Indonesia's transition: The good, the
bad, the ugly By Gary LaMoshi
DENPASAR, Bali - The month between Indonesia's
presidential vote and Wednesday's inauguration of the
country's first directly elected president brings to
mind the classic Clint Eastwood spaghetti western,
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. New legislators,
incoming president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and outgoing
president Megawati Sukarnoputri, respectively, have
filled the title roles in this Indonesian drama.
Casting legislators as good guys in Indonesia
goes against type, and little appeared different during
the opening days of the lawmakers' organizing session
early this month. Golkar party chairman Akbar Tanjung,
who leads the four-party Nationhood Coalition that holds
305 of 550 seats in the House of Representatives (DPR)
and supported Megawati's election bid, said the
coalition would become an opposition bloc against
Yudhoyono's government, without even asking what
Yudhoyono may have in mind for the country.
That
declaration fit the pattern of the House that Tanjung
has chaired for the past five years, a body more
interested in playing politics than passing laws. A move
in the waning moments of its September session to cut
the fuel-subsidy budget appeared to be the opening salvo
in a legislative campaign to undermine Yudhoyono before
he even began his term (see Yudhoyono's signs of style, not
substance, September 28).
It was business as
usual when the legislative session got under way with a
dispute over electing the legislative leadership. (New
legislators were sworn in to a newly reformed parliament
on October 4.) The protracted deliberations gave
lawmakers several extra days to enjoy their luxurious
hotel rooms and expense payments. Surprisingly, the
results didn't follow form.
Usual
suspects Despite grumbling from Megawati's
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P),
Tanjung's Nationhood Coalition quickly elected Golkar
veterans to lead the House and the new 128-seat,
senate-style Regional Representatives Council (DPD). In
the process, however, the coalition group lost the
United Development Party, a Muslim party that teamed
with Yudhoyono's supporters to run rival candidates.
Electing leaders to the People's Consultative
Assembly (MPR), the body combining the House and DPD,
proved more contentious. While Tanjung traded horses
within his coalition to create an acceptable leadership
lineup, its new rival and supporter of Yudhoyono, now
known as the People's Coalition, gained enough strength
to elect Hidayat Nur Wahid of the Prosperous Justice
Party (PKS) as Speaker of the MRP.
Under
Indonesia's new bicameral legislative system, the MPR
has the power to amend the constitution and impeach the
president and vice president. Wahid's election signals
that, at least for the moment, Yudhoyono is safe from
impeachment (don't laugh - analysts said Tanjung hoped
to oust Yudhoyono just as the MPR impeached president
Abdurrahman Wahid in 2001) and is picking up strength
among legislators to get laws passed.
This
political infighting wouldn't matter much to real
Indonesians, except that PKS is a maverick among
political parties. It was one of only two parties -
Yudhoyono's Democratic Party is the other - to increase
its share in national legislative voting in April
compared with elections in 1999. PKS is a grassroots
Islamic party that grew by campaigning in local mosques
on a reform platform and won the most seats on Jakarta's
city council.
Great expectations Of
course, the same could be a said of Amien Rais, the
academic turned activist turned politician with a
reputation for honesty and the previous MPR Speaker. His
first move as Speaker was spearheading the alliance to
deny Megawati the presidency in 1999, undermining his
reformist credentials and showing himself to be more
interested in power politics than policy. A poor showing
in this year's presidential election ended Rais'
political career.
Wahid has gotten off to a much
better start as MPR Speaker. Among his first acts, he
declared that he and his deputies would turn down
US$400-a-day royal suites at the posh Mulia Hotel during
MPR sessions and request more economical cars than the
Volvo limousines allotted to them.
Critics have
dismissed the declarations as empty gestures. No doubt
the bitter leadership fight that seated Wahid and the
last legislature's paltry lawmaking output may indicate
more accurately what's ahead. But Wahid's gesture and
others like it are badly needed in Indonesia, where
politicians see public office as an opportunity not to
serve the public but for the public to serve them.
Witness these ugly final days of Megawati's
presidency. Megawati has yet to concede defeat in the
September 20 runoff election despite losing by 61% to
39%, a margin of about 25 million votes. She's refused
to meet with Yudhoyono and says she won't attend his
inauguration.
One can dismiss these petty
slights of a politician scorned. One can even chuckle as
Megawati hands out promotions to her personal assistants
or vice president Hamzah Haz sends the household staffs
for both of his wives on an off-season haj, the
cost to a bankrupt nation notwithstanding. What's
dangerous is that Megawati's government continues to
make decisions with long-term implications, oblivious to
the election result that explicitly rejected its rule.
Armed forces chief General Endriartono Sutarto
resigned unexpectedly this month when the results of the
runoff vote were no longer in doubt. Megawati moved
immediately to replace him with General Ryamizard
Ryacudu, an army officer like Sutarto. Not only does
Megawati's move undercut the incoming president's
authority, but it also undermines the convention that
the country's top military job rotates among the
services.
Megawati's regime has also made
decisions about closing state companies and reorganizing
their boards of directors. These moves would seem to
engender disrespect for democracy. Any major decisions
that can be delayed should be left to the new president;
those decisions are part of the proper exercise of
Yudhoyono's mandate.
As good as it
gets What's bad in this pre-election scenario is
that Yudhoyono seems to have little idea about
exercising his mandate. Although he'll have at least
five years in which to make a mark on the nation, he has
failed to seize the initiative at this key moment. The
former general and newly minted holder of an
agricultural-economics PhD is cementing his reputation
for preferring thinking to acting - more comfortable in
the war room talking through scenarios than on the front
lines commanding troops.
Megawati's refusal to
concede defeat clearly wrong-footed Yudhoyono, who
delayed his victory speech until five days after the
official results were announced. When he did take the
mike, Yudhoyono offered the same platitudes and
generalities he had during the campaign. He said he
would improve the economy, eradicate corruption and
enact his policies in the first 100 days. Most memorably
but least relevantly, he pledged not to travel overseas
during his first 100 days, a jab at Megawati and her
fondness for shopping abroad.
If Yudhoyono
didn't have to get down to specifics to get elected,
perhaps he sees little reason to do it now. He can
follow the advice of former US president Theodore
Roosevelt, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," even if
there's little evidence to date of the big stick.
Yet now is a moment when Yudhoyono could set a
tone for his administration and mark boundaries for
prospective ministers. He never will have more leverage
over his ministers than he does at this time, nor more
freedom to set out his vision for the nation.
Instead, Yudhoyono has leaked details of office
organization. Similarly, it seems that the People's
Coalition has emerged ready to support Yudhoyono,
without his active participation. Some analysts believe
that many legislators will gravitate toward Yudhoyono's
camp, anxious for presidential favors, so patience and
platitudes will serve him best. That approach echoes
Javanese legends, where true royalty waits for power to
come to it rather than crassly seeking it out.
In the modern world of Javanese power plays,
Yudhoyono's deliberate, quiet performance since the
runoff helps explain how he could successfully serve
presidents as different as Suharto, Abdurrahman Wahid
and Megawati. But such a performance from a president
rather than an officer or minister is precisely the sort
of weak leadership that Indonesians voted against last
month. A hopeful nation anxiously awaits evidence that
Yudhoyono got the message.
Gary
LaMoshi, a longtime editor of investor rights
advocate eRaider.com, has also contributed to Slate and
Salon.com. He has worked as a broadcast producer and as
a print writer and editor in the United States and Asia.
He moved to Hong Kong in 1995 and now splits his time
between there and Indonesia.
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