Two nations, two women, one aim<\/p>\n
W. Scott Thompson, The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore<\/p>\n
On the face of it, there is something extraordinary about the
\nIndonesian and Filipino presidential races. The two incumbents,
\nborn less than four months apart, grew up in presidential
\npalaces, where their respective fathers lost power in the same
\nyear, 1965.<\/p>\n
They have ruled or reigned in the two largest archipelagos --
\nboth of which are inhabited by people of Malay stock, speaking
\nclosely related languages. They are women -- two-thirds of the
\nruling heads of state of their gender.<\/p>\n
Although both are presidential incumbents, they are both
\nrunning their first national and popular electoral race for the
\ntop job. And they have husbands who have very particular
\nsimilarities -- that have got both of them into trouble.<\/p>\n
And there the similarities end. The real differences
\nunderscore the problem of projecting overarching similarities --
\nrace and gender, for example. It is the same fallacy as saying
\nall Arabs (or Chinese) are the same. The contrasts between the
\ntwo women far outweigh their similarities.<\/p>\n
Megawati Soekarnoputri, the eldest daughter of the charismatic
\nnationalist founding president of Indonesia, reigns more than
\nrules. \"Enigmatic majesty\", it's been called.<\/p>\n
She is both sarcastically and fondly referred to as Ibu-Ibu
\n(Mother) for her celebrated tendency to pass tea and cookies to
\nambassadors warning her of terrorist attacks or ministers giving
\nher bad news. Her work habits, not to put too fine a point on it,
\ndo not inspire confidence. The fact of a new constitutional
\nprovision, that a presidential candidate must have a high school
\ndiploma, is a peculiar way of noting that the republic's
\npresident has that and no more.<\/p>\n
She and her party came to power after the impeachment of her
\nincompetent predecessor, Abdurrahman Wahid, in 2001, after a
\nperiod of stasis in national politics. Her husband, Taufiq
\nKiemas, has been busy indeed, his footprints visible in most
\nmajor business deals -- and, so it is alleged, his own hands in
\ninvestors' pockets.<\/p>\n
Gloria Arroyo, the diminutive daughter of reformer and
\nnationalist president Diosdado Macapagal -- defeated in his re-
\nelection bid in 1965 by the late Ferdinand Marcos -- in contrast
\nhas a PhD in economics from the University of the Philippines and
\na degree from Georgetown University, where she was a classmate of
\nformer U.S. president Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n
She was elected vice-president when the appallingly corrupt
\nand incompetent Joseph Estrada was elected, in 1998. When an also
\ncorrupt Senate failed to impeach him, the people took to the
\nstreets, the military withdrew its support, and the chief justice
\nswore in Arroyo.<\/p>\n
Her husband, Mike Arroyo, a big Chinese landowner, has also
\nbeen active in national business affairs. It is widely believed
\nthat one of his many indiscretions led her to renounce a re-
\nelection bid at the end of 2002, a decision she subsequently
\nreversed last year.<\/p>\n
Both women have the enormous advantages of incumbency and
\nneither has an obvious opponent. Yet neither's re-election is
\ntaken for granted.<\/p>\n
Megawati has a variety of opponents, including the former
\nmilitary chief, Gen. Wiranto, who is widely popular, not corrupt
\n(by Indonesian standards) and despite the presumptive endorsement
\nof the now legally cleared House Speaker Akbar Tandjung, can
\nanticipate much support within the best-organized party,
\nSoeharto's now reformed Golkar.<\/p>\n
Arroyo's most evident opponent is popular movie star Fernando
\nPoe Jr. But his failure to dominate the polls, the way Estrada
\nhad done, suggests a maturing of the voting public. And his vote
\nshare may well be divided with a former police chief and accused
\ntorturer under the late Marcos, Senator Panfilo \"Ping\" Lacson,
\nwhose popularity derives from the belief that, knowing crime as
\nwell as he does, he could clean it up swiftly.<\/p>\n
If Megawati loses, it will be because she is perceived as
\nruling too little, taking it just a little too easy at a time of
\nmultiple national crises. Arroyo suffers from almost the
\nopposite: That she has twisted and turned, trying to rule
\neffectively but never truly finding her ground.<\/p>\n
Filipino politics, despite the former presidency of Corazon
\nAquino, is very much a man's affair, and Arroyo has not been
\ntaken seriously among the men of power. She has tried just about
\neverything -- even revealing that despite the burdens of office,
\nshe still had plenty of sex while at the palace. But the wags
\nonly replied that she did not say with whom.<\/p>\n
These two so similar archipelagic republics have a lot to
\nlearn from each other, given the vast similarities to so many of
\ntheir problems and their level of development. It would not be a
\nrash bet to give fairly even odds that when Indonesians go to the
\npolls for their first round of presidential voting on July 5, and
\nthe Filipinos for their 14th national vote on May 14, they will
\nturn both women out of office and try something quite different.<\/p>\n
The writer was an assistant to the U.S. secretary of defense
\nfrom 1975 to 1976, and served as an assistant secretary of state
\nin the Reagan administration. He is now a professor at the
\nFletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts.<\/p>",
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