ABS Report on Corruption Indication to President Prabowo Subianto

JAKARTA - Political communication expert, Hendri Satrio, assessed that President Prabowo Subianto's statement reminding his staff not to provide reports only to please their superiors indicates an attempt at corruption from within the government team itself.

According to him, when subordinates manipulate data and reports in order to look "successful" in the eyes of the president and not to solve people's problems, then the president is forced to intervene directly to correct and explain each issue, because he can no longer fully trust the reports of his subordinates.

"The president himself has warned about this false report, but the fact is that the warning proves that corruption is rampant in the inner circle. The subordinates should help the president, not burden them with false data that eventually makes the president have to clean it up himself," said Hensat, Sunday, March 15.

He said that the communication pattern of the current President Prabowo's government was experiencing a "communication emergency". Because, all problems always end up with Prabowo's figure, so that the phenomenon of corruption of the president's character from within arises. "I wonder, why must it always be Prabowo who stands up, explains this, explains that. Everything goes back to him, this is a kind of corruption indeed," he continued.

He gave an example of the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) program, which recently received a lot of rejection from a number of schools. Instead of the relevant officials in the cabinet who came down to explain, President Prabowo was the mediator and gave a direct explanation. "This is a kind of corruption carried out by Prabowo's own people, until eventually whatever happens, Prabowo is to blame," added Hensat.

He revealed that this situation made President Prabowo have to be more careful in managing performance, public appearances, expressions, and messages conveyed. If the president continues to be the only one who speaks, the public will forget that there are still many officials and institutions that should be responsible.

"We forget that other people should take care of problems like MBG, and the emergence of Prabowo in my opinion will make his character corruption bigger because over time people don't believe anymore, he keeps talking and people will think that this is the president working alone," said Hensat.

The founder of the KedaiKOPI Survey Institute added that this pattern is actually beneficial to Prabowo's political opponents. Therefore, he suggested that the president should not appear more often than his cabinet officials. Moreover, the president's task is to correct mistakes or evaluate the cabinet, not to intervene directly to resolve every polemics.

"Although the President is a one-man show, but if he is all hands on deck, this makes all the burden piled on his shoulders. And don't forget, every time the president intervenes, it is dangerous because there is a negative side that can be used by political opponents. Remember, the more often you talk, the greater the chance of being wrong, and this must be minimized," he said.

"Well, in the current era, when the videos are easy to cut, sew, clipper, plus the context that shouldn't be. So it must also understand the impacts," continued Hensat.