Braced for more tumult

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.