THE upcoming elections in Indonesia could well be playing a part in fuelling the recent spate of incidents which have ruffled Singapore’s feathers.

At an international defence conference in Jakarta last week, two Indonesian marines posed as Usman Mohamed Ali and Harun Said, the perpetrators of the MacDonald House bombing in 1965.

This follows Indonesia’s decision last month to name a new frigate as the KRI Usman Harun, after the duo who were executed in Singapore.

… “In an election year, it may be difficult for the Indonesian government to backtrack on its decision to name a warship after the two marines, now that the issue has become public knowledge in Indonesia,” wrote Associate Professor Leonard Sebastian of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University.