Amien guides MPR into new territory

Amien guides MPR into new territory

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In a speech that concluded the last annual session of the
powerful People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), Speaker Amien Rais
said that what the Assembly had achieved during its five-year
term would go down in history as a remarkable feat.

"The imprint of our work will be recorded in Indonesian
history," Amien told members of the supreme state institution.

Under his stewardship, Amien said the Assembly had revamped
the half-century-old Constitution, making it more relevant to
current affairs.

"It was a victory for the reform movement and the people, and
I relish my time leading the MPR," he said.

The Assembly, which he chaired from October 1999, was formerly
an institution used by former president Soeharto to install his
presidency on a five-yearly basis, but, after the 1999 elections,
it turned into a free-for-all, as it comprised representatives of
political parties, who vied for the largest chunk of the power.

History, however, will not only record the sweeping
constitutional changes the Assembly brought about in the last
five years, but also its astute and skillful speaker, who managed
to steer a steady course during turbulent times of political
transition.

Amien will be remembered as the speaker of an assembly that
produced an amended Constitution that strengthened the House of
Representatives (DPR), enshrining citizens' basic rights and
stripping the Assembly of its mighty power.

He was also an Assembly leader who helped bring unlikely
candidate for president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid to power, and
then lent a hand in toppling him, only to make way for a less
proficient figure, Megawati Soekarnoputri.

He came close to fulfilling his own personal ambition for the
presidency when former president B.J. Habibie supported him as a
potential candidate, after the latter's accountability report was
rejected.

Amien, however, rejected the offer, saying that as he had been
elected for the speakership just 11 days before, he did not want
to be viewed as an opportunist.

Amien said he had forged a pact with Gus Dur to support the
cleric's presidential bid and was indebted to Nahdlatul Ulama for
having backed him for the MPR speakership.

His own rise to the Assembly speakership and his indispensable
role in the succession of the two presidents earned him a
reputation as a political kingmaker, largely because his National
Mandate Party (PAN) gained only 7 percent of the vote in the 1999
legislative election.

The formation of PAN and his ascent to the Assembly
speakership was the logical consequence of his prominent role in
the reform movement, although his personal ambition was for the
presidency.

Gaining prominence for his vocal opposition and direct
challenge to former president Soeharto in 1997, he was at that
time a leader of the reform movement.

Hours before Soeharto called it quits, Amien attempted to
assemble a mass rally at the National Monument in Central Jakarta
to demand his resignation.

It might have materialized, had it not been for the Indonesian
Military (TNI), which said a bloodbath would be inevitable if
Amien did not call off the rally.

He took to the airwaves and urged Jakartans to stay home. The
call was heeded.

His blatant opposition to Soeharto gave rise to an acrimonious
relationship between the two.

When Soeharto decided to consult scores of Islamic leaders,
including scholar Nurcholish Madjid and Gus Dur, and chairman of
the Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI) Ali Yafie on a possible
political arrangement after his resignation, he balked at the
idea of inviting Amien, then leader of the second-largest Muslim
organization, Muhammadiyah.

Asiaweek magazine ranked him as 36th on the list of Asia's 50
most powerful people in 2000 for his influence on Indonesia's
political affairs, above governor of Tokyo Ishihara Shintaro and
leader of Falun Gong Li Hongzhi.

His cavalier and no-nonsense approach belies the fact that he
was born in a center of Javanese culture, Surakarta, Central
Java, on April 26, 1944, to a middle-class family.

His father, Suhud Rais, was an official at the local religious
affairs agency and his mother, Sudalmiyah, was a Muhammadiyah
activist who once assumed the local leadership of the
organization's women's grouping, Aisiyah.

Amien credited his mother with encouraging his interest in
politics and religious affairs.

His childhood dream was modest, though ambitious nonetheless,
becoming mayor. Amien was inspired by then Surakarta mayor
Muhammad Saleh, whom he admired as a leader who was loved by his
people.

In senior high school, he changed his mind and wanted to
become an ambassador instead, which drove him to study at Gadjah
Mada University's international relations faculty, where he would
teach before taking the plunge into political life.

During his stint at the Yogyakarta-based university, Amien
took up graduate and postgraduate studies at U.S.-based
universities. He obtained a masters degree from Notre Dame
Catholic University in Indiana and his Ph.D from Chicago
University.

He has studied religion and politics extensively, specializing
in Middle Eastern politics.

After his elimination from the presidential election in July,
and at the end of his time as Assembly speaker, Amien said he
would return to campus as a teacher.

"When I'm old," he said, "I shall write more and give
religious lectures."