A calculated defense

A calculated defense

In the current political context, President B.J. Habibie's
state of the nation address on Monday came across as the treatise
of someone desperately trying to shore up his flagging
popularity. Who can blame him? The credibility and legitimacy of
his administration are in tatters after the routing of his Golkar
Party in the June elections. If that was not enough, Golkar,
standing alone to buttress his power, now appears ready to pull
the rug from under him following the Bank Bali scandal, which
implicates him and his close associates.

Knowing that his chances in the November presidential election
are in jeopardy, Habibie used the speech on the eve of
Independence Day to try to go over the head of the House of
Representatives and reach out to the people. He highlighted his
achievements while carefully concealing or concocting excuses for
his failures, of which there are many. A national day speech is
traditionally an occasion for heads of state to present their
visions for their country. But with less than three months left
in power and with a large part of the nation rejecting him
through their votes in June, Habibie used this occasion in a
shameless bid to save his reputation and presidency.

To the uninitiated, Habibie's grandstanding may have seemed
convincing. He may have won over the uninformed by declaring that
he and his administration fought valiantly to lift the country
out of its economic and political predicaments, which he brushed
aside as the legacy of former president Soeharto, his mentor. To
the discerning -- and Indonesians today are far more critical
than they were under Soeharto -- the speech was more notable not
for the inventory of Habibie's "successes", but for his deft
sidestepping of crucial issues facing the nation. To them,
Habibie's real message, of fitting the national political agenda
to suit his goals in the November election, came across loud and
clear.

The speech was essentially a rehash of policy statements made
by him and his ministers over the course of the year. It
contained nothing new, as even some Golkar leaders were willing
to admit. His "accelerated evolution" theory has been explained
umpteen times, but it is essentially his convoluted excuse to
ward off criticism of the slow pace of reform under his
government.

He avoided the pressing issues of the day, such as the Bank
Bali scandal, the slow corruption investigation of Soeharto and
recurrent violence in Aceh, Ambon and East Timor. He selected
economic indicators to suit his needs but conveniently omitted
negative indicators, such as declining exports and falling direct
foreign investment. His assertion that foreign investors are on
their way back into the country, based on the resurgent stock
market, reflected either his ignorance -- for these are
speculative investors who will dump their shares at the first
signs of trouble -- or an attempt to deceive the public.

His biggest oversight is, not surprisingly, his chief
weakness: the question of justice. He was uncharacteristically
passionate in his defense of the Soeharto investigation, citing
the need to respect the former strongman's human rights. Yet
there was no recognition of the injustices and human rights
abuses committed not only by Soeharto and his regime but, as in
the case of Aceh, by his own regime.

Given his known ambition for the presidency, virtually every
act that Habibie does in public from now to November must be seen
in that context. The speech on Monday is no exception. It was as
much a campaign speech as a defense treatise for acts done and
not done. It was also a general rehearsal for his big day in
November when he will present his statement of accountability
before the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).

The next MPR, however, will be filled with members very
different from the accommodating group he faced last November.
This new breed, or most of them, was elected in free and fair
elections. Armed with the knowledge that they must be truly
accountable to the people, it will be their task to ensure that
Habibie also is made accountable for every blunder committed
during his short transitory presidency.