Indonesian president’s phone plan backfires

June 14, 2005

Indonesian president’s phone plan backfires

A bid by Indonesia's first directly elected president to be closer to his people backfired over the weekend - he publicised his mobile phone number and thousands of calls promptly crashed the line.

As soon as Mr Yudhoyono gave out his number - +62 811 109 949 for those outside Indonesia - the media started broadcasting it nationwide. Within minutes the presidential mobile was inundated with calls and text messages, and by yesterday morning the flood of complaints had become so great that the service was overwhelmed

"The number is now clogged and cannot be used anymore. The president said there should be five more numbers, but we need to install a new computerised system first" Presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng

In his infinite wisdom good ol Bambang (sounds like a Flinstones kid doesn't he? the last one was called Megawati which sounded like a transformer) invited the nation to text msg him if they had a problem - this is Indonesia - everyone has a problem....

Spo | June 14, 2005