Detik.com
- May 21, 2009
Rachmadin
Ismail, Jakarta – Hundreds of demonstrators from the Workers Challenge Alliance
(ABM) held an protest action on May 21 opposing the candidates running for the
July 8 presidential elections because none of the candidates are pro-people.
“We reject
the political elite who are not pro-people or bourgeois and we are ready to
bring them down as happened 11 years ago when [former President] Suharto was
overthrown,” said Eka Widya, one of the participants at the action at the
Proclamation Monument on Jl. Diponegoro in the Menteng area of Central Jakarta
on Thursday.
The
protesters plan to hold a convey and visit various locations in Jakarta to
commemorate the overthrow of Suharto 11 years ago. They will use scores of
motorcycles and an open pickup truck and give speeches along the way.
The convoy
will set off from the Proclamation Monument than continue to the House of
Representatives Building and the Trisakti University campus. The action will
end later in the afternoon in front of the State Palace in Central Jakarta.
“We don’t
trust the elite that are currently [in power] because they do not come from the
working class,” said Widya.
Widya also
added that the 2009 elections must be opposed because they will not bring any
good to the ordinary people. The agenda being campaigned over the next five
years is simply being used as a means to perpetuate power. “The 2009 elections
are not the people’s elections,” shouted the protesters.
[Translated
by James Balowski.]
