Former General Kivlan Zen Mocks SBY

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - In between his activities at a protest before the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) headquarters on Thursday, former chief of staff of the Army's Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad) Kivlan Zen jested about former Indonesian president-cum-Democrat Party leader Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and politician Andi Arief.  

Kivlan mainly quipped about Andi Arief’s tweet that made headlines in which the latter claimed Prabowo Subianto was being influenced a “bald demon” with false information.

“In fact, he’s the bald demon. Andi Arief is the demon, he is. How can he consider us as bald demons? The gender of Democrat members is unclear, the same goes to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), who attempted to keep Prabowo from becoming a presidential candidate,” said Kivlan at the location of the protest on Thursday.

Kivlan, who’s the protest’s initiator, went as far as to call SBY a deceitful retired general who did not want any other general to aim at the presidential seat. 

Read: Retired Gen. Kivlan Zen Reported to Police over Alleged Coup

“[SBY] does not want any other retired generals to become president. He’s a cunning man,” said Kivlan, who stirred his followers into chanting about disqualifying the Jokowi–Ma’ruf Amin ticket from the 2019 presidential election.

When asked about Kivlan’s controversial statement, the head of Democrat's legal team, Ferdinand Hutahaean, said it was an overreaction and that the demeaning words from the former general were unnecessary.

“I think that Kivlan Zen’s words are unnecessary. He doesn’t know how hard SBY (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono) fought to help Prabowo–Sandiaga win,” said Ferdinand on Thursday, May 9. 

HALIDA BUNGA FISANDRA | FIKRI ARIGI