One Million IDs
Indonesian politics continued to heat up with the achievement of one million IDs collected by a group called “Teman Ahok”, or “Friends of Ahok” in Bahasa Indonesia, to support the candidacy of “Ahok” (Basuki Tjahaja Purnama) to run for governor of Jakarta. Formally the candidacy required 7.5% of the previous election’s voters, or approximately 525,000 of individual supporters, represented by valid copies of their IDs. However, Ahok demanded that the “Teman Ahok” group collect one million IDs for him to be prepared for an independent candidacy.
Ahok is the Chinese nickname of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the current governor of the Jakarta Metropolitan Region. Ahok has some unique characteristics. Being a double-minority, Chinese and Christian, in a Muslim majority population, it would seem that his support base would be from that background. Apparently a young Muslim dominates Teman Ahok: the speaker of the group, Amalia Wahyuningtyas, wears Muslim dress. Yet the group strongly believes, and dares to fight, to support Ahok.
In addition to independent support, Ahok recently garnered the support of three political parties with enough representatives to nominate a candidate, which enabled him to go through the political parties. This is a luxury for Ahok since if his independent candidacy had failed to pass requirements, political parties could also support his candidacy. Given this situation, it is very difficult for the contenders to challenge him in the election.
On the economic front, anecdotal evidence showed faster growth for Q2 2016. Consumer product sales and motorcycle sales have increased faster in the first two months of Q2. Aside from the Muslim festive seasons, the government’s infrastructure program has started to move faster. The pulse of the economy can also be felt in the banking system, in which the level of CASA (Current and Savings Account) grew faster than before.
At the same time, on the external front, the May 2016 trade balance reported a smaller surplus than April, partly due to higher oil prices. Exports in May reached $11,511.0 billion, up 0.31% month over month, while imports reached $11,135.4 billion, up 2.98%, leaving a trade surplus of around $375.6 million. Non-oil exports were $10,553.4 billion, a decline of 0.29% from April. On the other hand, non-oil imports were $9,466.8 billion, up 0.16% from April. With the May surplus, in the first five months of this year the trade balance registered a surplus of $2,696.2 million.
On the domestic front, the CPI in May registered 0.24% inflation, which leaves year-on-year inflation at 3.33%. Inflation year to date was 0.4%. With that level of inflation, the Central Bank remained confident that inflation for the year would remain within the target corridor of 3% to 5%. In order to stimulate the economy, Bank Indonesia decided to reduce the benchmark interest rate further, by 25 basis points, to reach 6.50%.
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