Bridging the reform gap

Saturday's dialog between top cabinet members and scholars and students over political reforms is a welcome attempt to bridge the gap between the country's various forces on the issue. It is the first real attempt in forging a common stance over an issue that is increasingly dividing the nation.

On one side of the debate stand the government, the military and the entire ruling political elite. On the other are students, whose claim of reflecting the people's aspirations is gaining public recognition -- including from scholars and last week from the Nahdlatul Ulama. The fact that top cabinet members met with students itself is an official acknowledgement of the important role students play in society today.

It is rather unfortunate that Saturday's dialog, which was organized by the Ministry of Defense and Security, did not see the presence of representatives of some of the country's centers of excellence such as the University of Indonesia, Gadjah Mada University and the Bogor Agriculture Institute. Students from these universities, who held a parallel gathering in Bogor the same day, harbored doubts about the usefulness of the meeting with the government officials. Whether rightly or wrongly, their suspicion highlights the wide gap that exists between the two camps over political reforms.

These differences were not very visible in Saturday's dialog for obvious reasons. There was a necessity to preserve politeness and orderliness in such a high profile gathering, and there was the limited time allowed to each individual in expressing their thoughts and views. The dialog left the misleading impression that there was wide agreement and that the chief difference between the two sides lies in the speed of the reforms.

Predictably, the dialog sidestepped a question of substance in which differences between the parties are still large. It was also obvious from the meeting that the term "reform" itself means a different thing to different people.

The bottom line for students calling for reforms is an overhaul of the political system, including changing the national leadership. The official line taken by the government, restated by Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces Commander Gen. Wiranto at the meeting, is for gradual and orderly reforms. Few would argue against this, and students are also proposing for peaceful revolution. The problem is that the official line has been used once too often to retain any credibility.

The government and Golkar, the ruling political group, have always claimed that they have been conducting "reforms" for the last 30 years to strengthen the political system. They use reform loosely to mean change, but this is obviously not the kind of change that is now being demanded by students in their protests.

Judging by the developments of the past year alone, the "reforms" implemented by the government were ones that strengthened the political status quo and its grip on power. The political system was designed in such a way that power has become even more concentrated, with even fewer checks and balances required in a functional democracy: The May general election led to the largest ever Golkar victory; the new People's Consultative Assembly in October saw the elimination of its remaining few reform-minded figures; and the Assembly's General Session in March saw one-horse contests for president and vice president. The 1998/2003 State Policy Guidelines are also devoid of reforms, although they were drafted and deliberated amid loud calls for reform from various quarters.

One of the few things that Saturday's dialog did accomplish is to show that students have the interest of the country and the welfare of the people at heart. This message should, by now, have sank into the minds of cabinet members and spare them from having to look for ulterior motives they have often accused the students of.

The two camps in the reform debate, however, still stand a gulf apart on substance and direction, besides the speed of reforms. The next step that government and military leaders should take is to provide greater accommodations to the student demands. They would be well advised to heed Nahdlatul Ulama's suggestion that for any meaningful dialog to take place, the government and military leaders should come without their official attributes. In other words, they should come as statesmen and stateswomen. Unless the differences between the two camps are bridged soon, we can expect student demonstrations to escalate, with all the possible political, security as well as economic risks that they entail.