Win for Yudhoyono in Indonesia's 2009 Presidential Election

Yudhoyono, who is likely to continue as president of Indonesia. (Photo from brianakira.wordpress.com/page/46/)

Indonesia, the world's 19th largest economy, has been having a presidential election and the result will probably please the USA.

However, the USA, China and Russia are all competing for influence in Southeast Asia, and Yudhoyono, expected to continue as Indonesian president, could opt to do defence deals with Russia and China, as well as the USA and Europe. (Asia Times Online - Indonesia-Russia: Arms.)

Exit polls, broadcast by Metro TV, show that former General Yudhoyono, thought to be a friend of the USA, has 58.51% of the vote.

Yudhoyono's rivals, Megawati Sukarnoputri and Jusuf Kalla have 26.32 and 15.18 percent respectively.

Note that in the world's biggest Moslem country all the presidentail candidates are secular figures.

Voters tend not to like Islamists, as such people are usually front men for feudal fascists linked to the worst elements of the CIA or Mossad.

Indonesia's economy has been growing at 6% per year. But many people are unemployed and hungry.

Yudhoyono probably is the real winner.

Megawati's running mate was the controversial General Parabowo, regarded by many as a war criminal and friend of the Pentagon; and Kalla is not Javanese and has been linked to corruption and big business.

Mind you, there have been allegations of vote rigging in the past.

On 18 February 2009, East Java police chief Herman Sumawiredja announced that his investigators had found evidence of criminal fraud in the elections of a governor.

Reportedly, over 27% of the names on some voting lists were fake. The next day, Sumawiredja was removed from his post by police HQ in Jakarta.

Sumawiredja refused to remain silent. Source: Free and fair election in Indonesia?

Indonesia is the biggest Moslem country in the world and has the 4th biggest population in the world.

Indonesia has had economic growth of more than 6% for the last two years, but unemployment and poverty are huge problems.

We have seen many malnourished children in Indonesia.

More than 2 million Indonesians enter the labour market every year and there are not enough jobs.

That has led to a jobless rate of 8.25%, considerably higher than that of its regional neighbours. Economy dominates Indonesia election

President Yudhoyono has been criticised for his free market policies, and for 'kowtowing to the West'.

Indonesia's poverty rate is amongst the highest in Asia.

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Post-Katrina Blues

From an article by Trinh Le and Jeffrey Buchanan at Counterpunch:

Despite President Barack Obama's decision to allow residents living in FEMA Trailers to remain in their trailers while the federal government partners with residents to find permanent housing, the Biloxi City Council is preparing to take action to kick these hurricane survivors out of their city. The Biloxi City Council will vote June 16th on an ordinance, backed by the City's community development office, forcing FEMA trailers to be removed from residential zones by August 9th. Housing and human rights advocates have denounced the proposed ordinance as another step in the victimization and marginalization of residents with disabilities, low income, elderly, immigrant, and minority survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita by their elected officials.

Chuck Rogers, a long-time Biloxi resident is currently living in a trailer along Redding Street as he works with Hope Community Development Agency, a community-based nonprofit working to find permanent homes for Katrina survivors, to redesign a new home for his lot. He is eager to move out of his trailer but now fears the city council ordinance will set back his plans to rebuild saying, "I'm just trying to do the best I can to build to the future."

"I think it's important that the city recognizes that everyone has not recovered completely from Katrina and that a number of people are still working on their homes," said Ward 2 Councilman Bill Stallworth, an outspoken critic of the ordinance who also serves as Executive Director of Hope Community Development Agency. "It will be unconscionable for the city to throw its citizens onto the streets."

"Biloxi will run afoul of the federal Fair Housing Act if the trailer occupants it displaces include high numbers of racial minorities, persons with disabilities, or single mothers with children," noted Reilly Morse, an attorney with the Mississippi Center for Justice.

Nearly 4 years have passed since Katrina struck New Orleans, and the victims are slowly, but surely, melting into an indistinguishable populace of poverty. Sadly, they appear doomed to live as perpetuately internally displaced people.