Erina Gudono Tone Deaf, Kaesang Pangarep Debts An Explanation To The Public For A Luxury Lifestyle

The pair Kaesang Pangarep and Erina Gudono are in the public's attention for showing off their luxurious lifestyle in the midst of difficulties for most Indonesians. (Instagram/@erinagudono)

JAKARTA The family of President Joko Widodo, especially his youngest son, Kaesang Pangarep and his son-in-law, Erina Gudono, have been in the public spotlight in the past few days. Erina is said to have exhibited an unnatural lifestyle through uploads on her social media.

When almost all elements of society in various regions held demonstrations against the plan of the Legislative Body (Baleg) of the DPR to annull the decision of the Constitutional Court (MK) regarding the threshold of nomination rods and the age limit for regional head candidates in the 2024 Pilkada, Erina's upload made the focus divided.

Erina is known to have traveled to the United States to continue her master's studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She will focus on the study at the Non-Governmental Organization/Non-profit Leadership.

On his way to Uncle Sam's country, Erina uploaded a photo of the plane window with the message "USA here we go" on her Instagram story, Wednesday (21/8/2024). But the upload of the owner's full name Erina Sofia Gudono became the beginning of the commotion among netizens on social media, apart from continuing to monitor the Constitutional Court's decision.

This commotion started with the Instagram account @mitastic who questioned the plane that Erina and Kaesang were traveling in. The owner of the account questioned the plane window as Erina photographed, because according to him it was not like a commercial airplane window.

Through a Google image straightening, the plane window in Erina's photo is a Gulfstream private jet window.

From there, the public was busy dissecting Erina's upload. Starting from the rental price, to who owns the private jet. The use of the private jet used by Kaesang and his wife who are pregnant with age is considered unreasonable, because they are the family of state officials.

Private jets are one of the most luxurious modes of transportation used by only a handful of people. It's nothing, the rental fee for one private jet is very expensive even up to billions of rupiah.

Returning to the private jets used by Erina and Kaesang on their way to the US, netizens suspect they are using the Gulfstream G650 series which is one of the most sophisticated private jets, most quickly airborne with a capacity of 15 people. This Gulfstream G650 private jet is priced at US$70 million or equivalent to Rp1.09 trillion.

To rent this aircraft, the tenants have to spend 11 thousand to 17 thousand US dollars or the equivalent of Rp. 171.6 to Rp. 265.2 million per hour. If you travel from Soekarno Hatta Airport to Los Angeles, you will cost Rp. 2.97 to Rp. 3.38 billion.

In addition to the cost of renting a private jet that costs exorbitantly, Erina also showed off how she and her husband bought bread for Rp. 400 thousand, which for most Indonesians the price of the bread was too expensive.

Not to mention related to the purchase of a baby muscle or train which reportedly reached tens of millions of rupiah for their prospective baby.

The sequence of luxurious lifestyles shown by Erina Gudono and Kaesang is of course a public concern. However, PSI Secretary General Raja Juli Antoni did not want to comment much on the criticism received by the general chairman of his party. He considered criticism to be part of democracy.

"Yes, it's part of the dynamics of democracy. It's a freedom of citizens that we can enjoy, for suggestions, criticism, yes sometimes sharp, too sharp, please. That's part of democracy," said Raja Juli, Sunday (25/08).

Meanwhile, until now, both Erina and Kaesang have yet to comment on the private jets they are traveling on to fly to the US.

The luxurious life shown by Kaesang and Erina Gudono, at least on their way to the US, made Jokowi's son and son-in-law labeled deafalias insensitive to the situation. The former Puteri Indonesia participant exhibited his luxurious life in the midst of the difficult situation experienced by most Indonesians today.

It is common knowledge that people's purchasing power, especially the middle class, continues to decline following the wave of layoffs (PHK) and the rise of online gambling. The Ministry of Manpower also noted that nearly 46 thousand people were laid off from January to August 2024.

Not only that, Erina's luxurious lifestyle was blasphemed by Erina as well as showing off when her in-laws, President Jokowi received sharp criticism following the DPR's plan to ratify the Pilkada Bill which was considered to straddle the Constitutional Court.

Erina Gudono's luxurious life is also contrary to the branding that Jokowi has brought throughout his leadership. The seventh president consistently banned him as a simple family, far from luxury items. Jokowi also prefers to use local products, in contrast to what his son-in-law and son are currently doing.

Jakarta Veterans UPN economist Achmad Nur Hidayat urged Kaesang to provide an explanation to the public regarding the alleged use of private jets on his trip to the US with his wife. What's more, this issue has caught the attention of the wider community because Kaesang is the youngest son of President Jokowi.

"Kaesang and his family need to explain to the public how much it costs and the source of the funds used to rent the private jet," said Achmad, quoted by Tempo.

"When economic conditions are challenging for the people, using a luxurious private jet can be said to be an insensitive act, even offending the public," said Achmad.

Social observer from the University of Indonesia, Devie Rahmawati, has linked the phenomenon of Indonesian people who like to'split' public figures on social media because of the high use of the internet.

The use of high-intensity internet from the Indonesian people has become a social CCTV everywhere.

In this country the number of gadgets is 353 million, while the number of people is only 277 million. Social CCTV is much more. The data can be obtained from anywhere, this should encourage everyone to behave positively and productively," said Devie.

In addition, according to Devie, Indonesian netizens have the ability to work together in accumulating data so that they raise various issues in the digital space as part of citizen activism.

Even so, Devie emphasized that not everything that netizens have said in cyberspace has been confirmed.

Devie also regrets that there are still many netizens who are more focused on personal or physical matters from the accused. According to him, this strengthens Microsoft's research which states that the Indonesian people are the most cruel, heinous, and rude in the digital space.

"It turns out that the discourse on physical matters is far more dominant than his political affairs. Even if there is a political matter, I'm sorry, it's just an echo chamber (closed information bubble) in certain groups," Devie explained.