Analyse Gurita Cikeas Book

Buku Gurita Cikeas / Gurita Cikeas Book is important for people.At least two of the country’s biggest bookstore chains have refused to sell a controversial book that claims that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party received illegal campaign contributions during the 2009 elections.

Titled “Membongkar Gurita Cikeas: Di Balik Skandal Bank Century” (“Unraveling the Cikeas Octopus: Behind the Bank Century Scandal”), the book accuses the ruling party of using nonprofit foundations associated with the president to transfer funds to its coffers during the 2009 electoral season.

The book also claims that state funds used to bail out troubled Bank Century in 2008 were diverted to one of the foundations.

Andi Basuki, general manager of Buku Kita, the book’s distributor, said that PT Gramedia Asri Media and PT Toko Gunung Agung have both refused to sell the book at their outlets.

“Both stores said that they wouldn’t put the book on display until there is a decision from the government whether the book is safe to sell or not,” Andi said.

“We just received the notification from Gunung Agung at 10 a.m. [on Monday]. Now we have to cancel all deliveries to Gunung Agung outlets.”

Officials from Gunung Agung were not available to comment on the sensitive issue on Monday.

Gramedia recalled the books from its outlets on Sunday. Nugroho F Yudho, a spokesman for Kompas Gramedia, the holding company for Gramedia bookstores, said on Monday that it had to “embargo” the book because it contained “unverifiable data.”

With major retailers refusing to sell the book, buying it has become something of a daunting task. However, the decision may only add to people’s curiosity with online chat rooms and social networking sites quickly filling with people looking for the book.

On the microblogging site Twitter, “Gurita Cikeas” became one of the hottest topics among Indonesian users with an average of three to seven posts every minute. The majority of the posts asked others how to go about obtaining the book.

There are at least four groups in the social networking site Facebook that call for people to support the book and oppose attempts to ban it. One group called “Support the Publishing of Unraveling the Cikeas Octopus” had already gained more than 1,000 members by Monday evening.

With so much publicity and notoriety, sales of the book have been overwhelming with distributors all over the country already running out of stock.

Andi said people had flocked to his office in the hopes of buying the book in bulk.

“We only have limited supplies of the book,” he said.

“The 1,400 copies that we had stored were sold out in a matter of hours. So many eager buyers went home empty handed.”

Julius Felicianus, CEO of the book’s publisher, Galang Press, said his company was already preparing for a second print run of 5,000 copies to cope with the high demand.

With scarce supplies and major retailers refusing to sell the book, people have resorted to alternative channels to source copies. One man, who asked to remain anonymous, said that he finally got a copy of the book from someone he met in an online chat room, but only after agreeing to pay them Rp 950,000 for it — more than 25 times its retail value of Rp 36,000.