Gus Dur suffers ignominious defeat<\/p>\n
John Mcbeth, The Straits Times\/Asia News Network, Singapore<\/p>\n
In the final decade of president Soeharto's rule, Abdurrahman
\nWahid emerged as a towering figure on the Indonesian stage,
\nchampioning democratization, religious tolerance and moderation.
\nBut ill health and even democracy, when it finally came to
\nIndonesia, have not been kind to the blind cleric, who later went
\non to parlay 15 years as head of the 40 million-strong Muslim
\norganization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) into an ill-fated presidency
\nthat left deep scars on Abdurrahman and his country.<\/p>\n
The final blow came on Dec 1. In what may spell his end as a
\npublic figure of stature, the man best known as Gus Dur stumbled
\nnumbly from the NU Congress after the organization he had ruled
\nfor so long spurned his single-minded campaign to take charge of
\nNU's powerful 11-man syuriah governing body -- and then handed
\nhis bitter rival, Hasyim Muzadi, a second five-year term as NU
\nchairman.<\/p>\n
Popular cleric Sahal Mahfudz, who also heads the Indonesian
\nUlema Council (MUI), was re-elected unanimously as the syuriah
\nchairman after Abdurrahman was ousted in the first round of
\nvoting at the five-day congress in Solo, Central Java. Sahal's
\nwin meant the former president could not use the position to
\nblock the re-election of Hasyim, who had defied Abdurrahman by
\nstanding as running mate to failed incumbent Megawati
\nSoekarnoputri in the presidential elections.<\/p>\n
Muslim scholars say they doubt Abdurrahman will recover from
\nwhat has been an immense blow to his influence and, perhaps more
\nimportantly, to his pride. 'This was such a massive win by both
\nSahal and Hasyim, no one can seriously argue it was purely the
\nresult of money politics,' said Australian National University's
\nGreg Fealy, who wrote his PhD dissertation on the NU. 'Delegates
\nwere fearful of what Gus Dur might do if he won power again
\nwithin the organization.'<\/p>\n
Uncomfortable with the way the NU has been sucked deeper into
\npolitics since the onset of the so-called reformation era in
\n1998, congress delegates later voted to revoke a thinly disguised
\ndirective, issued before the 1999 general election, binding NU
\nmembers to support the newly formed National Awakening Party
\n(PKB). Although its base remains largely rooted in East Java, PKB
\ncame third in that election, behind Megawati's Indonesian
\nDemocratic Party for Struggle (PDI-P) and the former ruling
\nGolkar party.<\/p>\n
In more recent years, Abdurrahman -- the party's chief patron
\n-- has sown confusion in PKB ranks in his determination to unseat
\nHasyim, whose lackluster performance has not won him many
\nadmirers either. 'Everyone can see the utter mess that Wahid has
\nmade of the party, freezing or sacking branches, forcing out
\nrivals and unilaterally overturning democratically made
\ndecisions,' said Fealy. 'The disillusionment with him, if not the
\noutright exasperation at his behavior within his home
\nconstituency, is now exposed for all to see.' What remains to be
\nseen now is whether the PKB board begins to show more resolve in
\nopposing his arbitrary decision-making.<\/p>\n
Abdurrahman has threatened to establish a splinter faction of
\nNU, but even he seems to acknowledge he does not have the
\nstrength to go through with it. Hasyim's post-election call for
\nunity has already borne fruit, with several senior pro-
\nAbdurrahman clerics accepting his re-election and saying they
\nwill not support any moves to set up a breakaway organization.
\nStill, damage has been done. 'This congress has diminished the
\nspirit of our brotherhood,' Sahal declared at the end. 'I promise
\nto consolidate support from all figures to settle this internal
\nconflict.'<\/p>\n
It has also diminished Abdurrahman, whose fall from grace can
\nbe traced to the onset of total blindness and two strokes he
\nsuffered before he outmaneuvered Megawati for the presidency in
\nOctober 1999. The Asia Foundation's Indonesian director, Douglas
\nRamage, remembers him in his glory days, particularly on one
\nnight in 1992, when he publicly defended his ground-breaking
\nvisit to Israel. 'You saw the best of him then,' he recalled
\nsadly. 'It was the way he took on his critics based on an issue
\nof principle, the way he linked progressive interpretations of
\nIslam with the imperatives of political secular democracy.'<\/p>\n
Today, he is only a pale shadow of the visionary and
\nintellectual who cut such an impressive figure in the 1980s and
\nearly 1990s. Perhaps the most unappealing thing about him these
\ndays is his willingness to engage in demeaning political
\nmudfights, demonstrating a mean-spirited and vindictive side for
\nanyone he thinks has done him wrong.<\/p>\n
The Dec. 1 congress seems to show the NU may have at last
\nmoved beyond Abdurrahman, a process that probably began with his
\nimpeachment as president in July 2001. However, much will depend
\non who Hasyim and Sahal choose for the 11-man syuriah and
\nexecutive boards and whether they are prepared to usher in a new
\ngeneration of officials, particularly from among the younger
\nactivists who sympathized with Abdurrahman's arguments that
\nHasyim had politicized the NU. That same charge could be leveled
\nat the ex-president himself, of course, which only goes to show
\nhow difficult it will be to prise the organization away from
\npolitics. After all, a number of senior clerics are already
\nlining up to contest next year's first round of direct elections
\nof mayors and district chiefs.<\/p>\n
Abdurrahman has always had his quirky side. Back in the early
\n1990s, he would startle interviewers by dropping a juicy, but
\nhardly credible, piece of gossip into what up to then had been a
\nperfectly logical discourse on the political issue of the day.
\nThat side of him bubbled more forcefully to the surface after his
\nstrokes -- as did his increasingly erratic behavior. That all
\nculminated in his efforts to get the military to declare a state
\nof emergency and freeze Parliament in February 2001, the final
\nact that precipitated his humiliating impeachment five months
\nlater.<\/p>\n
The former president's critics take no pleasure in his demise,
\nsaying he has missed an opportunity to become a guru negara, an
\nelder statesman with the respect and authority to act as the
\nnation's moral compass. But they are confident his legacy of
\npluralism and moderation will remain, a still-dependable bulwark
\nagainst fundamentalism in the world's largest Muslim nation. It
\nwill live on through the Wahid Institute, opened just a few
\nmonths ago with a mission to ensure interpretations of the Koran
\nare left to the individual. And it will live on through the NU
\nitself. In one of its final acts, the congress last week re-
\naffirmed its opposition to all forms of extremism.<\/p>",
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