TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Robertus Robet, a sociologist with the Jakarta State University (UNJ), said President Joko Widodo’s persistence in executing drug convicts was aimed at obscuring his past faux pas in other issues.
“He has been blasted [by the public] in many issues for his failure in taking a robust political stance, so he took a tough stance on death penalty,” he said after attending a discussion at the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) in Jakarta on Sunday, March 1, 2015.
Prior to the emergence of the bitter standoff between the Corruption Eradication Commission and the National Police, he added, the president only said he would take stern action against drug convicts. Yet after the case surfaced, the president seemed to take a stronger stance to cover up his weaknesses in coping with other public issues, he explained.
Six drug convicts were executed on Nusakambangan Island and in Boyolali, East Java in early January. The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) is now gearing up to put another 11 drug convicts before the firing squad after the president turned down their clemency requests.
Kontras coordinator Haris Azhar has also slammed the president over the imminent execution of the convicts, labeling the president’s move as fatalistic. “Capital punishment has proved ineffective as it is overlooking multiple considerations,” he said. “This is terrible news for all of us.”
Haris estimated the country would have to bear the consequences from Jokowi’s “firmness” on death penalty. Among them, he said, were deteriorating ties with other countries with which Indonesia had established sound cooperation.
MOYANG KASIH DEWIMERDEKA