Thousands of people are expected to join demonstrations across Indonesia on Tuesday, police and union leaders said, as anger grows over the government’s hike in subsidized fuel prices in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy. President Joko Widodo, under pressure to control the burgeoning energy subsidy budget, announced on Saturday that the price of the subsidized fuel would increase by about 30% after weeks of speculation.
Said Iqbal, head of the Indonesian Trade Union Federation, said in a statement late Monday that up to 5,000 people would protest in Jakarta and thousands more elsewhere to demand the government reverse the decision, which hit workers, farmers, fishermen and the urban poor. the hardest. Small rallies were held over the weekend and again on Monday, with burnt tires and blocked roads as students and workers vented their anger over the decision, which comes at a time of rising food prices and an economy still reeling from the effects of the pandemic.
Endra Zulpan, a Jakarta police spokesman, said on Tuesday that nearly 7,000 police had been deployed in and around the capital ahead of Tuesday’s protests. The head of the national police on Monday ordered the regional authorities to maintain calm and increase efforts to explain to the public why the increase in fuel prices was necessary. Subsidized fuel is a politically sensitive issue in Indonesia, but the government has worked hard to soften the blow by introducing a number of compensation measures, including direct cash transfers.
The president said on Saturday that raising fuel prices, the first since 2014, was his last option because of mounting fiscal pressures.The move would cut subsidy spending by about 48 trillion rupiah ($3.22 billion) this year to 650 trillion rupiah, the deputy finance minister said Monday, but would also see inflation accelerate.
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