Hoping for the best<\/p>\n
By this evening, President Abdurrahman \"Gus Dur\" Wahid may or
\nmay not have made real the threat which he has been holding over
\nthe head of legislators in both the House of Representatives and
\nthe People's Consultative Assembly.<\/p>\n
Six p.m. is supposed to be the deadline Gus Dur has given
\nlegislators to accept a compromise settlement of his current
\npolitical fracas with politicians of practically all political
\nfactions in both houses. But, as so often before, with Gus Dur
\nnothing can be taken for granted. Uncertainty seems to be one of
\nthe President's major weapons to keep his enemies on their toes.<\/p>\n
The most recent news from the presidential palace had it on
\nThursday that the beleaguered president might be retreating from
\nhis plan to issue a decree to impose a state of emergency and an
\nedict to dissolve the national legislature. After all, according
\nto a presidential spokesman, a compromise was in sight and the
\nconflict might yet be resolved amicably.<\/p>\n
On the face of it, it may indeed look as if Gus Dur, and the
\nIndonesian people with him, have some reason to be optimistic. In
\nthe past week or so, the President has been seeing two of the
\nmost important leaders of the opposing camp -- Akbar Tandjung of
\nthe Golkar Party and Hamzah Haz of the United Development Party
\n(PPP) -- presumably to work out such a compromise.<\/p>\n
Both those party politicians eventually admitted they had held
\ntalks with the President and Coordinating Minister for Political,
\nSocial and Security Affairs Agum Gumelar, with the apparent
\nobjective of working out a compromise in the form of a clear
\ndivision of powers between himself and his Vice President
\nMegawati Soekarnoputri.<\/p>\n
All this sounds quite hopeful. To many Indonesians, though, it
\nmust at this stage look as though they have been there before.
\nTalk about a power-sharing scheme between the President and Vice
\nPresident is in fact nothing new. Such a scheme was initially,
\nand in good faith, accepted by the Vice President. As it turned
\nout, however, this did not work as expected because, it was said,
\nthe President went back on his word and in reality continued to
\nkeep all his presidential powers to himself.<\/p>\n
Considering that the President has been successful in lobbying
\ntwo major figures of the opposition, he may have some reason for
\noptimism. Whatever one may say or think about the move, it must
\nbe said that he has been quite shrewd in his choice of whom to
\ntalk to.<\/p>\n
Golkar controls the second-largest block of votes in the
\nlegislature while PPP, though lagging rather far behind Golkar
\nand Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI
\nPerjuangan), is the third-largest faction in the legislature.
\nThat being the case, the others -- including PDI Perjuangan and
\nthe Reform Faction -- will at the very least have some careful
\ncalculating to do before they can reject a compromise outright.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, these latter two major opposition factions have
\nmade it quite clear that no compromises are possible at this
\nstage of the proceedings. Neither can it be taken for granted
\nthat Gus Dur would go along with the kind of compromise Akbar and
\nHamzah seem to have in mind as it would, in practice, turn him
\ninto a mere figurehead president.<\/p>\n
So, in the final analysis, very much will depend on what
\npositions Megawati and Gus Dur himself will take in all this. To
\nput it briefly, not much seems to have changed, at least at this
\nstage. Indonesians, it seems, will be asked to bear with their
\nquarreling political elite and endure all this uncertainty a
\nwhile longer -- unless, of course, some unexpected developments
\noccur today and things get settled, hopefully for the better.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/hoping-for-the-best-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}