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."