Megawati: Problems in Democracy Caused by Lack of Ethics
Wednesday, 16 May, 2012 | 15:42 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:Chairman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Megawati Soekarnoputri says the core problem in Indonesian democracy is the lack of political ethics.

“And the lack of political morality, which prioritizes the congruence between words and actions,” said Megawati when giving a speech at Innsbruck University in Austria on Tuesday.

Megawati was invited to be the keynote speaker at Austria’s Innsbruck University for a seminar titled: “The Role of Women in Politics.”

In her speech Megawati said that as Indonesia’s fifth president, she had the opportunity to implement direct presidential elections for the first time.

“I was determined to truly implement [the elections] based on the principle of honesty, fairness and democracy. It wasn’t easy. The biggest challenge was to determine whether I should win or whether democracy should win,” Megawati continued.

Megawati firmly said that she picked the second option, which favored democracy because she believes the highest sovereignty is in the hands of the people.

(T.U002/S024)