TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The spokesperson for Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar's winning team Billy David said that Anies' statement about Prabowo Subianto's 340,000 hectares of land during the last presidential debate was not novel data. According to Billy, Anies Baswedan was just citing the data told by President Joko Widodo or Jokowi in the presidential debate five years ago.

Billy said that Anies used the data to criticize Prabowo in his capacity as a Defense Minister who failed to provide welfare, especially in regarding housing for Indonesian soldiers.

"If Mr. President (Jokowi) remembers, that was his criticism five years ago in the 2019 presidential debate," he said in Jakarta on Monday.

Thus, he believed it was improper if President Jokowi claimed the criticism was personal in nature and a deviation from the theme of the debate.

"I believe it was not personal, since we have the data to compare. For example, those 340,000 [hectares] compared to soldier's housings," he said.

During his vision statement, Anies mentioned the fact that Prabowo had 340,000 hectares of land in contrast with the lack of housing for hundreds of thousands of Indonesian soldiers. Prabowo denied the statement.

The issue also emerged during the presidential debate five years ago when Jokowi and Prabowo faced each other in the 2019 presidential debate. During the time, Jokowi said the Gerindra Party politician's land consisted of 220,000 hectares of land in East Kalimantan and 120,000 hectares of land in Aceh.

The then-vice president Jusuf Kalla confirmed the statement. He was the one who approved the purchase of Prabowo Subianto's 220,000 hectares of land in 2004, he said. However, he also claimed that the purchase was a legal one.

SULTAN ABDURRAHMAN

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