Jakarta. Vice President Jusuf Kalla received a courtesy call by the Chairperson of the Parliament of Georgia David Usupashvili at his office, today.
At the meeting, Mr Usupashvili stated that Georgia is willing to further its relationship with Indonesia, especially in parliamentary affairs and democracy. As a country newly developing a democratic system, he said, Georgia needs to learn from Indonesia’s best practices in democracy, particularly as Indonesia has a large number of populations and is so diverse in religions, ethnics, culture, and languages.
“There are only five million people living in Georgia, a relatively small number in population. We need to learn from a big country like Indonesia to develop democracy, a party system, and general elections, which we find crucial for a new-born nation after gained its independence from the Soviet Union,” said Mr Usupashvili.
The Vice President welcomed Georgia’s aspiration to learn from best practices of democracy in Indonesia. He added that Indonesia was founded on the basis of tolerance.
“Indonesia is a very tolerant country, both in democracy and religions. Our parliament consists of members coming from multi parties, multi ethnics, and multi religions. Although there are some religion-based parties, we treat them all the same, based on democracy and tolerance,” said Mr Kalla.
He then hoped that trade relationship between Indonesia and Georgia would improve considering the big potentials of the two countries. Indonesia, he continued, is deemed as successful in developing democracy after undergoing a long reformation process of more than 15 years and even now the country is still in the transition era towards a better democracy.
The Vice President also underscored the importance of preserving peace, including preventing and fighting against terrorism and radicalism, as the most important factor in building democracy.
“Peace is important as it is not only closely related to politics but also economy, energy, and so on,” he said.
At the end of the meeting, Mr Usupashvili said Georgia is open for Indonesians to visit, invest, and do business in the country. Georgia has opened its embassy in Jakarta since 2012 and soon will open other offices in ASEAN countries.
Before meeting up with the Vice President, Mr Usupashvili and delegate had visited some high state institutions, such as the House of Representatives (DPR) and the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR).