frown upon any leniency to drug traffickers. Hence, capital punishment will have to stay.

But the dilemma for Indonesian leaders will be how to reconcile this domestic concern with the task of saving the lives of many Indonesians on death row abroad for drug trafficking and murder.

Taken from the Singapore Straits Times, reprinted in the Jakarta Globe, HERE.