Braced for more tumult

The nation, already buckling under more than three years of economic crisis and the breakdown of law and order, is bracing itself for more tumult next week. With our leaders making no serious effort to defuse a potentially explosive situation, Jakarta faces the danger of being plunged into a spiral of violence set off by clashes between supporters and opponents of President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Abdurrahman, who claims to be the champion of democracy, made a thinly veiled threat to the House of Representatives on Thursday not to issue a second memorandum of censure against him at a plenary session scheduled for the end of this month. The President said more than 400,000 of his die-hard supporters from East Java, who have pledged their lives to defend his presidency, could go on the rampage in Jakarta if a second censure was issued.

The President seems to be blind to the fact that his game of brinkmanship, going all out to defend his presidency at all costs, has resulted in greater suffering for the people as the economy slides deeper into the abyss.

The rupiah, for the second time in five weeks, plunged through the 11,000 level against the U.S dollar and the Jakarta Stock Exchange composite index fell 2 percent on Thursday, immediately following Abdurrahman's warning to the House. The rupiah then plunged to a two-and-a-half-year low of 11,900 to the dollar and the stock market tumbled another 2 percent on Friday, the result of the increased political uncertainty.

Abdurrahman apparently is unwilling to accept the bitter fact that the sharp depreciation of the rupiah reflects the steadily declining confidence of the international market in his leadership and economic management.

The rupiah strengthened to better than 7,000 against the dollar in the first few months of his administration in late 1999 and early 2000, riding the confidence of the market in his reformist and democratic leadership. After all, he was the country's first democratically elected president in more than 50 years.

But his leadership became erratic, controversial and confusing remarks issued with increasing frequency from the presidential office and his administration lost its effectiveness with the breakdown of law and order in several provinces, all of which worked to destroy the credibility of his government.

And with his working priorities continuing to demonstrate a poor grasp of the country' multidimensional crisis, the market is increasingly doubtful that Abdurrahman is the right person to lead the nation out of crisis.

His constant bickering with the House, where his political party only holds 7.3 percent of the 500 seats, shows his arrogance and complete lack of political skills. We find it mind- boggling that the President has failed to comprehend the political reality that he desperately needs the full support of the House to push through reforms that are vigorously opposed by vested interests.

His government's spat with the International Monetary Fund, which is sponsoring a US$5 billion bailout program for the country, has further eroded his credibility in the international market, further battering the rupiah and the stock market, and threatening to plunge the nation deeper into debt and economic crisis.

If Abdurrahman really has the interests of the nation in mind he needs to realize that economic reforms, however credible, no longer matter now that the root of the country's woes is his poor leadership and bumbling rule.

His stubborn allegation that the House has ganged up to oust him and his tacit approval of mob violence to defend his presidency is a mockery of the basic democratic principles he is sworn to promote. Whatever their flaws, the members of the House, who were democratically elected in June 1999, account for 500 of the 700-member People's Consultative Assembly, the body that elected Abdurrahman in October 1999.

Megawati Soekarnoputri, whose Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle holds 185 seats in the Assembly, did not threaten mob violence in October 1999 when it was Abdurrahman, whose National Awakening Party has only 57 seats in the Assembly, was elected president. Megawati magnanimously accepted the results of the election, believing that the vote was a truly democratic process.

It was also a democratic process when a majority of the House members exercised their right and voted in early February to issue a warning to the President to mend his ways and improve his job performance. Given the continued decline on the economic and security fronts, it will likewise be a democratic exercise if the House votes to issue a second warning later this month. This is simply a system of checks-and-balances to keep the President on his toes.

If Abdurrahman is serious about defending his presidency, he should stop making threats and start leading the nation out of the multidimensional crisis in which it is now mired.