Five televised debates were held between December 12 and February 4, featuring presidential and vice-presidential candidates on various topics.
Ten days before Indonesians head to the polls and with the prized presidency of the world’s third-largest democracy at stake, the three presidential candidates faced off for the last time in a televised debate on Sunday (Feb 4) as they made pledges to improve health and welfare of voters.
Like the previous four debates, each candidate had a few minutes to outline their vision and ideas, followed by a segment where they answered questions from experts and a subsequent segment where they could give questions to their opponents.
Defence Minister and frontrunner Prabowo Subianto was the first to speak on the topics of health, education, social welfare, culture, information technology employment and human resources.
He said he and running mate Gibran Rakamuning Raka want to improve the lives of Indonesians by giving nutritional food to all children, including to expecting mothers.
“This will happen until the children become adults. This will prevent maternal mortality rate, this will prevent malnutrition, stunting and extreme poverty,” said the 72-year-old.
Former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo pledged to focus on health by encouraging people to do sports to prevent getting sick, ensuring that there is at least one health facility in every village with one health worker.
He said he also wants to create inclusive education which will produce skilful workers.
“We will also think about teachers, lectures…and women and people with disabilities, so they won’t be discriminated against and can work,” said Mr Ganjar.
Meanwhile, former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan said he would ensure there is no inequality and injustice.
He said there is currently inequality such as between those living in Jakarta versus those living outside the capital, as well as between the rich and the poor.
“We want change. We want healthy people, those who grow up bright with education,” said Mr Anies, 54. “We don’t want inequality.”
RESERVED ATTACKS
Unlike during previous debates, where Mr Anies, Mr Prabowo and Mr Ganjar were eager to attack one another, they were more reserved this time.
Mr Prabowo, for example, asked Mr Ganjar whether he agreed with his programme to provide nutritional food to children to prevent stunting.
Mr Ganjar replied by saying he disagreed.
“If you give nutrition to pregnant women, then I agree. But if the child is already born, maybe you meant to prevent malnutrition, not stunting.
“If it is to prevent malnutrition, then okay. So, don’t be confused…,” he pointed out.
When it was Mr Ganjar’s turn to ask Mr Prabowo, he reminded the latter of a statement he had made during campaigning in Pontianak city at the end of January.
One of Mr Ganjar’s programmes is to provide free internet should he be Indonesia’s next president.
But Mr Ganjar claimed that Mr Prabowo, while campaigning in Pontianak, had said those who choose free internet rather than free meals have a slow brain.
“Do you approve this (free internet programme) to improve digital inequality?” Mr Ganjar asked Mr Prabowo.
The former army general tried to clarify his statement and said Mr Ganjar did not have the full context of it.
“I was asking (the people who attended the rally) what is more important: free internet or free food for the needy. For the poor. For the lower class. That’s what I meant,” said Mr Prabowo.
He claimed free internet is good, but free food for Indonesian children and pregnant women takes priority.
Meanwhile, Mr Anies, who had attacked Mr Prabowo sharply during previous debates, was gentler this time.
He asked Mr Prabowo how he would protect women, but instead, Mr Prabowo said women are very important, so he wants to focus on giving nutritional food to (pregnant) women.
“Thank you, Mr Prabowo, but it seems you haven’t answered my question because the question is about women’s protection…,” said Mr Anies.
Mr Prabowo said he would enforce the law and work with institutions to accomplish this.
He then asked Mr Anies whether he approved of his vision to give scholarships for about 10,000 Indonesian students to study abroad to become doctors as the country faces a shortage.
Mr Anies said, in principle, he agreed.
Govt focuses on developing infrastructure to boost financial inclusion
The development of infrastructure in underdeveloped, frontier, and outermost (3T) regions is still the government’s main focus to boost financial inclusion, according to an official from the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs.
“We already have the Palapa Ring 1, 2, and 3 (fibre optic infrastructure project) and the government has recently launched the SATRIA-1 satellite,” the ministry’s assistant deputy for workers’ productivity improvement, Chairul Saleh, said here on Friday.
He noted that hindrances in terms of geographic conditions and population are posing a challenge to the government in providing infrastructure to accelerate the digital transformation and increase financial inclusion.
The ministry is hoping for continued digital transformation to generate greater benefits and economic opportunities for the community.
To this end, he said that his ministry issued the White Paper on Indonesia’s Digital Economy National Strategy in December 2023 as a reference for ministries, institutions, and other parties in developing digital infrastructure.
In addition to infrastructure development, devising regulations that support innovation and protect customers through a regulatory sandbox is also essential to increase financial inclusion, he added.
“Since the digital technology is very dynamic, the regulations and policies must be agile and adaptive,” he said.
However, he opined that financial literacy and education also need to be increased to encourage people to use financial services wisely and responsibly.
He further said that increasing people’s literacy and awareness is the biggest challenge for the government in its effort to increase financial inclusion through digital transformation.
He added that Indonesia already has good potential to realise the transformation with the presence of a massive digital technology development and demographic dividend.
“Our population in demographic dividend is dominated by people of working age, so that most of them are digital natives, meaning that they follow the development of technology,” Saleh explained.
The Financial Services Authority (OJK) is targeting to bring the financial inclusion rate to 93 percent by 2027.
The upcoming election is the first in 15 years where three pairs are contesting to become Indonesia’s next leader.
The presidential hopefuls were accompanied by their running mates, who were not allowed to speak as the first, third and this last debate were meant only for the presidential candidates.
The vice presidential candidates had the chance to showcase their vision and mission during the second and fourth debates.
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Mr Anies Baswedan is running with 57-year-old Muhaimin Iskandar, the chairman of political party National Awakening Party (PKB).
Mr Prabowo is teaming up with Mr Gibran, 36, who is Solo’s mayor and eldest child of President Joko Widodo, also known as Jokowi.
Mr Ganjar’s running mate is 66-year-old Mahfud MD, who resigned from his position as the country’s coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs on Feb 1.
About 204.8 million eligible voters are expected to head to the polls on Feb 14 to choose Indonesia’s eighth president.
Outgoing president Jokowi is barred from running since the constitution only allows a person to stay in power for a maximum of two terms.
According to the Indonesian election law, a pair must secure more than 50 percent of the votes to win the elections.
Out of those 50 per cent, a pair must have at least 20 percent of votes in more than half of the 38 Indonesian provinces.
If no pair meets the criteria, the election will go into a second round in June, and the pair with the fewest votes cannot continue the contest.
There are dozens of pollsters in Indonesia which have been releasing their surveys routinely.
The latest poll by Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) Denny JA released on Jan 30 showed Mr Prabowo had crossed the 50 percent needed to secure a first-round victory with an electability rating of 50.7 per cent.
In second place came Mr Anies with 22 per cent, and trailing behind is Mr Ganjar with 19.7 percent.
Source from Channel News Asia
Original News HERE
