Covering the Jakarta Government is a lot of work because of all the moving parts that journalists have to get a hold of. We have to always make a decision on whether to follow Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo patrolling the city, or to stay at the City Hall and follow up on issues with key officials. It’s a choice we always have to make, and this is a good thing because the moving parts represent the Jakarta Government doing their job. The question is: are they doing it right?

The more we look into the names of legislative candidates from Islamic parties the more confused we are at their choices. They’re either old names (with considerable political baggage), or household names (that often seem oddly placed in electoral districts bound for a clash of titans). What does this say about the state of Islamic parties?

Yesterday, we talked about the challenges that Islamic parties are currently facing, and how they seemed to have used the appeal to popularity in hope of ramping up their electability. This is reflected in Islamic parties’ list of legislative candidates, who are either existing lawmakers, cabinet members, public figures, or celebrities. Why bother working to shape a candidate and make them popular if you can tap those who are already famous?

Five Islamic political parties will participate in the 2014 elections, and all five of them are struggling to improve their electability, as demonstrated by the results of various surveys. But despite the challenges, all five Islamic parties seem to be confident with their odds. They’ve advanced a lot of current lawmakers, cabinet members, public figures, and also celebrities as vote getters in their lists of legislative candidates. So, let’s find out who the candidates are.

Discussions on modern retail, at times, feel very political. But not without reason. The people who consider modern retail as the byproduct of the evil capitalism are amongst those who are negatively impacted by the aggressive expansion of chains of convenience stores. The problem is when the same group of people conclude that modern retail is altogether bad, as if to dismiss the existence of locally grown small to medium size modern retailers.

One of the keys to success in a presidential race is momentum. Many believe that Prabowo Subianto has lost his — he had it in 2009, and today is Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s time. Nevertheless, Prabowo still believes that he has the chance. So, let’s review his performance.

Semen Baturaja (SMBR) is the first cement company releasing full year 2013 results. This company booked net profit of Rp312 billion from sales revenue of Rp1.17 trillion, representing net profit margin (NPM) of 27%. Semen Gresik and Indocement reported NPM of 22.5% and 27% respectively in nine months of 2013. There is no public information about profitability of Semen Bosowa, but one could guess.

Bakrie Group dominated acquisitions few years ago despite troubles at its main locomotive: Bumi Resources. Chairul Tanjung’s CT Corp followed with over US$1 billion acquisition of retail giant Carrefour Indonesia, stakes in flag carrier Garuda Indonesia or cable TV network TelkomVision from Telkom. Now people talk about Bosowa Group.