Muhammad Nur Abdurrahman, Makassar – It has not just been in Jakarta and Java that mass actions opposing the inauguration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and Vice President Boediono have taken place.

On Tuesday October 20, some 500 people calling themselves the Makassar Parliament of the Streets Alliance (APJ) also held a demonstration in front of the Mandala Monument in the South Sulawesi provincial capital of Makassar.

The protesters, who said that Yudhoyono and Boediono are neoliberal lackeys and pro-foreign capital, warned that they would again bring suffering to the ordinary people as was the case over the last five years.

According to action coordinator Wahida, the signs of the Yudhoyono administration’s failures were easy to recognise, namely fuel price increases on at least two occasions, the abolition of education subsides along with the high cost of education for the poor and the law on foreign investment that emasculate workers’ rights.

“The parliament and cabinet that have just now been put together by SBY really make us even more doubtful about their quality and support for the people. They are in fact only lackeys of foreign powers labeled neoliberal, moreover Boediono is a member of the International Monetary Fund,” said Wahida.  (mna/djo)

[Abridged translation by James Balowski.]