REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Former Coordinating Minister for the Ministry of Marine Affairs Rizal Ramli criticized Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati for teasing the University of Indonesia (UI) student activist who gave yellow card to President Joko Widodo. Sri Mulyani said that the students should learn macro economics first before staging a demonstration.
Defending the student activist, Rizal also left a comment on a Twitter post from a news site. He assessed Sri Mulyani did not understand democracy and Sri Mulyani should learn more about basic finance.
"It was very tacky. In democary, we may have different opinions. No use of going to college if you only could lend money with high interest, Indonesia's yield bonds is two to three percents higher than Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam. It costs us millions of dollar loss, don't you realize that? Why don't you learn basic finance again," he tweeted in @RamliRizal, quoted by Republika.co.id on Tuesday.
In his new tweets, Rizal re-tweet an article that criticized Sri Mulyani policy. "Under Finance Minister Sri Mulyani, Indonesia Loss Rp 121 trillion and 6.7 million US Dollar."
Rizal also battled against Sri Mulyani opinion saying that people must take higher education before holding a rally. "Not all of 260 million of Indonesian peole learn macro economics, in facts, not all go to college. Are those 260 million people not allowed to critize the government?" Rizal re-tweeted from @riyanto_krida.
Sri Mulyani's criticism was directed to UI's Chairman of Student Executive Board, Zaadit Taqwa who held up a yellow card for the president during the 68th anniversary of University of Indonesia, Depok, West Java, on Friday (Feb 2).
He was immediately secured and herded out by the Presidential Security Force (Paspampres). According to Zaadit, the act was to indicate that the president has been cautioned. He wanted Jokowi to evaluate his policies .