|
Indonesia is in an interesting yet potentially critical situation right now. You might heard that both candidates declared victory. Prabowo declared it claiming he won due to "internal real count" which to this day refused to ba made public, while Jokowi's camp appeared to be open with their internal counting. There are 12 survey groups who made quick counts, 4 declared Prabowo victory (with a variety of 1-5% lead) while 8 declared for Jokowi (a variety of 3-5% lead). Out of the 4 declaring for Prabowo, 2 refused to be audited by their own association and was fired (one of them doesn't even have an office). All 4 had made quick counts in the past and were mostly wrong. They are being accused of falsifying their data to made quick counting unreliable in the media. At this, they succeeded as now most of the people became apathetic with quick count results. However, the new election system of increased transparency is having *all* of the paperwork of vote counting be scanned and published on the election committee's website. So volunteer groups sprang up to compare notes of their own polling stations and the scanned results, leading to accusations of election fraud in some polling stations (mostly minor). There's also a couple of websites made by neutral, IT savvy individuals who downloaded the scanned paperwork and inputting the data. So the media turned to these sites instead of the survey groups as any attempt to discredit these volunteer sites had been pathetic and largely ignored, as their data is openly available to scrutinize. On these websites, Jokowi appears to be leading by 5% (around 7 MILLION votes), with only 5.6 million votes left to be entered into the database. It's very unlikely Prabowo could claim enough fraud to take over the lead at this point, so instead there's noise already about him taking this to the constitutional court. And there are rumors of a scenario of rioting in Jakarta on the 22nd, when the election committee is scheduled to give their final result. Especially since even until today, Prabowo refused to admit defeat and instead created more rhetoric of election fraud and foreign intervention.
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 05:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 18:26 |
|
|
Please keep us updated! I'm fascinated to see what will happen, but don't have time to scour Indonesian media - and also desperately want to be able to say President Widodo as often as possible.Gail Wynand posted:The Singapore government has struck another blow for family values in the war against the gay agenda. By...banning Archie.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 10:16
|
|
|
I speculated back during the AWARE saga that the government prefers to let the NGOs, businesses, and minor govt departments take the heat and foment a debate, wait for a bit, and then swing the hammer when certain people predictably begin trying to escalate into publicly attacking the government, the party, or the press for being biased against them (no matter which side they are). this allows a degree of public debate, which lets the govt assess public sentiment and cheer about democracy in Singapore, but still lets the govt control the tenor of the argument. also, it helpfully exposes those engaging in civil-social activism who are unable to shut up on command, versus those who are willing to play by the OB marker rules this appears to be still the case so I guess it is time to once again see whether the pinkdotters or the whitedotters will be first to start frustratingly attacking the government instead of their opponents
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 11:50
|
|
|
Malaysian jetliner just crashed in Ukraine. They're not having a great year.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 16:27
|
|
|
shrike82 posted:Malaysian jetliner Even worse. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 17:19
|
|
|
chami posted:Even worse. Well then, that's a startling development out of the region.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 17:21
|
|
|
Billy Joel's going to have to completely update We Didn't Start The Fire.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 21:23
|
|
|
I had a great experience when I flew Malaysia Airlines. Then again, anything out of KL feels like a dream when it's not out of the LCC terminal.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 01:51
|
|
|
Smeef posted:I had a great experience when I flew Malaysia Airlines. Then again, anything out of KL feels like a dream when it's not out of the LCC terminal. Agreed. Man that flight path was a very common flight path though, it is really unlucky. I just flew back from Amsterdam to Hong Kong and flew over a similar route. Frankfurt, London, Paris and other hubs also pass through Ukraine. I was just giggling at the in-flight map about the Crimean map and I this poo poo happens. Some goons in the Dutch thread lost their relatives and niece. This sucks. So is Malaysian airlines going to default and get bailed out?
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 03:22
|
|
|
LCC is gone now. There's KLIA2 now. It's much nicer.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 04:51
|
|
|
Really? They got rid of the barn? That place was truly awful - and the worst part was that it's not even connected to the drat train (and they're very obtuse about getting from airport to airport).
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 05:54
|
|
|
It's now all sparkly new. Warning though, there's like 1 terrible cage after you've gone through security. Wait till the last minute to do that. Also I guess things stuck for Malaysia airlines, didn't they also have a 777 that had to emergency land on midway recently? I don't feel so bad for the airline when apparently they sick pretty badly maintenance wise.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 06:51
|
|
|
Am I the only person in the world who didn't mind the LCC? Transport to/from the main airport was pretty easy with those 8.50 ringgit buses. Plus, LCC had showers, which I really appreciated after 26 hours or so in transit (ferry to bus to minibus to bus... never doing that again)
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 10:37
|
|
|
Yep, you're the only one.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 10:45
|
|
|
MAS had been circling the drain even before the 2 flights went down. The main problem is that they're sandwiched between prestige carriers like SQ and Emirates and LCC carriers such as Tiger. They can't compete on service/quality with the former and they can't compete on price with the latter. A bit like Proton. That being said, it's pretty clear that the LCC sector in Asia is drastically over capacity right now so we can expect to see some of them blowing up in the mid-term.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 10:49
|
|
|
caberham posted:Man that flight path was a very common flight path though, it is really unlucky. I just flew back from Amsterdam to Hong Kong and flew over a similar route. Frankfurt, London, Paris and other hubs also pass through Ukraine.  Flights that used that path in the week leading up to the attack.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 14:22
|
|
|
Indonesian Election News Update: The writing is on the wall. Prabowo's camp had spent the last week trying to maintain the stature that they won the election by "internal real count". His brother had a big mass at some mega church to thank God for Prabowo's victory. Though the data available at the election committee's website showed that on both the district and sub-provincial tabulation he lost, they maintained that the only official word will be this coming 22nd from the election committee. That was last week. What happened the past 2 days is that the election committee had uploaded the current tabulation results on the provincial level. Prabowo's team had maneuvered to contest the results of Jokowi's big votes to delay the official tabulation so the first batch of released numbers of 9 provinces (out of 33 total) was showing Prabowo victory, simply because it had 4 provinces where Prabowo has significant number of votes. He has 9 total. Out of 33. The rest are Jokowi's. The media and the vote watchers has been ignoring their attempt to claim victory since the 9 provinces' vote count mirrored exactly the already available vote count of sub-provinces and districts. So the rest of the count should also be the same. So instead, yesterday, Prabowo declared this election is invalid due to massive fraud so he demanded a repeat. That's right. The man demanded the election be repeated. The committee refused while the media (except the ones in his pocket, who is trying their best not to cover this part) blasted him for asking that since there's nothing in the constitution that would allow this. So instead he demanded that the announcement tomorrow delayed until further notice. The committee again refused saying they're the only who could demand a delay if they see there's a problem meeting the deadline for the tabulation. So Prabowo made a statement he is going to sue them and take them to court for they had broken a criminal law.... somewhere. The committee ignored him and released another 6 provinces' tabulation yesterday (for a total of 15) and Prabowo's lead evaporated as Jokowi is now leading by a hair-thin margin. Except Prabowo already used up 6 out of his 9 big cards on the table, while Jokowi's giant cards filled with votes (East Java, Central Java, Jakarta and all 4 of Sulawesi's provinces which are Jusuf Kalla's home base) is coming out today. I'm a little bit surprised no one had tried to shut him up as he's currently digging his own grave even deeper. The only question left is what is going to be his move once the committee made the official announcement tomorrow. This is the guy who, in 1998, had the rumored plan that could be summed up as: 1. Create riots in the capital 2. ??? 3. PROFIT! Little note that according to the acting president that toppled Suharto in 1998, Habibie, in his memoirs, wrote that Prabowo lead his special forces to enter the capital and surround the presidential palace, claiming it was for the security of the (acting) president, a mobilization not authorized by the highest ranking general, Wiranto. Wiranto had his own special detachment at the time securing the palace and confronted Prabowo. Shortly after, Prabowo was kicked out of the army. This is the guy who almost became our president. wid fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Jul 21, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 05:19
|
|
|
Prabowo just now made the official statement that he declared the election to be fraudulent and invalid and he refuses to recognize the results (even though it is scheduled to be announced in an hour). He made the statement by himself, signed by himself, as his running mate Hatta Rajasa is not there with him. Weird. Tension is really high right now, especially in Jakarta. Everyone is assuming he is already planning something and whatever it is, his running mate and political party don't want to get involved. Note that Hatta Rajasa was the Minister of Economy and in-law of the current president Yudhoyono, practically his right hand man. So he won't be willing to do anything that would reflect badly on Yudhoyono's governance. EDIT: Aaaand it's over. Prabowo's final tantrums amount to jack and poo poo. Hatta made his own press conference conceding the election. Then the election commission declared the winner. wid fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Jul 22, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2014 09:18
|
|
|
So it is official, right? Jokowi won?
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2014 03:45
|
|
|
Yes. Jokowi is officially president elect. Jusuf Kalla is vice president. Again. Though Prabowo will contest it at the constitutional court. There's no way he'd be able to turn this around since most of his points on election fraud like claiming the official watchdog for the election commission said the commission ignored the recommendation for reelection on some regions had been denied by the watchdog itself. The constitutional court itself is under heavy scrutiny by the Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK) who caught a court judge taking bribes to change some provincial election results a couple of years ago. Everyone's joking that the entire building for constitutional court, even the bathrooms, is currently bugged by the KPK. The current KPK is also full of die-hard anti-corruption fanatics, like this guy Abraham Samad, whose facial expressions during corruption trials looked like he wants to personally strangle corrupters. Funny thing though, Samad was one of the strongest contestant to be Jokowi's running mate back before his candidacy but they opted with Jusuf Kalla instead since both Jokowi and Samad are newbies in high level politics. The biggest argument Prabowo's team is making right now is that they found 2.5 million fraudulent votes. The process of finding this number is incredibly laughable since they just claimed they found fraudulent votes (unproven) in a couple polling stations and then decided that *all* polling stations have these frauds. But even if the court sided with them and declared these votes to be invalid, right now they're behind 8.4 million votes. Invalidating 2.5 million is not going to do jack poo poo. Now there's a rumor that Prabowo is trying to lobby the current president to declare some sort of emergency law superseding the law made by the election commission (of declaring Jokowi as president-elect) by extending his presidency by another year so they could hold another election. But at this point it's futile as the president's right hand man, Hatta, who is Prabowo's running mate, already admitted publicly Jokowi's victory. The current analysis of Prabowo's behavior at the last hour is that he tried to bluff the election commission to delay the announcement so he could maneuver to contest the result without having to go to constitutional court. But the commission just ignored him and handed off the whole thing to constitutional court, which Prabowo's team are publicly crying about.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2014 04:43
|
|
|
I mean, he does have to realize that he's just digging himself deeper at this point? Or is he really so insulated that he honestly thinks this is going to do anything in his favour?
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2014 04:52
|
|
|
Pureauthor posted:I mean, he does have to realize that he's just digging himself deeper at this point? Or is he really so insulated that he honestly thinks this is going to do anything in his favour? Nobody knows. Maybe he thinks this is literally his last shot at presidency (which is likely, since he'd be considered too old in 5 years). He also spent the last 9 years building up his image and electability and spent some ungodly amount of money so maybe he just feel like he has nothing left to loose? There's a pretty good article here about Prabowo's game plan which, I think, mirrored the game plan of Mitt Romney, complete with spreading rumors on the opponent's "real" race and religion. So the downfall might also be due to Prabowo, like Romney, keeping himself in his echo chamber surrounded by sycophants and built such expectation for victory while ignoring reality. It's pretty obvious early when he became a candidate that he was throwing in everything and everyone he could find. His party got popular last election (went from 6% something in parliemant to 11%) because of his apparent message of being the real wind of change in politics. He started as opposition when everyone (except PDIP) wanted to get on board the government coalition train, which is why he got close to PDIP for a while. He managed to create fanatical followers, people who are sick of the current way politics are being played, and lambasted the ruling parties for being corrupt and ignoring the people. But then when candidacy came around, he turned around and pulled these parties into his fold happily, even the ones whose heads are currently under investigation by the KPK. He opened up his coalition for everyone. And I meant EVERYONE. That included hardline Muslim groups, the ones declaring Indonesia must be turned into a shariah nation, the ones who would actually carry the flag of ISIS on the streets. He openly boasted about giving such and such parties seats at his cabinet, even promised to create a position of "great minister" for the current head of Golkar party, Aburizal Bakrie, a man infamously hated for owning the company that caused a mud disaster and dislocated thousands of people and hasn't yet paid restitutions as ordered by the court. He even hinted of remarrying his ex-wife, the daughter of Suharto, thus opening the doors for Suharto's family and cronies back into government. It's like a crazy manchurian candidate scenario that almost worked but blew up accidentally.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2014 07:00
|
|
|
For those following along at home, the Thai junta has taken the junta-ish tack of making the trains run on time. Okay, well, this is Thailand, so the trains will never run on time, but they're doing things like clearing up the motorbike taxi mafia, clearing out the vans (it actually worked in the end, amazing) from Victory Monument, subsidizing meals, tamping down the Phuket transport mafia, sentencing Sonthi to 20 years and so on. It's typicaly small bore stuff designed to get a little recognition for Making Things Happen. Typical technocratic junta behavior. This week they canned four very senior judicial figures for reasons that are not entirely clear to me (I don't follow Thai politics closely enough to know judges), but presumably because they weren't being helpful, heh. Today, The Bangkok Post, surely trying to pretend they have any sort of legitimacy or independence, decided to rib the junta a bit by pointing out that three very high profile, very rich kids who are total psychopaths are completely flaunting the legitimacy of the Thai government and the justice system. The graphic's hard to read, but lays out in clear detail just how absurd "justice" is here for the wealthy. http://bangkokpost.com/news/local/426101/rough-justice-risks-derailing-reform  It's impossible to know exactly what will happen, but these three cases are huge lightning rods for the disparity between rich and poor and if any of this results in even the three of them being punched repeatedly in the face (especially Mu Ham, just look at that piece of poo poo) then it will have been worth it. EDIT: The "na Ayudhaya" on the end of the name there is roughly equivalent to a hereditary noble title. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Aug 11, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2014 04:47
|
|
|
I just tried to find that video of the rich kid who was driving down an alley the wrong way and hit someone in their car. People in the neighborhood were trying to stop the rich dude from literally plowing further down the road, continually hitting this poor dude driving the right way as he tried to back up
Shammypants fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Aug 11, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2014 05:04
|
|
|
I just read in this week's Economist that the junta has banned Tropico 5.The Economist posted:The junta has even banned a computer game, Tropico 5, in which players set up their own military dictatorship in a fictional paradise where sunny beaches and political corruption “coexist in perfect harmony”. Their tyranny has gone too far.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2014 06:55
|
|
|
Yes, between this and calling out John Oliver by name, it's clear that they've crossed the line.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2014 07:22
|
|
|
They just can't stand being teased with the idea that they could one day have an aircraft carrier or nuclear program, imo.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2014 09:51
|
|
|
Hey that's not fair, Thailand does have an aircraft carrier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTMS_Chakri_Naruebet quote:Other than disaster relief, the carrier's few other departures from port are for a single training day per month, and transportation of the Royal Family of Thailand, leading to claims by some naval commentators that the ship is merely an oversized royal yacht.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2014 11:44
|
|
|
Meanwhile in Malaysia, geniuses have decided to protest McDonalds in an effort to end the occupation of Palestine.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2014 11:57
|
|
|
Bangkok Post must have gotten its dander up somehow. A couple of decent articles on the Northeast (Isaan, home of the Red Shirts) today: http://bangkokpost.com/news/investigation/425950/rise-of-the-rural-middle-class quote:Rise of the rural middle class quote:The isan 'Problem'
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2014 18:30
|
|
|
RETIRED FROM POLITICS OUSTED FORMER PRIME MINISTER NEWS NOW: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/Thaksin-orders-Pheu-Thai-red-shirt-leaders-to-forg-30241101.html quote:Thaksin orders Pheu Thai, red-shirt leaders to forgive and forget: report
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2014 16:04
|
|
|
ReindeerF posted:Bangkok Post must have gotten its dander up somehow. A couple of decent articles on the Northeast (Isaan, home of the Red Shirts) today: Spectrum can't stop, won't stop -- until the junta forces them. But yeah, this Thaksin deal makes me wonder if some sort of back room royal secession deal was loosely agreed upon.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2014 16:16
|
|
|
Yeah, I assume either that there's some sort of deal afoot or that he's realized that he's actually truly hosed this time and this is his attempt to kowtow a bit. You can never tell with Thaksin, though. He's wily.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2014 16:24
|
|
|
I think Thaksin already explained his strategy:
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2014 16:32
|
|
|
Taksin can afford to feign acquiescence and wait for as long as he wants because he's still going to have an overwhelming popular advantage over his opponents (not to mention the fact that they're so politically incompetent that they make Palin look like Metternich).
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2014 16:58
|
|
|
I agree he's got all the long-term cards except one - he's 65 years old. That is assuming he doesn't alienate his supporters. He does tend to drive a bit of a wedge when he plays the, "Let's all quiet down so I can have my amnesty." card.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2014 17:04
|
|
|
ReindeerF posted:I agree he's got all the long-term cards except one - he's 65 years old. That is assuming he doesn't alienate his supporters. He does tend to drive a bit of a wedge when he plays the, "Let's all quiet down so I can have my amnesty." card. Incidentally I kind of feel like Thailand might end up in this same place again when Elvis Jr. leaves the building which if the health rumors are correct might not take all that long.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2014 17:11
|
|
|
My implication is more that he's getting older and would really like to come home. It's been nearly a decade now since he's been in Thailand (that we know of, heh) and it's got to be eating at him. On a related note, more tea leaves are slipping out. http://www.bangkokpost.com/most-recent/427381/thaksin-tells-his-men-just-stay-put quote:Thaksin tells his men 'just stay put' One day in my lifetime, when there's enough democracy here to create a necessity for it, a Thai politician will gain the ability to make professional-grade, non-hamfisted, non-obvious leaks and statements to the media with the skill and deftness of America's top notch political liars 
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2014 08:58
|
|
|
Statistically, military juntas are very short lived, and there's no party-based or personality-based alternative to oppose the Red Shirt camp. The DP is a joke of a political party and couldn't even win loaded elections. Elvis has one foot in the grave and the other on a skateboard. His son might as well be named Joffrey and as mentioned earlier is neither very young nor a model of healthy living. And just look at Prayuth – that's the most charismatic leader they could trot out? Taksin really can just wait and watch his opponents self-destruct while toasting themselves with champagne at the St. Regis. He probably won't even have to wait very long.
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2014 16:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 18:26 |
|
|
I agree in the long-term. Thing is, it's been eight years so far and they've thwarted him every time. What's a reasonable horizon? Ten years? Fifteen? Twenty? How long can hey keep thwarting him? They don't even have to win, they just have to make sure he doesn't. They're not going to win in the long run, but if they keep him from winning even as they fade into obsolescence then he loses too. Also, unless I'm wrong, he and Elvis Jr. (we're really doing this now?) had a falling out after the money stopped flowing as there's zero allegiance there and it's 100% about EJ (Jesus, we're doing this) being able to supplement his bank accounts when his allowance gets cut. I've never heard it confirmed that this got patched up. Hopefully what will happen is this movement will divorce from his megalomaniacal rear end and find its own way. If you recall what he was like in power it was not at all pretty.
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2014 16:12
|
|