Abdi Negara Nurdin, popularly known as Abdee, the guitarist of the band Slank, has been appointed as commissioner of PT Telkom Indonesia. Minister of State-Owned Enterprises Erick Thohir appointed Abdee at Telkom’s annual general meeting of shareholders last Friday (28 May).

Arya Sinulingga, an expert staff at the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises, explained that for now, the minister encourages Abdee to create content for Telkom. “We know that Telkom is not really strong in terms of content, and this needs to be improved (onwards),” Sinulingga added, “Abdee will then provide assistance to strengthen Telkom’s content to be sold to the public.”

Telkom Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications & Investor Relations Ahmad Reza supported this notion. According to him, Abdee has extensive experience in dealing with the digital world and has huge concern about intellectual property. “The digital industry is closely related to intellectual property,” Reza explained, “from his track record, we learn that he is concerned about the issue of intellectual property.”

However, there are speculations that the appointment is made as a form of gratitude for Abdee’s support as President Joko Widodo’s volunteer campaigner. Lina Miftahul Jannah, a public policy observer from Universitas Indonesia, said the government should explain to the public the reasons behind Abdee’s appointment to prevent such speculations from rising.