Academic sees government weaken

Academic sees government weaken

JAKARTA (JP): The growth of Indonesia's middle class reflects
the government's weakening political clout, a political
observer says.

"There's an incredible change taking place. The government is
getting weaker," Ariel Heryanto of the Salatiga-based Satya
Wacana Christian University told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
"The middle class, on the other hand, is getting stronger."

Ariel was explaining how, in his observation, the government
has spent the past decade or so courting various groups like the
middle class and the Moslem community.

The increasingly good relationship that Moslems enjoy with the
government is just one example of the latter's effort to expand
its power base, he pointed out.

Ariel identified a number of areas where the government's
declining strength, including its 1994 decree allowing foreign
companies to enter sectors, previously considered sacred.

The PP20/1994 decree allows foreigners into the strategic
sectors of ports, power generation, telecommunications, sea
transportation, education, aviation, water supply, railways,
nuclear power and the mass media.

Ariel cited another example in its handling of the minority
Indonesian Democratic Party. He said that despite the
government's campaign to place someone else at the party's helm,
chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri remains firmly in her seat.

The abolition of the controversial state-lottery SDSB in 1993,
when students and Moslem groups launched massive protests, was
another example cited by Ariel.

He said the government has also been forced to stall the
construction of a nuclear power plant in Central Java because of
strong opposition from local environmental groups.

The National Commission on Human Rights, another example
cited, was established in 1993 following heavy pressure from both
overseas and domestic critics of Indonesia's human rights record.

Despite a pessimistic reception, he said the commission has
turned out to be independent and unafraid to issue reports
critical of the government and its officials.

"The government used to be authoritarian," Ariel said, adding
that in the past the government approached no one.

Ariel said the government was not co-opting certain groups,
but embracing them for support.

"The very fact that the government needs their support is
proof of declining power," he pointed out. "In the past, it
didn't need to embrace any group at all."

Ariel also spoke about the middle class, and how its members
should be ready to face the time of reduced government control.

For instance, Ariel asked, "Will the press be able to write
good stories" without having their publishing permits revoked?

Most Indonesian scholars agree that the middle class here is
becoming a political force that the country's rulers have to take
into account.

He pointed to other newly industrialized countries like South
Korea, where the middle class has been the driving force for
democracy.

He defined the middle class as comprised mostly of
businesspeople, intellectuals, students, professionals and
journalists.

Discussion of the middle class here reflects various
viewpoints. Some believe the middle class has the potential to
articulate the interests of the lower class, while others say its
members will not likely feel obliged to push for democracy.

Still others believe that there is no middle class in
Indonesia, thus making it pointless to assign it a role in
Indonesian politics.

Ariel said the Indonesian middle class does indeed exist and
that it is a highly diversified group with many interests. One
thing middle-class Indonesians have in common is their tendency
to be critical. They could turn radical, he said, but they might
also become opportunistic.

Ariel said that most discussions on the middle-class
Indonesians tended to be "cynical" and "negative". The sentiment,
he said, might have been fostered by the overly high expectation
that the public have of them.

"The public consider the middle-class group as savior of
democracy, but when they fail to find such people, they become
angry and dismiss the entire notion of middle-class," he said.
(swe)