Whatever you think of the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – or ‘SBY’, as people here call him – he’s here to stay. After winning the election last July, he is set to enjoy another five years in power. There was an interesting article about him and the challenges he faces on the BBC News website yesterday.
There was some great political vocabulary in the article that I would like to have a look at. The first piece is in the title:
Indonesia leader starts new term
In this case, a ‘term‘ is the time period for which someone works in a certain political position. We sometimes call it a ‘term of office‘, too. In this case, his ‘term of office‘ will be the next five years.
There were some great words in the first and second paragraph, too. We have seen all of them before on the World of Words. ‘Sworn in‘ was in this article, as was ‘polls’. We have also seen ‘clamp down on‘ before, meaning to eliminate or stop an activity from happening.
In the third paragraph, there is an interesting expression where the author mentions a ‘state body’. This expression means an organisation or agency run by the government.
Slightly later on, the expression ‘poverty line‘ is mentioned. The ‘poverty line‘ is the minimum income required to live adequately in a country. The current level set for the poverty line by the World Bank is about one dollar a day. If you earn less than this, you are below the poverty line, if you earn more you are above it.
There’s another really nice specific piece of vocabulary further into the article. Indonesia is described as an ‘archipelago‘. This means a chain of islands. There are thousands of islands in Indonesia and that helps make it a really diverse place. In fact, part of the national philosophy is ‘Unity in Diversity’.
This paragraph, slightly later in the article, is packed with great expressions:
Analysts have said President Yudhoyono must appoint technocrats and professionals rather than career politicians to his new cabinet in order to attract flagging foreign investment.
A ‘technocrat‘ is a real expert who is active in party politics, whereas a ‘career politician‘ is someone who is in politics to make a lot of money or just to become powerful. The ‘cabinet‘ is the group of politicians making up the main government. In this situation, ‘flagging‘ foreign investment means that foreign investment is decreasing or not developing to a satisfactory level.
The last interesting word in this article is right near the end where it is mentioned that some of the other candidates tried to have the election results ‘annulled‘. This just means that they tried to have them dared ‘not valid’.
Do you have a lot of ‘career politicians‘ in your country?
Today’s image is by B.S.K.