Unspun

Golkar, the once ruling party of Indonesia has finally, after days of prevaricating, has finally taken a step toward taking action against Yahya Zaini, the senior party lawmaker caught on video romping naked with a dangdut singer.

The move, however, is tentative and in character with a political party out of touch with the times and the Indonesian public. The party has taken days to form an investigating committee which yesterday recommended the dismissal of the raunchy lawmaker. During this period, however, Golkar elders were pathetically giving stupid excuses for inaction: Yahya was out of contact, he could not be reached; we could not talk to him so we cannot come to any decisions; it may have been mischievous accusations from political rivals so Yahya could be innocent afterall.

Such behavior does Golkar’s image as a moribund has been political party headed by dinosaurs not one iota of good. During crisis-like situations like this the public and media expects accountability and decisive action., Golkar failed to provide that.

Instead it resorted to bureaucratic or pejabat behavior: form a committee to look into the problem and make recommendations which would then be considered by the party’s elders who would then make a decision on it.

What Golkar should have done immediately the news surfaced is to suspend Yahya, called him in (surely a political party that once ruled the land can track down a high profile person such as a legislator, no matter in which mistress’ house he’s hiding in?), establish the facts and made the decision straight away, which in this case would be instant dismissal or forced resignation, coupled with a speech to the nation saying it would not tolerate such genit behavior.

Yet Golkar did not and yet it hopes to be a dominant party in the next elections?