Indonesia: 24 parties but nothing to
celebrate By Gary LaMoshi
DENPASAR, Bali - The Indonesian general election
campaign started with a bang last week, but it will end
with a whimper. Never have 24 parties given people so
little reason to celebrate.
Campaigning for the
April 5 legislative elections officially began on
Thursday. That vote sets the stage and the pecking order
for the country's first-ever direct presidential
election in July, with a runoff in September if no
candidate receives a majority in Round 1.
In
Jakarta and many provincial capitals, the campaign
kicked off with all-party parades. In 1999, these
displays of political pluralism after decades of guided
democracy and worse under presidents Sukarno and Suharto
drew crowds of well-wishers lining the streets. This
time, the parades drew yawns and jeers from onlookers,
as well as complaints about ensuing traffic jams.
Takin' it from the streets The elites,
not the streets, generated Thursday's electoral
excitement. President Megawati Sukarnoputri's
Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono resigned from his leading spot
in the cabinet. His resignation was the first from
Megawati's Gotong Royong (a traditional term for
"working together") cabinet, a rainbow coalition
stretching from Islamic hardliners to democratic
reformers. The group features several presidential
candidates, including Susilo, marked as Megawati's most
potent opponent in many polls.
Megawati's allies
have complained it's improper for cabinet members to run
against the president they serve. In a country where the
Speaker of the House and the central bank governor each
remained in office after corruption convictions -
eventually overturned by compliant courts - the idea of
propriety is still developing. Until Susilo bowed out,
no minister had moved toward the exit ramp.
Susilo's resignation culminated a week and a
half of charges, countercharges and name-calling. The
former three-star general claimed he'd been sidelined in
the cabinet. In response, Megawati's husband Taufik
Kiemas, a legislator and power broker in her ruling
PDI-P party, called Susilo "childish". The row
ostensibly revolved around drafting regulations for
cabinet members during the campaign, but it ignited only
after Susilo hit the airwaves in a public-service
announcement explaining voting procedures, apparently
produced and broadcast without presidential approval.
'Do you want to embarrass me?' Now
campaigning unencumbered for his tiny Democratic Party,
Susilo came to Bali, a PDI-P stronghold in 1999, on
Sunday and talked about promoting small businesses to
create jobs for all Indonesians and letting Bali keep
more of the revenues from the controversial policy of
selling entry visas (see Visa changes darken Bali's happy holiday
recovery, January 17).
Even that bit of
"chicken in every pot" fluff contrasts with Megawati's
speech here on Friday. She chided supporters about
predictions that PDI-P support has slipped since 1999,
when the party won seven of Bali's nine legislative
seats. "Do you want to embarrass me?" the president
asked before breaking into a song, apparently a
requirement for every candidate at rallies. On the
October 12, 2002, terrorist bombing after Megawati's
team derided foreign intelligence warnings and still
stifles tourism in Bali and throughout Indonesia? Or
that new visa policy that gives tourists another reason
to visit Malaysia or Thailand instead? Nary a word nor
note.
Susilo's standing in the polls also makes
him popular with larger parties as a potential running
mate, or even a headliner. His first stop after quitting
was a meeting with ousted president Abdurrahman Wahid,
aka Gus Dur, who fired Susilo from his cabinet just
before his own fall when Susilo opposed Wahid's scheme
to use the armed forces to avert impeachment; apparently
they've patched things up. Wahid's National Awakening
Party (PKB by its Indonesian abbreviation) is expected
to nominate Gus Dur again, but his history of strokes
and virtual blindness give him the option of ceding to
Susilo for health reasons without losing face.
Jakarta's foreign intelligentsia likewise gives
Susilo high marks, perhaps because he's the only
ex-general in the race without human-rights black marks
on his record. Despite nearly five years in the cabinet,
though, it's difficult to identify any initiative as
Susilo's. When I mentioned Susilo to an Indonesian
voter, she enthused, "I like him," but couldn't name any
of his policies or programs. That's frighteningly
similar to the rise and fall of US presidential hopeful
General Wesley Clark, who engendered initial enthusiasm
but seems to have left about 12 of his allotted 15
minutes of fame unused.
Sounds of
silence That's not to pick on Susilo; hardly any
candidate or party offers a coherent program. After a
few stumbles toward reform under Gus Dur, Megawati's
regime has largely embraced the military, the economic
elite and the corrupt system that flourished under
Suharto. Legislators across the board routinely fail to
act on 90 percent of the bills before them; what better
method for silently endorsing the status quo and killing
reform? Political office is still seen as a license for
personal enrichment, not a mandate for public service.
This in a nation with an estimated unemployment
rate of 40 percent, where economic policymakers opted
for macroeconomic gains and withdrawal from subsidized
international borrowing at the expense of investment,
faster growth and poverty eradication; martial law in
one province to combat armed secessionists and policies
that provoked separatist violence at the other end of
the archipelago; corruption on a massive scale pervasive
throughout the business and legal systems as well as
politics; an army that continues to operate beyond
civilian control; severe shortages of affordable health
care and education that could cut the poverty cycle; and
denial still the main response to terrorism by Islamic
militants and other groups.
In reaction to their
growing isolation from the political elite, people
largely view the campaign as an excuse to ride around
town waving party flags and get uang muka (face
money) for showing up at rallies that usually feature
popular singers as well as boring party speakers.
Displaying a level of cynicism that qualifies him for a
senior political post, one enterprising Jakartan
received Rp40,000 (US$4.62) plus a food voucher and
T-shirt for attending a PDI-P rally, then told the
Jakarta Post, "Actually, I am not going to vote for
PDI-P. I just want its money, that's all. I am willing
to accept money from other parties, too, to help in
their campaigns."
Indonesia desperately needs to
engage its citizenship in a conversation about the
nation it wants to build, before the rotten system
collapses. But this election is not a competition of
ideas or policies or even an opportunity to engage the
populace. It's simply a contest for power among parties
where no side wants to take a chance of being shut out.
Megawati's PDI-P is considering an election coalition
with the No 2 party Golkar, Suharto's ruling vehicle,
chaired by convicted-but-reprieved swindler Akbar
Tanjung (see Tanjung acquittal: Verdict against
reform, February 14).
That spectacle
shouldn't just make the advocates of reformasi
vomit and martyrs to that cause rise from their graves
for revenge. That, not any loss of support in Bali, is
what should shame Megawati and the 23 rival parties that
offer Indonesia so little to celebrate.
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Mar 16, 2004
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