State-Owned
Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan’s move of exiting his car, which was stuck in
a long queue backed up in front of a Jakarta toll gate, forcefully opening the
gates of two unattended toll lanes and allowing 100 vehicles to drive through
for free on Monday morning has stirred up a deal of public attention.
The
minister also reportedly reprimanded state-owned toll operator PT Jasa Marga’s
top management shortly after the incident.
The keyword
“Dahlan Iskan” is now being named as one of the trending topics in Indonesia on
Twitter today. Most of the tweets praised the minister’s move -- some of them
even encouraged the media mogul to run for president in 2014.
“Mr. Dahlan
Iskan FTW! He’s so cool! All public officials should have done this!” said account
@jojosuherman.
Noted
composer Addie MS posted on Twitter: “Dahlan Iskan let cars pass without paying
toll fees to break the long queues, and reprimanded Jasa Marga’s executive
director soon after. [The director] deserved that!”
Meanwhile,
account @adjisdoaibu questioned the minister’s actions, asking, “Why did he do
that? Couldn’t he wait? Would he be as angry as that if the queue had been
caused by the President’s motorcade?”
On his
Twitter account, Dahlan said he was not furious; he only wanted to break the
frustrating traffic congestion.
The
minister was on his way to a meeting at national flag carrier Garuda
Indonesia’s office when he got caught in a line of about 30 cars waiting to
enter the Semanggi toll gate in Slipi, West Jakarta at around 6 a.m.
“I was not
only angry, I was extremely furious,” he was quoted as saying this morning.
