SBY surprised by his own party’s program on its website

Detik.com – May 11, 2004
Former General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (Kompas)
Former General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (Kompas)

Muchus Budi R., Solo – Democratic Party presidential candidate, [former coordinating minister for politics and security] Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) has admitted that he doesn’t know who entered the data on the Democratic Party’s web site which gives the impression that one of the party’s programs is to abolish the army’s territorial command structure from Koramil (sub-district military command) to Kodam (regional military command).

This was revealed by SBY at a declaration of the Central Java and Yogyakarta SBY success team on Tuesday May 11. He made the statement in response to a question by one of his supporters who asked whether if SBY is elected as president, Koramil, Kodim (district military command), Korem (sub-regional military command) and Kodam will be abolished.

Without referring to its title, SBY immediately opened a book which explains the policies of the Democratic Party and indeed it did say that one of the party’s programs is to abolish the TNI’s (armed forces’) territorial military commands.

“I still do not know who put data like this on the Democratic Party’s web site. But what is certain is this data is erroneous. We do not have a working program of this kind and furthermore this data is being used as black propaganda to attack us”, explained SBY.

He also said that it is inappropriate for presidential candidates or their success teams to use these kind of campaign methods. He therefore appealed to all members of his success teams not to do likewise or counter the attack with similar methods.

The declaration of SBY and vice-presidential candidate [former coordinating minister for people’s welfare Jusuf] Kalla’s success team was attended by more than 500 supporters from Central Java and Yogyakarta. SBY appeared together with his success team, one of whom is the former Iskandar Muda (Aceh) territorial military commander Major General Djali Jusuf. As in previous campaign events, before the event ended SBY sang a duet with Djali Jusuf of his favorite song “Rainbow in my eyes”. (nrl)

[Translated by James Balowski.]