Removing Capres Promise (3): Free Gasoline, Anies Baswedan And Muhaimin Iskandar's Pair Utopic Ideas

The presidential candidate pair Anies Baswedan and future vice presidential candidate Muhaimin Iskandar are with their wives. (Instagram @aniesbaswedan)

Compared to the other two presidential candidates (Read President), Prabowo Subianto and Ganjar Pranowo, Anies Baswedan is the only one who has announced the prospective vice presidential candidate.

The former governor of DKI Jakarta has officially announced Muhaimin Iskandar as Bacawapres in the upcoming 2024 presidential election. However, despite being the sole presidential candidate who already has a partner, Anies Baswedan and Cak Imin are even considered not to have a compact idea.

Meanwhile, Anies Baswedan wants to prioritize equality of opportunities, including providing guaranteed prices for affordable basic necessities, Cak Imin's side actually dreams of free fuel for the people.

"Signing justice for all Indonesian people," said the idea revealed by Anies when appearing at the event entitled Three Bacappres Talks Ideas at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, September 20, 2023.

"We want access to basic facilities to be equal, first health, second education, third job opportunities," said Anies again.

Director of the Center of Economics and Law Studies (Celios) Bhima Yudhistira said Anies Baswedan had not yet explained concretely the work he wanted to carry out. As the Presidential Decree carried out by the Change Coalition, Anies criticizes the current government policy more, especially regarding inequality between regions.

Although criticizing is reasonable, Bhima considers that the Anies camp has not provided a solution to fix the inequality of development in the Jokowi era.

"Criticism is lacking in solutions, what are the recommendations and what are the policy action programs to reduce inequality between regions," Bhima told VOI.

On the same occasion, Bhima also highlighted the difference in work programs between Anies Baswedan and his partner, Muhaimin Iskandar or who is familiarly called Cak Imin. Previously, PKB elite Syaiful Huda said his party would make fuel free if Cak Imin was elected as Cawapres.

A video showing Syaiful Huda conveying this has gone viral on social media since last week. Syaiful promised the government would provide free fuel if Cak Imin and PKB won the presidential election and legislative elections in 2024, although this was later corrected by Cak Imin himself.

Cak Imin clarified that the purpose of his promise was that the fuel subsidy should not be eliminated, but it does not mean that it costs zero rupiah. According to Bhima, this difference makes the program of the Anies and Cak Imin pairs unclear.

The two programs are not connected, how should connect it so it can be clearly read where it is headed. The public should know what the concrete program is," Bhima continued.

Executive Director of the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) Tauhid Ahmad said the promise to eliminate fuel would be difficult to implement because again it was very burdensome for the state budget. He also assessed that the fuel subsidy policy was more wrong.

Instead of providing free fuel, Tauhid assessed that Cak Imin should focus on eliminating the subsidy by providing direct assistance to the poor.

"Most of the recipients of this fuel subsidy are not poor people, even people who can afford it, so the target is still high in prices like this at gas stations," said Tauhid.

Although Anies Baswedan's work program is considered still gamang and has not been connected to his partner, one thing that needs to be underlined is Anies' idea which promises cheap and affordable prices for basic necessities.

"We want Indonesia, whose progress is felt by all of us. We want equality of opportunity, we want families in Indonesia wherever they are, there is an opportunity to get a good education, to get good health services, to be able to get basic necessities that are cheap and affordable, to get a good job. This equality is our vision," said Anies at length.

Jakarta under the leadership of Anies Baswedan is claimed to be able to maintain food security through the increasing provision of food subsidies and wider beneficiaries.

Food subsidies are given for 4,610,623 people for five years, namely in 2017-2021 with a budget of Rp1.1 trillion. Subsidies provided include meat, chicken eggs, fish, rice, and milk targeting poor citizens who are members of the Jakarta Smart Card (KJP) Plus, people with disabilities, residents of flats, the elderly, Individual Service Providers (PJLP), teachers/tenaga honorary to family welfare empowerment cadres (PKK).

KJP is a program initiated by Jokowi when he was Governor of DKI Jakarta 2012-2014. The program was then continued by Basuki Tjahaja Purnama who replaced Jokowi as Governor of DKI Jakarta (2014-2017), and was optimized as KJP Plus. When he was Governor of DKI Jakarta (2017-2022), Anies continued the program.

DKI Jakarta is also considered successful in controlling inflation so that in the last four years the inflation rate is below 5%. Head of the Macro and Finance Economic Center, Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef), M Rizal Taufikurahman assessed that inflation maintained below 5% shows that the management of the DKI Jakarta regional inflation control team (TPID) is very good in controlling inflation, both prices and basic commodities.

"This means that DKI Jakarta, which is a center of city or its center in Jabodetabek, can maintain inflation levels," said Rizal.

According to Rizal, with a consistent inflation rate below 5%, DKI Jakarta has learned from previous supply chain patterns.

"So when is the season, for example, where, when, then the stock policy is large, even the availability is also prepared," concluded Rizal.