Can we be optimistic?
Can we be optimistic?
Finally, president Soeharto bowed to his people's demand and
resigned. This astonishing decision was unthinkable until the
beginning of this week. Three days ago, despite the mounting
public pressure for his resignation, the president was still
doing his utmost to keep his position. He failed to realize that
Indonesians were weary of his maneuvering.
On Wednesday, he was forced to realize that he had lost his
people and, at the eleventh hour, his Armed Forces, who had
staunchly supported him in the past.
By taking such a drastic step, Soeharto also seemed to
shrewdly sidestep the possibility of impeachment by the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR), the country's highest constitutional
body which elected him in March.
Another face-saving tactic was to announce his resignation and
have his successor sworn in at the Presidential Palace instead of
the MPR, as tradition dictates. The law-making body's leadership
seemed hesitant to push the issue, as it was more pressing for
the leader to finally step aside.
The procedures of Soeharto's resignation and the appointment
of Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie as the new president are
constitutional in nature. The question now is will the new man in
command be able to implement the popular demand for total reform
in order to heal the country's ills. The answer seems to be
negative.
Habibie is a part of the old, entrenched system and is not far
from authoritarianism, cronyism, collusion and nepotism. Reports
have said that he and his family own major conglomerates.
Habibie is not particularly popular among any segment of society.
Despite his inarguable intellect, he is well-known as intolerant
of ideas which differed from his own; until recently, he had
openly opposed the public demand for complete reform, especially
the convening of a special meeting of the MPR to discuss the
regime's record.
For these very reasons, it is hard to believe he will be able
to realize what the people want. Tomorrow does not bode well for
a better situation, as most signs point to more suffering of the
people as the economy continues to deteriorate.
The people, after three decades of the New Order's autocratic
rule, want to emerge from the darkness in which their all
institutions of democracy were emasculated and the economy was
controlled by a privileged elite. The situation worsened last
year after Indonesia was stunned to find itself as one of the
world's poorest nations despite the much-touted development
"successes" of recent years. They now live in untold misery --
its persistence will ring the death knell for the government.
We understand that to be a nation anew is not easy. But the
failure to carry through with change will only compound the
people's frustrations, and cause them to vent their long-standing
frustrations in even more savage ways.
In facing the difficult road ahead, we should move to step up
supervision by the people and maintain the student movement as an
effective correctional power for the nation's leaders.