A ball game without an umpire

Indonesians are watching an increasingly chaotic ball game in which the ball is the 1945 Constitution, writes political analyst J. Soedjati Djiwandono.

JAKARTA (JP): During the tug-of-war between the legislature and President Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid that has marked Indonesian politics for most of Gus Dur's presidency, the House of Representatives (DPR) will resort to the Constitution in its action against the President.

In turn, the President will challenge the DPR, and now the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), which has put a special session on its agenda, also by using the very same Constitution as the basis of his arguments.

Up until now Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri has mostly stayed on the sidelines. Recently, however, she has joined in. So if initially the game was a match between the executive and the legislative, now it is a multilateral contest.

The ball game, which is the scene of Indonesian politics today, however, is chaotic, for it is one without an umpire. Indeed, the Supreme Court is trying to act as one. And the President seems to hope that the involvement of the Supreme Court, under the newly appointed chief justice, will help the President win the match.

Unfortunately, the President's opponents have questioned the authority of the Supreme Court, and thus the effectiveness of its intervention.

Ideally, the Supreme Court should be in a position to serve as an umpire, for, sadly, the ball of the politicians' game is the 1945 Constitution, which is supposed to provide the rules of the game.

In this country, however, in the new ball game among politicians, it is not a question of the rules of the game that matter, but it is precisely a game of the rules.

Last year, the President brushed aside the DPR's attempts to exercise its rights to raise questions, to ask for an explanation and to make inquiries, all of which were directed at the President, simply on the grounds that its attempts were against the 1945 Constitution.

And trying to dismiss the significance of the MPR special session with the possibility of impeachment against him, he has more than once, as I have predicted in this column, quoted a provision in the Constitution that a president is to submit a report of accountability to the MPR at the end of his term of office.

He seems to have ignored or forgotten that for one thing, in general the Constitution has no direct operational value. Instead, it needs various forms of legislation to make it operational.

For another, one article in the Constitution should be understood in the context of the Constitution as a whole, that is, in relation at least to some other relevant articles.

Also, the Vice President is no longer on the sidelines.

Since the President offered a transfer of what he termed as "constitutional tasks" to her, she has joined the fray. She has questioned the constitutional basis of such a transfer, and hence the President's constitutional right and authority to make such an offer.

In the meantime, outside the field, the spectators, fans and supporters of the different players in the ball game have been involved in their own brawls -- each in support of their respective favorite teams of players comprising politicians intoxicated with power, derived from the kind of political reform the way they understand it. They fight with greater savageness than the playing teams, and with more violence than the English supporters of their soccer teams do.

Once the Vice President joined the game, however, it was the turn of the DPR to become an onlooker for a short while. The game soon turned into one between the President and the Vice President. The DPR became a spectator until it convened its plenary session at the end of May. Thereafter, what happened was an anticlimax.

Out of the blue, however, as has become his pattern of behavior since his election, President Abdurrahman has created a ripple, a ruffle in the brief political calm in the aftermath of the House plenary session. Yet, it is not unlikely that it may actually have been a brief lull before the storm.

Through a Cabinet shakeup and the controversial appointment of a deputy chief of the National Police, while at the same time rendering the police chief, Gen. Surojo Bimantoro, nonactive, the President has probably managed to further alienate his supporters and antagonize his foes.

For lack of facts, this is not to pass judgment on the President's decision in terms of substance. Surely, however, the President has overlooked the proper rules of the game. He cannot but create the impression that he is at a loss what to do to save himself from the imminent threat of impeachment by an MPR special session. He seems so determined to cling to power, come what may.

Indeed, in a rather too long and boring televised interview, the President said at one point that politics was about strength (power?), and the strongest (most powerful?) would win! That is a very simplistic view of politics that would befit only those hungry for power for its own sake.

A test of strength, however, is not likely to save the nation, perhaps not himself, either. Under the circumstances, a compromise would be the best option. And there is ample time for that. But then, it takes two to tango!