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COMMENTARY
Megawati's anniversaries reveal her
vision
By Gary LaMoshi
DENPASAR, Bali - Last week, Indonesian President
Megawati Sukarnoputri marked her second anniversary in
her father's old job. This week, she failed to mark
another anniversary, a failure that reveals the reticent
Megawati's vision for her administration. For
Indonesia's poor and for foreign investors, it's not a
pretty picture.
Sunday, July 27, was the seventh
anniversary an assault on the Jakarta headquarters of
Megawati's Democratic Party of Indonesia (PDI) by thugs
from a rival faction backed by the Suharto regime.
Violence spread, resulting in at least five deaths and
150 injured on what came to be known as Black Saturday.
The attack thrust Megawati into the spotlight as
the focus of discontent with the Suharto regime. Without
Black Saturday, it's unlikely that Megawati would have
followed in the footsteps of her father Sukarno into the
big office in Merdeka Palace. In a fiery speech calling
for justice on the second anniversary of the attack,
Megawati declared, "That day will forever be part of the
nation's history."
Living
history
However, it's Megawati's memory of Black
Saturday anniversaries that's now history. Since
becoming president, she's ignored ceremonies
commemorating the attack and its victims. Efforts to
bring to justice the people responsible for the attacks
remain stalled, despite numerous investigations
presenting evidence of military involvement.
Human-rights investigators repeatedly pointed
the finger at the Jakarta military commander, General
Sutiyoso, who also presided over the 1997 shootings of
university students and anti-Chinese riots that led to
the downfall of Suharto. Rather than a jail term,
Sutiyoso is now serving his second term as Jakarta's
provincial governor. He's extremely unpopular, widely
perceived as corrupt and incompetent.
Amid
deteriorating quality of life in the capital, from
rising crime to gridlock, floods in 2001 that left the
city and his administration paralyzed seemed to doom
Sutiyoso's re-election hopes. But Megawati paddled to
his rescue, endorsing his re-election over objections
from many PDI faithful. She lamely explained that she
wanted a military veteran as governor to maintain order,
ignoring Sutiyoso's record of failure on that score as
both general and governor. More believable explanations
centered on political horse-trading for Megawati's own
2004 election bid and a graft partnership with her
husband, Taufik Kiemas. Whatever the reality, the
symbolism was both strong and revealing.
Back
to the future
Although Megawati came to prominence as
the leader of the Indonesian reform movement, she got
there as a beneficiary of circumstances rather than any
commitment to sweeping change. It's worth remembering
that Megawati first became the leader of PDI when it was
one of the three official political parties under
Suharto, providing a nominal rival to his designated,
guaranteed governing party Golkar. Two years into
Megawati's presidency, it's easy to see she's no agent
of change.
Her predecessor, Abdurrahman Wahid,
came from outside the Suharto-era political fold, and he
had a genuine interest in reform. Ineffectual and
isolated, Wahid nonetheless threatened to rock the boat.
The political establishment that stayed behind when
Suharto left got rid of him and put its money on
Megawati, who'd proved to be a solid bet.
As
president, Megawati has spread the spoils through a
large cabinet encompassing most establishment factions,
let the military have its way without meaningful reform
or punishment for past sins, and allowed the Suharto-era
tycoons to re-emerge without forfeiting any ill-gotten
gains.
Fighting corruption has given way to the
old belief that political position grants license to act
with impunity. The Speaker of the House, Akbar Tanjung,
is free on appeal of his corruption conviction and has
the inside track for Golkar's presidential nomination.
PDI and Golkar discussed an alliance for the 2004
election; a cynic might see running a convicted thief as
the next closest thing but there's no evidence that
voters will hold that against a candidate. Political
office is still seen as a license to self-enrichment; in
the past, voters have chosen the party they thought most
likely to let them wet their own beaks.
These
are the good old days
Stalled reform has ugly
implications for Indonesians beyond the power elite and
foreign investors. Economic policy has focused on macro
reforms - cutting interest rates, reducing the fiscal
deficit, strengthening the rupiah (see Rupiah defies Indonesia's gravity,
April 24) - rather than finding jobs for tens of
millions of unemployed and opening up the economy. The
primary beneficiaries have been entrenched interests,
who've been able to get more dollars for the rupiah they
make and move offshore.
It's easy to blame the
International Monetary Fund bailout program's reform
preferences for those policies. This week the government
announced its intention to leave the IMF program at the
end of the year. Rather than allow Megawati's regime to
do more to help the poor - although it's safe to assume
there will be plenty of handouts ahead of the election -
exiting the program will remove impetus for the
government to make any reforms at all. And there's still
plenty of room for reform.
The fiasco over PT
Kaltim Prima Coal (see Indonesia's bitter mining endgame,
July 24) that's driving away international giants BP and
Rio Tinto is just the latest example of how regulations
discriminate against foreign investors and government
leads the grab for teats on the milch cow. Under
Megawati, the center has weakened, paving the way for
more corrupt hands reaching from more directions.
Megawati's rule means that Indonesian courts are
still auction houses where justice goes to the highest
bidder, where the rich get richer, the military is
unchallenged and accountable in its fiefs, and investors
enter at their own risk. Don't worry if you forgot to
send Megawati a card for her anniversary, because this
style of rule has been going on in Indonesia for much
longer than two years. The names may change, but the
outcomes don't.
Sadly for the victims of Black
Saturday, it's not Suharto or the brass hats that killed
the reforms they died for. It's their champion, Megawati
Sukarnoputri.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online
Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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