A president from the legislature: Soemitro's dream

JAKARTA (JP): Retired General Soemitro has again added fuel to the succession debate, saying he would like to see the next Indonesian president come from the ranks of the House of Representatives.

"My own personal dream is to see, as the next president, someone who has served in the House," said the former commander of the powerful Internal Security Agency.

Soemitro said that legislators tended to be more open and responsive to a plurality of ideas, since they were accustomed to accommodating differing views in the House.

Soemitro made the remarks on Saturday at a discussion held by Fosko 66, a study and communication forum that grew out of the 1966 students' movement which helped topple the "Old Order" regime of former president Sukarno.

Soemitro said he would be delighted to see senior military officers having to accept decisions of a House of Representatives lead by a young civilian.

The issue of the presidential succession is an increasingly popular topic as the count-down begins to the 1997 general election and the selection of the Indonesian president the following year.

Soemitro's comments came shortly after a similar statement by the head of the Supreme Advisory Council, Sudomo, who said that the next president should be someone with a civilian background.

Noted political analyst Harry Tjan Silalahi said on Saturday that legislators tended to be more democratic.

"That doesn't mean that being a member of the House makes you a democrat, but being in the House gives you an opportunity to be more of a democrat," Harry said, adding that he had observed that members of the Armed Forces become more democratic after gaining experience as legislators.

Soemitro also took issue on Saturday with the widely-held view that there are no competent alternative presidents, should Soeharto decide to step down from the presidency in 1998.

"The are millions of leaders in Indonesia, the only problem is that of opportunity," he said. "Every human being is capable of greatness. Given the opportunity and the responsibility, he'll reach the height," he added, quoting an old saying.

Soemitro said that there should be no political parochialism on the part of the two "opposition" parties because, he said, it would make no different who won the election, since all three political parties in Indonesia have accepted Pancasila as the national ideology.

"There are no grounds on which to differentiate between them. Whoever wins will be Pancasila-ist," he said.

Regarding the 1997 election, Soemitro said there were several preconditions to its being successful and fair.

The bureaucracy from had to make a clean break from any political ties, he said.

In the past, Indonesian civil servants have generally been expected to vote for the ruling Golkar faction.

"The administration must revive itself as a national bureaucracy which maintains governmental stability and thus must not be affiliated with any party," Soemitro said.

He also called for a new role for the military, free from political allegiances.

"It has to be free and stand above all groups," he said, adding that the Armed Forces must again become "a tool of the state, and not a tool of power."

By law, members of the Indonesian Armed Forces do not vote in elections nor can they run for office. But in recognition of their contribution to political development in Indonesia, 100 of the 500 seats in the House of Representatives are reserved for representatives of the military. Last week the House endorsed a government-sponsored bill to reduce the number of the military's seats to 75, beginning in 1997.

Soemitro said he agreed about the Armed Forces' role as a stabilizer and that they should not vote until the social and political situation in the country was more established.

"I am afraid of the possible consequences if the Armed Forces were given the right to vote," he said.

Soemitro said the independence of institutions created by the government, such as the Family Planning Program or the National Family Welfare Movement, was a further prerequisite of fair elections in 1997.

"Hopefully the elections will reflect the electorate's evaluation of the government's performance over the past five years," Soemitro said. (mds)