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SBY’s Self-Promoting Holiday Gifts ‘Arrogant’
Camelia Pasandaran | August 18, 2010

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Valkyrie
6:04pm Aug 25, 2010

"Personal Sources".....hmmmmm! I wonder what he meant by that and I truly hope that the resources came from "clean" money.


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Jakarta. The president’s odd choice of souvenirs for his Independence Day guests on Tuesday has drawn criticism, with one pundit lambasting him for arrogance.

The gifts, traditionally handed out to state guests and dignitaries invited to the State Palace for the Aug. 17 ceremony, this year took the form of a book containing an interview with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s eldest son, a picture book chronicling First Lady Ani Yudhoyono’s love of batik and an anthology of speeches by world leaders, including Indonesia’s head of state.

“The president doesn’t seem able to differentiate between the private and public domains,” Yunarto Widjaja, a political communications and marketing research expert and director of Charta Politika, said on Wednesday.

“It’s unethical to involve one’s private dealings in a state event. From the political communication perspective, Yudhoyono was being arrogant by using his power to promote his and his family’s profile.”

The interview with Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono was commissioned by Jurnal Nasional, a newspaper owned by the president’s family.

Presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha said the government did not pay for the gifts.

“Handing out these souvenirs is a routine thing,” he said, declining to say who bankrolled the publishing of the picture book, “Batikku: Wordless Love Dedication.”

“The interview was the initiative of Jurnal Nasional. I can assure you that the funding came from personal sources, and not from the state budget.”

He said the president was “well aware of the line between personal and public responsibilities.”

“The palace prefers to embrace new ideas rather than stick to a rigid set ways,” Julian said. “You shouldn’t see the Jurnal Nasional interview in too cynical a light.”

He said the speech anthology highlighted Yudhoyono as “a person who cares about the environment” and should be welcomed.

However, Yunarto said the issue extended to beyond just the funding for the souvenirs.

“It’s also about ethics, or the lack thereof, in which the president used a state event to further his own personal image,” he said.

Meanwhile, House of Representatives Speaker Marzuki Alie, from the Democratic Party, played down the controversy.

“Would this even have been an issue if anyone else had handed out souvenirs? Give it a break already,” he said.