SBY Gives WikiLeaks Silent Treatment
Camelia Pasandaran | September 05, 2011
The government announced on Monday that it would not respond to any information found in US diplomatic cables presented by whistle-blowing Web site WikiLeaks, saying that the information is far from credible.
"We won't give any response," presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha told the Jakarta Globe. "It is difficult to complain about things like this because the information WikiLeaks reveals is from secondary sources."
Julian also questioned the reliability of the latest release about President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. It talked of efforts to repay the financiers that facilitated his 2004 bid for the presidency by offering them jobs in his administration.
"Too much information is presented without clear sources," he said. "It's just the issue of the day, without clear information on sources. Therefore we're not enthusiastic about responding to WikiLeaks news. The primary sources don't understand how such rumors could spread."
WikiLeaks cited remarks from Democratic Party official Silo Marbun saying that Yudhoyono reportedly offered Vence Rumangkang — the party's deputy general chairman — a position in the administration as well as a check for Rp 5 billion ($585,000) to repay Vence's substantial contribution to the party.
Vence reportedly declined to accept both the check and the offer of a political position. He did allegedly say that he hoped to have Yudhoyono's support as he continued his business endeavors.
Marbun also claimed that Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie's contributions to Yudhoyono's presidential campaign totaled Rp 200 billion. Aburizal would subsequently become Yudhoyono's Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs and later his Coordinating Minister for Social Affairs during the president's first term.
Julian said the president was at first shocked after WikiLeaks revealed diplomatic cables from the US Embassy in Jakarta that generated considerable attention from international media. But he said that Yudhoyono had stopped caring about the leaked cables "after learning about the methodology used."
"We believe the public will later know and realize just how credible [the information leaked by WikiLeaks is]," he said.
Here is another one ...
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/leaked-us-cables-slam-megawati-pdi-p/463418
Leaked US Cables Slam Megawati, PDI-P
September 05, 2011
Leaked US diplomatic cables paint a negative picture of Megawati Sukarnoputri's presidency and predict the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) would do poorly in the 2009 elections due to its "dysfunctional leadership."
The cables also claim that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono went to "great lengths" but ultimately failed to restore his relationship with Megawati, who remains bitter that Yudhoyono ran against her in 2004.
The cables quote former PDI-P legislator Amris Hassan as saying there was a "growing sense of disillusionment within the PDI-P ranks over Megawati's stewardship of the party."
"Hassan bemoaned Megawati's inability to chart a coherent opposition strategy for PDI-P and said that he expected a growing number of high profile defections from the party unless changes were forthcoming," the cable from late 2006 said.
"Hassan told us that Megawati's obsequious inner circle contributed to her leadership struggles as she was rarely challenged or prompted to consider alternative viewpoints from her own."
The former legislator said party members were becoming more and more aware that the party was viewed as little more than a "Megawati cult of personality, and that most party members understood this would not translate into electoral success in 2009."
The source told the embassy that his decision to accept an ambassadorial posting to New Zealand would help "distance himself from the party's dysfunctional leadership."
The party gained just 14 percent of the vote in the 2009 legislative elections to finish in third place, well behind Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, which secured 20 percent of the vote. PDI-P secured almost 20 percent of the vote in the 2004 elections.
Another cable labels Megawati as the only serious threat to Yudhoyono in the 2009 presidential elections but said she had "stumbled in the opposition and failed to articulate a competing vision for the country."
"Having already beaten back one challenge to her authority in PDI-P, several of our contacts in the party report growing disenchantment with her policy of 'opposition for the sake of opposition,' and openly admit they believe she could never be re-elected as president," the cable reads.
"Though it is hard to imagine a PDI-P ticket without her at the top, Megawati would have to overcome lingering questions about her first presidency, and very low favorability numbers (28% in the most recent credible polling), to beat SBY in 2009.
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