Fitria Chusna Farisa, Jakarta – Presidential Staff Office (KSP) Principle Expert Ade Irfan Pulungan says that there is no urgent need to ask President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to give up the presidency over the government's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
This was in response to the hashtags #MrPresidentJustGiveUp (#BapakPresidenMenyerahlah) and #IndonesiaCollapsing (#IndonesiaKolaps) which became top trending topics on Twitter on Wednesday July 7.
"There's no urgency. Everyone together must see that this pandemic is a problem for all of us", said Pulungan when contacted Wednesday.
According to Pulungan, the handling of the pandemic must be looked at comprehensively. The government has the infrastructure, regulations and guidelines for handling the pandemic.
This however must be counterbalanced with public support and everyone must be disciplined and comply with regulations enforced by policy makers.
Such as, for example, complying with the earlier ban on mudik – the annual exodus during Ramadan-Idul Fitri holiday. Then being prepared to take part in the Covid-19 vaccination program and not instead spreading fake news.
Or, at the very least, being disciplined and applying the 3M health protocols, namely wearing a mask, hand washing and maintaining social distancing. As hard as the government tries, continued Pulungan, it will be difficult to overcome the pandemic if the public is negligent.
"This is cooperation, it won't work if it's just presidential instructions, we issue this and there is a directive from the government like that, but the public still stubborn, yeah it's difficult", he said.
Pulungan said that several countries have brought down the number of Covid-19 cases because of good cooperation between government and the public.
Because of this, he is appealing to the public to be solid in supporting government policies to deal with the pandemic.
"Come on, let's all be able to work together. Look, this is not for personal interests, not just for the government", said Pulungan. "We need an example to be set by leaders, but we also need discipline and awareness from the public", he said.
As has been reported, the hashtags #MrPresidentJustGiveUp and #IndonesiaCollapsing have become top trending topics on Twitter with tens of thousands of netizens tweeting about the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia.
For netizens, President Widodo has failed to deal with the pandemic because the number of Covid-19 cases continues to rise drastically.
The latest government data shows that there was an additional 34,379 Covid-19 cases in Indonesia in the last 24 hours.
This is the highest daily rise since the first Covid-19 case was announced on March 2, 2020.
With this addition, as of Wednesday July 7 there are 2,379,397 cumulative Covid-19 cases in Indonesia.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Tagar #BapakPresidenMenyerahlah Trending di Twitter, KSP: Tak Ada Urgensi".]
