28 October 2008

Stupid is as Stupid Does!

If this report turns out to be true, then some people are just too stupid for words. I do not know Wulan Guritno other than from the gossip columns and from her appearances on TV and film.

The times I have seen her on the idiot box (AKA television) she seemed to be well-spoken and smart. Now, looks can be deceiving and perhaps we have all been deceived.


Guritno is now suspected of forging her high school certificate. Why would she want to do this? It seems that she intended to run for a parliamentary seat on behalf of the National Mandate Party (PAN). Simply, any prospective candidate must have at least a high school qualification before they can qualify to stand in the election.

It seems the actress forged her qualification. The qualification was allegedly issued by an Italian based academy. The forgery mistake was supposedly to basic for words, the qualification was in the wrong name, specifically it was in the name of someone else (supposedly her sister).

It seems that the Indonesian Election Commission (
Komisi Pemilihan Umum / KPU) is set to strike her off the list of candidates unless she can come up with something that is able to stand the scrutiny of a validity check.

This is certainly a potentially embarrassing moment and one that begs the question, "if you had a high school qualification then why would you need to fake one?"

Oh well!

12 comments:

Katadia said...

Hi Rob.
Wulan's last posting on her blogspot page asked her reader's opinion on her Caleg plan.

I didn't know about the requirement that candidates must be a high school graduate. Really? I wonder why they make it 'high school'. The average educational attainment for the whole working age population of the country is surely less than that, no?

Rob Baiton said...

Hey KD...

I should probably track down her blog and link it into the post.

I better check that it is high school. I am pretty sure, but I will check.

Maybe parliament is not supposed to be for everybody :D

Even if there was no requirement then this would make it sillier still. Nevertheless, my point was, why would a seemingly smart young woman like this resort to falsifying a high school diploma?

schmerly said...

Rob…

I wonder how many of that mob in the DPR have (genuine) high school diplomas?
A few years ago the JP reported that 80% of the parliamentarians had only a rudimentary education, perhaps this isn’t the case nowadays maybe they are better educated yea mungkin! or is it we don’t want to many (females) in parliament do we?

Anonymous said...

Hei Rob,

one question from me...
why on earth actors and actresses want to be part of the parliament anyway?

Cheers

tere616.blogspot.com said...

Rob, if am not mistaken she's been deleted from the candidate because of her college degree in Italy.

Please click the link (sorry it's in Bahasa) http://www.kompas.com/read/xml/2008/10/28/1517566/wulan.guritno.palsukan.ijazah

And it's not only her but also late President Soekarno's daughter.

Rob Baiton said...

Schmerly...

I think that an education is relative, and that it is not necessarily a pre-cursor to whether or not you would make a good politician or not.

I do not think she is being singled out for being a woman. I do think that she makes a much better sound bite in a news sense than some farmer no one has ever heard of.

Mei...

Good question! Perhaps they think that they can do a better job :D

Or, perhaps they think that politicking is just like acting only the pay is worse.

Rob Baiton said...

Tere...

Don't worry about the Bahasa Indonesia thing (little little sih I can) :D

She has been struck off for falsifying her diploma and not because it was from Italy.

Yep, there are others.

Katadia said...

I personally think that we need better educated house of reps members. But then, that would not be democracy is it? ;)Cliche...

Unknown said...

Brains and beauty rarely combine!!

Except for us rugged handsome types.

Rob Baiton said...

KD...

What is educated? School / University based? Life?

A democracy, I would have thought, would do away with anything that was discriminative.

As I said before, having a high level of education is no guarantee that you will make a good politician or anything else for that matter.

GJ...

Rarely does, except for batik-wearing types :D

Katadia said...

Rob, my point precisely... as to why I questioned the high school graduate requirement in the first place.

I squirmed occasionally when listening to certain people being interviewed on telly (especially ones who just went on and on about ekonomi kerakyatan, convincingly, yet somewhat making it sound more unconvincing). But then again... it's democracy yeah? You get some good ones, you get some you won't even want to take you on a date! :)

So again, I totally agree on your point. Is hard to use formal educational qualifications as yardsticks of MPs performance. But then again, what is?

Rob Baiton said...

A good measure of an MP's performance might be what they achieve generally and specifically for their respective constituents.