Editorial
From million-rupiah shallots to unverified nuclear claims, President Prabowo Subianto's off-script habits are turning presidential rhetoric into viral punchlines - and putting the nation’s credibility on the line.
President Prabowo Subianto delivers his annual State of the Nation Address on Aug. 14 ahead of the country's Independence Day celebrations, in Jakarta. (AFP/Bay Ismoyo)
Rp 700,000 (US$40) to peel a kilogram of shallots. That was the eye-popping figure President Prabowo Subianto offered in his State of the Nation Address on Aug. 14, introducing a woman named Susanah from Bogor, West Java as proof that his welfare programs were working.Social media did the math within minutes: at that rate, a modestly productive shallot peeler would out-earn a university professor or even a cabinet minister. It turned out Susanah was not a shallot peeler at all. She was a scrap-fabric seamstress earning closer to Rp 700 a day, well below the poverty line.
Somewhere between the briefing notes and the podium, both the number and the story became garbled beyond recognition.
