Rain and Elections

Padang stands. The tsunami I was warned about never happened, but floods in Padang actually swept away more than 200 houses this week, so maybe "superstition" was premature. The rains have been heavy in many parts of the country and in Central Java a mudslide claimed the lives of more than a hundred people.
I can’t quite decide whether this is just normal "rainy season" or whether the past few years have really been exceptionally bad.

I remember as a kid in primary school, there was a terrible train accident involving a bus full of school-children. If I remember correctly, there was one especially enlightened rabbi/politician who explained that the number of kids killed wasn’t due to chance. It was the exact number of defected mezuzot in the school (a mezuzah is a small parchment of prayer placed on door-posts, including in every classroom).

A very infamous enlightened-one opined on the deadly mudslides here this week as well. AFP reported on Abu Bakar Bashir’s brief visit to the site:

"This was likely caused by immoral acts going on here," 69-year-old Bashir told reporters during his 10-minute visit, without elaborating.

"This could be a lesson to be learned," he admonished.

Bashir served more than two years for his role in a "sinister conspiracy" that led to the 2002 Bali bombings which left 202 people dead. The Supreme Court last December overturned his conviction.

This week was also the three year anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, of course. I had plans to make it back there this month, but they’ve been postponed.

This is from my visit in 2005, 10 months after the tsunami. This used to be a neighborhood:

---

On a completely different (deep-nerd political science) note, here’s a campaign add from the recent Jakarta gubernatorial elections from my neighborhood.

It reads:
Let's go - put Jakarta back in order!
"We want [it], we're capable, we can!"

This is an ad for Adang, the candidate backed by the pretty radically Islamic PKS. This is the well-organized and disciplined upstart, strongest in Jakarta. In 1999 they ran on a sharia based platform and failed. Turning to anti-corruption in 2004, they got over 7% of the vote (the largest party, Golkar, only got 22%), and have been doing well in local elections since.





PKS scared the other parties sufficiently that in these gubernatorial elections, practically everyone else backed the incumbent deputy governor (Fauzi Bowo) and prevailed. More than one person has remarked that it disproves the power of democratic electoral accountability if the present incumbent deputy governor of Jakarta can get elected governor (but I've heard more favorable opinions too).


And here's a guy wearing a free t-shirt on a Jakarta overpass.



















Happy new year!