Best outcome<\/p>\n
One of the most frequently asked questions now that the House
\nof Representatives has called for a special session of the
\nPeople's Consultative Assembly is what will happen to Indonesia
\nbetween now and when that meeting actually takes place, assuming
\nthat it does take place at all.<\/p>\n
All things being equal, the Assembly will hold its meeting
\nwithin these next two months. The Assembly will ask for President
\nAbdurrahman Wahid's accountability. Given the current enmity
\nbetween the head of state and the majority in the legislature,
\nthe Assembly will likely reject his report and then remove him
\nfrom office. Although it is not automatically the case, there
\nseems to be a growing consensus that Vice President Megawati
\nSoekarnoputri will succeed Abdurrahman after his impeachment.<\/p>\n
But two months is a long, and potentially a very disruptive
\ntime for Indonesia. The people, and the international community,
\nwill have to endure that long period of even greater uncertainty
\nthan today, until the national leadership crisis is resolved
\nthrough this arduous and complex constitutional mechanism. All
\nother national agenda, including the process of economic
\nrecovery, will have to wait until this issue is settled.<\/p>\n
While this may be the constitutional path, it is not
\nnecessarily the best course for Indonesia, because it is
\npotentially divisive, and will leave a bitter aftertaste,
\nparticularly among the supporters of the combative President.<\/p>\n
This scenario, however, may not take place because anything
\ncan, and probably will, happen between now and the time the MPR
\nholds its special session. Looking at developments over the last
\nfew days, unfortunately, both the best and the worst case
\nscenarios have equal chances of materializing.<\/p>\n
The worst scenario is for widespread violence to flare,
\nplunging Indonesia, already on the brink of collapse, deeper into
\ncrisis. Violent protests by supporters of President Abdurrahman
\nwould spread beyond the existing few towns in his stronghold
\nprovince of East Java to other provinces.<\/p>\n
The President might then just get away with imposing a state
\nof emergency giving himself virtually unlimited powers, including
\nthe right to dissolve the House and Assembly to stop the
\nimpeachment process against him.<\/p>\n
It is now public knowledge that President Abdurrahman, in his
\ndesperation to cling to power, has tried to declare a state of
\nemergency on two occasions in the past week. He backed off only
\nafter senior members of his Cabinet opposed the scheme. The fact
\nthat he was still planning to go ahead, even when the Indonesian
\nMilitary (TNI) and the National Police had openly advised against
\nthe plan, suggests that he was desperate, and that he might still
\ntry to do so again for a third time. What happens to this nation
\nbeyond the declaration of a state of emergency is anybody's
\nguess. But the picture won't be pretty.<\/p>\n
The best case scenario, of course, is for a political
\ncompromise acceptable to all, but this option has virtually been
\nruled out now that the move for impeachment through the MPR has
\nbegun, and that relations between the President and the
\nlegislature have soured. Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party
\nof Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) and the Golkar party, which together
\ncontrol over 50 percent of the seats in the House, have already
\nstated that it is now almost too late to talk about a compromise.<\/p>\n
That leaves Abdurrahman's voluntary resignation as probably
\nthe best of all existing possible outcomes. Wednesday's vote in
\nthe House of Representatives should have sent the clearest
\nmessage so far of how low the popularity of the President has
\nfallen that he should now seriously consider the resignation
\noption and make a graceful if not respectable exit.<\/p>\n
For all its shortcomings, the House is still the best
\nreflection of the aspirations of the people in this country. The
\nHouse and the Assembly are the outcomes of the 1999 general
\nelection, billed as the most democratic Indonesia held in over
\nfour decades. Consequently, President Abdurrahman too is one of
\nthe products of that democratic political process. For President
\nAbdurrahman now to decry the House as an undemocratic institution
\nis tantamount to denying his own position.<\/p>\n
The President and his supporters could argue endlessly about
\nthe legality and constitutionality of the current impeachment
\nprocess, but the bottom line is still that, after Wednesday's
\nvote in the House, the President can now count on at best the
\nsupport of no more than 11 percent of the House. That is as close
\nan approximation of his popularity nationwide as we can get.<\/p>\n
Even if he survives the attempt to oust him -- for one must
\nnever underestimate his resourcefulness -- it is mindboggling how
\nPresident Abdurrahman hopes to govern effectively with such low
\nsupport nationwide. It is high time for his closest aides,
\nparticularly those who have influence over him, to make him see
\nthe political reality and that in defending his presidency, he is
\nessentially fighting for a lost cause. It is time that his aides,
\nincluding his senior Cabinet ministers, advise him on the best
\ncourse for him and his reputation, his supporters and his
\nNahdulatul Ulama, and most of all, for the entire nation.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/best-outcome-1447899208",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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