JAKARTA: Indonesian President Joko Widodo has denied speculations that several of his Cabinet Ministers had resigned, including Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati.
He said the Cabinet is still performing its duties.
“Every day, we have meetings,” he was quoted as saying by the Antara news agency after celebrating the 78th anniversary of the Muslimat Nahdlatul Ulama here.
Widodo, better known as Jokowi, said speculations were deliberately created in the middle of the political campaign season leading up to the general election (PEMILU) on Feb 14.
Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) economic expert Faisal Basri had said last Saturday at a political and economic forum that 15 ministers from the technocratic circle and outside of political parties are resigning.
He feels that Jokowi is favouring the presidential and vice-presidential candidates Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka. Gibran is Jokowi’s eldest son.
When met by the media after attending a meeting chaired by Jokowi on Friday, Sri Mulyani said: “This is what I do for work. I work.”
Meanwhile, the issue of impeachment or “impeachment” against Jokowi is one of the hotly debated topics in political forums and the media.
A number of community figures have joined a movement called Petition 100, to meet with the minister of Politics, Law and Security, Mahfud MD, on Jan 9 demanding Jokowi to be impeached.
In the PEMILU 2024, the Indonesian people will go to the ballot to elect the next leader to replace Jokowi who will be finishing his second and final term as president in October.
And, Minister of Communication and Informatics Budi Arie Setiadi has urged people to go to voting stations and vote wisely on February 14, when Indonesia holds its general elections.
“We would like to appeal to all people to exercise their voting rights on February 14. Come to voting stations and be smart voters by choosing the best candidates for the sake of the nation,” he said in a statement from his ministry on Friday.
He urged people to make the most of the five-yearly festival of democracy to determine the nation’s future leaders.
In a democracy, people have the right to follow their conscience and vote for their preferred candidates, he added.
Setiadi also called on the people to work with the Ministry of Communication and Informatics to make the elections a success by protecting Indonesia’s digital space from hoaxes, disinformation, slander, hate speech, and false digital content.
By doing so, Indonesia can maintain its digital space as productive, safe, and comfortable both before and during the upcoming elections, he pointed out.
He said that people can take part in safeguarding the digital space by sifting through all the information.
“We hope that our digital space will be more trustworthy. To that end, it is important to verify information because hoaxes have been enemies of our digital space. For that reason, let us all work together to protect our digital space,” he added.
Setiadi lauded all parties that have been playing an active role in checking the circulation of election-related hoaxes.
He observed that the cumulative number of political hoaxes during this year’s general elections is still lower compared to those in 2019.
However, he expressed expectation of continued preventive measures to safeguard the digital space for the sake of peaceful general elections in 2024.
