Amien wants Megawati replaced immediately
Muhammad Nafik and Ainur R. Sophiaan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Surabaya
People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) speaker Amien Rais on Thursday launched a harsh attack on President Megawati Soekarnoputri and in an indirect way called for her ouster.
"Our national leaders do not have self-confidence anymore. They would be better off just becoming servants in other countries. Foreign entities like the IMF can easily dictate Indonesia. We are now like a car whose driver needs to be replaced," Amien said in the East Java capital of Surabaya on Thursday.
He did not name the "driver" in his tirade but was apparently referring to Megawati, whose administration has drawn sharp criticism from many for her contentious policies considered to have victimized the public.
It was Amien's staunchest criticism of Megawati to date, whose rise to the presidency in July last year was helped by Amien. He had a hand in unseating her predecessor Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid from power through a special MPR session.
A few months before the MPR managed to oust the Gus Dur, Amien had also used the same term of "driver" in reference to him when campaigning for a new president.
It was unclear whether Amien, chairman of the National Mandate Party (PAN), was serious about actually launching a special session to replace the president on Thursday or was merely engaging in political maneuvering ahead of the 2004 election.
Claiming not to be against foreigners, the MPR speaker lashed out at most of the top government leaders for favoring other countries in efforts to cope with the nation's economic crisis.
He criticized the government's intentions to sell several state-owned enterprises, which he proclaimed to be "in a healthy condition", to overseas conglomerates.
Cited as examples were Pertamina, Semen Gresik and Telkom, which Amien claimed had been offered to foreign investors.
"Pak Kwik (Kian Gie) and I can't imagine why a certain party wants to sell those assets," he said.
Kwik, state minister of national development planning, is the staunchest critic of the government's policy to cooperate with the International Monetary Funds (IMF) reform directives.
Amien also lamented the government's inaction in dealing with the "huge economic leakages", (corruption) including the high- profile scandal of the Bank Indonesia Liquidity Assistance (BLBI) funds, which caused Rp 160 trillion in losses to the state.
"To this point, very little, if anything has been done on the BLBI case," he added.
He questioned the extension of the contracts with American companies such as PT Freeport Indonesia in the country's eastern most province of Papua, where uranium was also discovered by American scientists with the gold and copper mining company.
"It is time for the government to take over the management of such natural resources of the nation. They should never have been sold to foreigners," he added.