All except one candidate champion civilian govt

Ridwan Max Sijabat and Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta

All the presidential candidates except for retired general Wiranto agree to civilian supremacy in governance, particularly regarding the handling of defense and security matters.

And while all candidates were for a professional military, their platforms lacked elaboration on how this is to be done, a discussion with the candidates' success teams revealed.

Wednesday's discussion on the candidates' defense and security platforms was held by Propatria, a non government organization comprising experts on defense issues.

Lt. Gen. (ret.) Suaidi Marasabessy, chairman of Wiranto's campaign team, said the concept of "civilian supremacy" or civil- military dichotomy was not found in the Amended 1945 Constitution and the new Law No. 3/2002 on state defense. "Civilians and the military are equal before the law," he said.

Edy Prasetyono of the Centre for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), said he appreciated the four other presidential candidates' platforms who he said had adopted the civilian supremacy concept, a crucial part of democracy.

Edy called on the candidates to continue internal reform in the military, as they promised following the formal end of the New Order regime in 1998.

Under a new structure, "the TNI (Indonesian Military) commander would be subordinate to the defense minister," he said.

Currently the TNI commander is on par with Cabinet ministers.

In a study on the platforms on defense the experts found, for instance, that none of the platforms discussed the need to review the role of the police to protect and serve the people.

Neither did any of them touch on changing police culture, which they said is essential to help the police fit in with its role in line with the new law on the police, which separates the police from the TNI.

Legal expert Bambang Widjojanto said the police "must change itself to become a civilian police ... to protect and serve the people, enforce the law and maintain security and order."

On defense in general, the camp of Gen. (ret) Wiranto's platform stresses the need of consistency among regulations and laws. But it does not reveal how relations between the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the Police should be reviewed despite the new law on the police.

While the law states that internal security is the responsibility of the police, who can ask for TNI's help when necessary, the platform of Megawati and Hamzah Haz respectively proposed ways of the possibility of involving the TNI in internal security matters. Amien Rais' platform also stresses the need to draw up laws on the arrangement of TNI's assistance to the government.

Edy said further the presidential candidates should also make concrete programs to make TNI professional.

"The recruitment and training system must be reviewed, the military's annual budget must be derived from the annual state budget and the military must be transparent regarding its budget," he said, adding that the military should not be allowed to do business.

All candidates agreed that the welfare of TNI personnel must be improved.