Electricity Crisis in Sulawesi

The current electricity crisis in South Sulawesi is a typical example of how crony capitalism is still alive and well in post Suharto Indonesia. Every year for the last 15 years there has been a shortage of electricity when the dam which feeds the Bakaru hydro-electric plant gets low on water before the wet season kicks in and the dam starts to fill again.

Last year there were rolling blackouts of two hours duration and sometimes twice per day across the province. This year the blackouts are three to four or even up to five or six hours two or three times a day usually averaging eight to nine hours in daily total.

The difference? Apart from the normal increases with new housing developments there is one major added user of electricity in the region, Trans-Kalla studios. Hailed at its opening in the local news as the worlds largest indoor attraction the entire place is air conditioned.

I asked a local PLN office how much effect the studio had on the current crisis and he was quick to point out that the theme park had its own generators which were used at night, when the air conditioners would need less power. While dressmakers, photocopying businesses, internet cafes and tailors sit waiting for the power to come back on and  so that they can go about earning their livelihoods the tills at the Trans-Kalla money machine are filled to overflowing.

Another strange thing is that Bosowa (owned by a Kalla in-law) is one of the largest power users at its cement plant and is also a power supplier. I can’t understand why they would not generate their own power for the cement plant and cut out the middleman, unless of course there is a dodgy deal going on with subsidized power pricing to this obviously industrial user.

The other cement plant is the Tonasa plant which is a milk cow for local government figures. Several years ago when the Philippines exported cement to Sulawesi at a price 40% lower than the two locals would sell their own products the government stepped in and banned further importation when the locals squealed about being unable to compete. Consumers be damned, take care of the rich cronies.

What is most disgusting about the current crisis is how it clearly shows that the man who made a bid for the presidency seems to have no qualms whatever about getting richer on the suffering of the ordinary people.

Learn From Your Neighbours

Instead of getting annoyed about a TV promotion (made by a third party and withdrawn as soon as they were aware of a problem) perhaps Indonesia needs to learn from the way their neighbour reacts when a religious group gets out of hand.

SHAH ALAM, Malaysia – A Malaysian court charged six Muslims with sedition Wednesday for parading a severed cow head to protest the construction of a Hindu temple in a case that has stoked religious and racial tensions in this multiethnic country.

Perhaps this is part of the reason that Noordin M. Top is in Indonesia; Malaysian authorities are not afraid of groups of people who think that their religion gives them an excuse for anarchy. Instead of accusing Malaysia of being the cause of the Noordin M. Top problem Indonesia needs some introspection.

When you look at the differences between how Malaysia treated this group and the way Indonesia pandered to the FPI and FUI which along with other Islamic groups when they attacked the Islamic moderates and the Ahmadiyah people.

Seeing this it is no surprise that Noordin thinks it is safer for himself and others of his ilk in Indonesia than in Malaysia. It is high time that the Islamic parties in indonesia were asked to explain whey they chose to be based on Islamic values rather than Pancasila values. Exactly what is it that they object to in Pancasila?

All of them fall over themselves to claim that they have no problem with other religions and that their religion is tolerant but there must be an explanation for their decision to base their parties on Islam rather than the national ideology.

It could be interesting if they were forced to give honest answers to the question.

Malaysia court charges 6 Muslims with sedition – Yahoo! News

Population control ‘a weapon of the West’ | The Jakarta Post

Young Indonesian muslims are convinced that attempts by their government to control the exploding population in Indonesia are a western plot and stated this at an event organized by Hizbut Tahrir in Jakarta. The fact that they are advocating a return to a caliphate system of government just a few days after the bombing of two hotels seems to have slipped past the various security bodies in the country searching for clues as to why this sort of thing keeps happening.

At Ragunan Sports Center in South Jakarta, speakers at the conference titled, “Young Muslims, save Indonesia with Sharia and the Caliphate” asked the young attendants to reject contraception based on the rationale that reducing the population would weaken the country and draw it further into the conspiracy plans of the West.

The scariest thing about this is that they seem to really believe this! It is hard to know where to start with an answer to people who are this stupid. That is the best judgement that I can make of these people because absent a highly sophisticated brainwashing program I cannot for the life of me come up with a better  reason for such a lame conspiracy theory.

Here is another quote.

Cicin Yulianti, a student activist from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, elaborated on the “genocide” conspiracy further, saying that more people in Islamic countries would increase the possibility of stronger human resources.

When you have a group this gullible it seems that it would be easy pickings for the likes of Noordin Top to find someone willing to blow himself to smithereens as long as he can take some of the hated westerners with him.

Population control ‘a weapon of the West’ | The Jakarta Post

Indonesia . . . The Rude Country

Indonesians generally pride themselves on not offending other people but this seems to limited to their speech. In many other areas Indonesians are extremely rude and even offensive and they do this without even a hint of awareness.

Take the way Indonesians drive. Here more than any other country that I have driven in, and the list includes over 60 countries including many in Africa, people are impatient and will cut you off to get in front, even just to stop and park a hundred meters further down the road. many times I have been cut off by a public minibus with the driver forcing his way in front only to have them drive slowly in front of me. The “me first” attitude takes precedence over any kind of good manners.

In banks, at airport counters and supermarket checkouts many Indonesians will just cut in front and when rebuked take offense. Any Indonesian in any sort of position of power will just refuse to queue at all simply walking to the front of the line, often with a herd of handlers pushing others out of the way.

Another example of rudeness is the way that the whole country is run at full volume. Every mosque, cafe, PA system or any other form of amplifier is driven to maximum distortion level in the search for more volume. Recently the primary school across the road from my house started playing music over their PA system starting at 06:00 AM in the morning and naturally it is at maximum volume.

At least four of the almost twenty mosques that can be heard from my house have upgraded their amplifiers in the past few months and are also pumping out maximum volume in a hideous cacophony of sound that lasts not just the few minutes for the call to prayer but for more than half an hour. At the maternity hospital where my wife gave birth a mosque just down the road had one of the loudest sound systems I have heard and had the call to prayer lasting for about an hour each time with two of the loudspeakers aimed directly at the hospital.

I have just begun mentioning this sort of thing to my friends and acquaintances. Westerners here are often thought to be rude by their direct speech (in comparison to the locals) but there are very few westerners who would even contemplate playing music at maximum volume early in the morning on a normal stereo, far less over a PA system.

Most westerners would not consider this clever or in any way indicative of status, they would simply consider it rude and offensive.

Pertamina raises non-subsidized fuels prices

A report from the Jakarta Post  shows a complete lack of journalistic professionalism. The report stated the following regarding an increase in the prices of Pertamax and Pertamax Plus.

“The price adjustment was made due to the strengthening of the rupiah against the US dollar,” Pertamina’s spokesman Basuki Trikora Putra said.

I’m no economist but even a primary school student should be able to spot the obvious problem with that statement. If the Rupiah is strengthening it should take less of them to buy something with a dollar price base.

Not mentioned is the near doubling of crude oil prices since the government’s last reduction in price for the subsidized fuels. With an election coming up it is not time for the incumbent to raise the prices with the precedent set by the previous incumbent, Megawati.

Simple conclusion, either the spokesman is lying or he is stupid. For a national newspaper to let that sort of thing slip by unquestioned is also indicative of either collusion or incompetence by the press.

Pertamina raises non-subsidized fuels prices | The Jakarta Post

Bomb Blast Convict Gets Less Than One Year Per Bomb

The terrorist who built bombs to explode at churches in Medan on Christmas eve in 2000 got 11 years for 14 bombs. These bombs were intended to kill and maim innocent people and terrorize the populace in general and the sentence was less than nine and a half months per bomb.

The judge said that Edi received the order to produce the bombs from Polem, alias Eriyanto, the commander of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) for Pasai region in Aceh. Polem has been put on the list of wanted persons.

Edi, according to the judge, had received Rp 28 million from Polem to assemble 14 bombs and to detonate the bombs at the homes of clergymen and churches in the cities.

Why such a light sentence?

The judge said the defendant’s activities had caused fear among people and endangered human lives. While the mitigating factors, according to him, were that Edi had been polite and cooperative during previous court hearings.

(My italics)

I would have thought that politeness and cooperation in the court were mandatory. I wonder what the sentence would have been if he had targeted mosques and imams?

Bomb blast convict gets 11 years’ imprisonment | The Jakarta Post

Election Notes

The electoral results are coming in slowly but data from the KPU and quick counts tally fairly closely for the more popular parties. Out of the thirty-eight parties that contested the election only fourteen managed to get more than one percent of the vote in the official results to date.

Only nine parties managed to get more than the 2.5 percent electoral threshold which means that the rest either have to disband the party or merge with other parties to achieve the threshold. Of course the next elections will again have a large number of parties because it is profitable to do so. It would be a good idea if the KPU made a rule whereby those party officials who already failed in one election were not allowed to hold similar positions in a new party but I would not try holding my breath until that happens.

With ballot papers sometimes larger than broadsheet newspapers it will take some time before the final tally can be made as simply unfolding and refolding the paper takes a considerable amount of time. The reason that the papers are so large is that there were so many parties and each party fielded as many candidates as possible so that the campaign funds would be easier to raise. In at least one district the party funds were generally less than two hundred dollars per party but many of the candidates contributed from their own pockets in the hope of securing themselves a seat.

One of the weird things about the way that seats are allocated is that a party can get less than one percent of the vote in every district and still get seats in the house. This is, ostensibly, to ensure that all of the people are represented in the government. This is a noble intention but does not work out in practice as those elected generally do not represent anything but their own interests.

A preferential voting system with seats allocated by district would do much to ensure that the people knew who was supposed to be representing them and had somebody they could contact with their aspirations and grievances. The current system puts the political parties above the voters which is not how a healthy democracy works.

Elections 2009 Part 1

The elections were held today and there were about 40% of Indonesians who did not bother to vote. Some people blame the Elections Committee saying that not enough was done to finalize the voter lists but nobody has yet blamed voter apathy.

With over thirty parties vying for seats in four separate elections (DPR, DPR Province, DPRD and DPD) held on the same day you would thing that there would be something for everybody but most of the smaller parties are only trying to get government funds for taking part in the election. The rest of the parties are the same old faces with the sae old promises few of which, if any, will be kept.

At the time of writing the Democrat Party is in the lead with around twenty percent of the vote. That means there are twice as many who don’t care about the election as there are who picked the most popular party. The political elite need to look at what they have done to create this srt of situation.

Of course with ballot sheets as big as newspaper broadsheets some of the voters may have decided it just wasn’t worth the struggle.

White lines. what are they for?

The longer I drive here in Indonesia the more convinced I become that almost 99% of the drivers on the roads have absolutely no business being there. One of my favourite gripes is the complete lack of respect for lane markings and centre lines.

Not all roads use such “limiting” devices with more than half of the roads showing no such markings. Where they are shown, even when new and in full view of Indonesia’s “Finest” (the police force for those who are confused, it’s called sarcasm) they are treated with utter contempt which should be reserved for most of the so-called “Finest”.

At least 90% of Indonesian drivers and motorcycle riders use the racing line on any curve in any road. I remember being taught in a defensive driving class to consider that leaning a motorcycle may take your upper body across the centre line so more care should be taken.

Here it is more a case of leaning the motorcycle taking the rider’s upper body across the opposite side walk (where members of that endangered species exist) and the limits seem to be set by the kaki lima gerobak selling noodles or other delicacies.

Where one half of a road is blocked by a parked (or double parked) vehicle the deciding factor in passing these is not whose lane is blocked but who gets to the opening first or can act in the most imperious manner.

On multi lane carriageways the lane marking white line finally comes into popular use. Most drivers use it as a guide for where the centre of their vehicle should be. They can move a bit to the left or right as required to stop any chance of getting around them, despite the fact that they are driving very slowly because it is hard to move at speed while typing an SMS on your cell phone.

In many places use of the left lane is seen as a sign of unmanliness and is to be avoided. As a nod to the legalities many truck drivers keep one set of wheels just across the lane marker which makes the space too narrow to get by. This means that the only time you can get around a truck is when the road takes a bend to the left when the racing line comes into play.

This article is the first of series that I am planning to write, keep your eyes open for the next. Suggestions on topics are welcome as well.