Sweet Promises And Bombastic Campaign Of Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar

JAKARTA - The presidential candidate pair Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar (AMIN) last week announced the formation of the AMIN National Winning Team (Timnas).

This team is chaired by the former Head of the National SAR Agency (Kabasarnas) Muhammad Syaugi Alaydrus, who they call the captain of the team. After a few days Anies also announced the formation of the Anies-Imin Workers Agency (AMIN) abbreviated as BAJA AMIN. This agency is tasked with synchronizing consolidation between elements in the collisi.

Complete the device in the AMIN camp. They are ready to fight for the presidential election campaign which will start on November 28. Prospective pairs of presidential and vice presidential candidates will begin to spread promises and hopes with their ideas and ideas. The public as voters will consider which programs make sense and are realistic to consider making a choice, on February 14, 2024.

Political campaigns by each pair of candidates aim to get voter support. Every pair of candidates are fighting for sympathy in various ways and strategies. Start bombastic and keep promises.

The results of a study released by the Voxpol Center Research and Consulting recently stated that 40.8 respondents in the 2024 election liked presidential candidates who would continue and improve the previous government program. Meanwhile, respondents who wanted presidential candidates to make major changes were 27.8 percent and respondents who only wanted to continue the current government program were only 19.2 percent.

"So by combining the ongoing program with improvements or changes, 40 percent of the voters will be found," said Executive Director of the Voxpol Center Research and Consulting, Pangi Syarwi Chaniago.

The results of this survey seem to inspire the Anies-Imin pair and their team. Until they no longer echo the jargon of change hard. But emphasize the jargon of improvement. Maybe after they considered public interest.

The following is the vision and mission of the AMIN Pair, which was handed over when they registered with the KPU, last October 20. The AMIN pair carries a vision with "Indonesia Adil Makmur for All". To achieve that vision, they outlined 8 missions, which he called 8 ways of change.

"The vision of Justice is prosperous, they say, public services are affordable and quality for every citizen, ranging from health, education, housing, food, transportation, energy, and information, and a prosperous Indonesia is respected by the world's nations because of economic, technology and military forces," he said. Anies and Muhaimin envision that in a prosperous Indonesia, every citizen lives in a clean, pollution-free environment, and is protected from ecological disasters.

Whether to have direct contact with the vision and mission or not on an occasion, Deputy Secretary General (Wasekjen) of the National Awakening Party (PKB) Syaiful Huda said he would free fuel oil (BBM). If the General Chairperson of PKB, Cak Imin wins the 2024 General Election. This statement is considered by many parties as a bombastic statement ahead of the campaign period.

Huda said that he had calculated the number of motorcycle owners to reach 120 million. If Pertalite is lowered to Rp. 7,000 for motorcycles, the subsidy required is Rp. 121 trillion.

Meanwhile, when he emphasized Muhaimin Iskandar about the statement, he evaded, "Yes, it is misunderstood," he said. According to him, what he meant was that transportation subsidies should not be stopped, especially access to workers. "If people who work and cannot leave the house and do not get public transportation, special fuel subsidies," he said.

For the record, the fuel most used by motorbikes is pertalite. If we calculate the consumption of 1 liter of motorcycles per day, Pertalite consumption is around 43.8 billion liters a year (365 days). With the price of fuel per liter subsidized to Rp. 7,000 or there is a subsidy of Rp. 3,000, the budget required is around Rp. 131.4 trillion.

The problem is that if fuel is subsidized, consumption will swell the budget will definitely soar. Not to mention that there will be migration from other types of fuel, including non-subsidized ones, because there is a very large price disparity.

A large fund of no less than 131.4 trillion will be needed. The calculation is that there are around 120 million motorcycle users in Indonesia, if only one motorbike consumes 1 liter per day, it will require 45 billion liters multiplied, 360 days a year. If the pertalite subsidy is IDR 7000 rupiah, then the state must subsidize around IDR 6000. Because currently the basic price of Pertalite is already IDR 13,000, no longer IDR 10000/liter, because Pertalite is a subsidized fuel category and so far the government has subsidized pertalite users. So that if this AMIN project is run, the state will need 262.8 trillion for pertalite subsidies.

So the idea to provide fuel subsidies for the underprivileged, is rhetoric from this couple. It's not a new idea and idea, because the current government has responded to it.

So far, with a subset of Rp. 3000 per liter, the government is often overwhelmed, because often the large realization rate is much more than the allocation figure. It was recorded that for 13 years (2012-2022), only four times the realization of fuel was below the allocation.

Not only that, the AMIN pair is also excited that the discourse will increase village funds. Muhaimin Iskandar said that one of the targets he wants to fight for in the new government later is the increase in village funds. The plan, he will increase the Village Fund budget from the original average of around 1.1- 1.3 billion to 5 billion per village.

Cak Imin said on several occasions that he would fight for the plan. Among other things, Cak Imin conveyed when meeting with the kiai and Chairman of the East Java PKB Branch Leadership Council (DPC), last September 10.

"We have calculated village funds for 2023 of IDR 2 billion per village. This is a target that we want to fight for in the new government," he said in Jombang, East Java. As is known, village funds will continue to increase for 2023, the number will reach IDR 70 trillion. If the number of villages that must receive 74,961 villages according to data from the Ministry of Home Affairs, an allocation of IDR 374.81 trillion is needed.

The idea of increasing the Village Fund is based on the desire to overcome the gap between villages and cities. Because 40 percent of the population is in the village and about 30 million people work in the agricultural sector, "We want to shift the equity locus to villages," said Dita Indah Sari, PKB politician, while speaking on the CNBC Television show.

However, he ensured that not all villages would be disbursed with the 5 billion funds. According to him, certain types of village categories will be sorted, based on their proportions. Because there are certain categories of villages, there are developing villages, disadvantaged villages, very lagging behind. So far, the focus of handling and need is those who touch the village are left behind and are very lagging behind.

However, the Senior Core Economist in the CNBC's Your Money Your Vote Program, Ina Primiana, reminded that if it is true that a village fund program will be realized by 5 billion, it must also be seen that the capacity of human resources is there. Because we know that village funds are increased every year but inequality remains high, there is still a lot of unemployment, that means what kind of fund disbursement is, so that the distribution of funds must be provided or directed to them. According to him, young people in the village are no longer in the village, so we have to think about how to bring young people to stay in the village, want to build their villages so that there is a contribution. "So what is more important is the increase in education in the village", he said.

Political promises that are populist like this will certainly become a commodity that sells well in the political year. But talking about the allocation of village funds for other problems. Because the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) study found that so far village funds have been a source of corruption. Monitoring of ICW found that from 2015 to 2022, it showed that the level of corruption of village funds tended to increase significantly.

Programs On Environment Are More Complete

Responding to the vision and mission of the two candidate pairs, the Sustainable Madani Foundation conducted a study by juxtaposing each of the vision and mission and making comparisons based on environmental clusters; energy, forest, sustainable agriculture, climate policy sectors, waste and waste.

According to the Executive Director of the Sustainable Madani Foundation, Nadia Hadad, on paper, the vision and mission of the AMIN group's environment is considered to be the most complete. "Maybe it's also because of the strong NGOs in their camp, especially agrarian groups," he said. But according to him, "The implementation does not know what it will be like, yes," he said.

When asked whether the AMIN pair's vision and mission program was too much? "If it's too much, it's just that we, who are from the environmental group, are even happy if the agenda for saving the environment is clear," said Nadia. It's just that according to Nadia, there is a lack of synchronization between the plans made, for example a mission to accelerate the energy transition through developing renewable sources in accordance with the local potential of each region, such as geothermal exploration, PLTS, and PLTA, early PLTU deliberation, as well as the development of electrical systems. But on the other hand, it will encourage coal downstreaming and increase oil production, including the Masela project.

"So what needs to be evacuated is his commitment to continue to live up to all the promises that have been made and how to synergize the various conflicting plans, especially between the energy transition and the land sector," said Nadia, to Voi when contacted last Friday.