Zulhas Responds To Anies About Prabowo's 340 Thousand Hattare Land: HGU Is Not That Big, Just Borrowing And Using

PAN Chairman Zulkifli Hasan was met at the Presidential Palace complex, Jakarta, Tuesday (9/1/2024). ANTARA/Yashinta Difa

JAKARTA - Chairman of the National Mandate Party (PAN) Zulkifli Hasan (Zulhas) answered Anies Baswedan's statement that Prabowo Subianto's presidential candidate had 340,000 hectares of land in Indonesia.

According to Zulhas, who served as Minister of Forestry from 2009 to 2014, the company owned by Prabowo was indeed given business use rights (HGU) for a number of lands in Kalimantan and Aceh.

"As far as I know, Pak Prabowo has (HGU), but it's not that big. If I'm not mistaken, around 60,000 hectares are in Kalimantan and in Aceh, but some have been returned to the State," said Zulhas when met at the Presidential Palace complex, Jakarta, reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, January 9.

Zulhas emphasized that tens of thousands of hectares of land are only lent by the state to be managed by corporations, which are owned by many people, one of whom is Prabowo.

"And it is also borrowed for use, not owned by Pak Prabowo personally, but a corporate," said Zulhas.

Zulhas criticized the course of the third debate for the 2024 presidential election, Sunday (7/1), which contains more efforts to bring down each other's presidential candidates, not about the policy direction of each presidential candidate.

"For example, there is no direction from each candidate, but the spirit drops," he said.

Two further debate sessions on January 14, 2024 and February 4, 2024, Zulhas hopes to be more substantive so that the public knows where the candidates for leader will take the Indonesian nation.

Zulhas also criticized the implementation of the three debates that had been held, which were not ideal because they were only held between presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

"In the past, the debate was the presidential and vice presidential candidate pair, the vision was one, the vision was to become president, this time the presidential candidate himself has his own vision, the vice presidential candidate debates while the presidential candidate sits down," he said.

"There should be one session that can display presidential and vice presidential candidates together. There are five debate sessions, nothing together, just like hostility," he added.

In the third debate of the presidential election, Anies said that half of the total number of TNI soldiers in Indonesia did not have a home, but on the other hand Prabowo Subianto, who is currently the Minister of Defense, has more than 340,000 hectares of land.

Based on this statement, Prabowo then denied while confirming that the data was wrong and asked Anies not to quote the wrong data. Prabowo's rebuttal was delivered when Anies corrected his statement at the beginning.