Candidates for No. 2 man
Candidates for No. 2 man
After months spent guessing, the nation can now rest assured
that Minister of Research and Technology B. J. Habibie will be
elected vice president for the next five-year term.
His backing by Golkar, a powerful faction in the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR), became ironclad after rival nominee
Harmoko, the Assembly speaker, withdrew from the contest.
Habibie's nomination came as no surprise to the public, who
had been expecting the announcement since the government
published criteria for the future vice president last month.
The criteria, reportedly drafted by the President himself,
stated that the candidate must have a mastery of science and
technology -- a clause interpreted as a thinly veiled reference
to Habibie. This clause is not astounding since convention
dictates that the vice president is chosen after consultation
with the elected president, giving Soeharto the prerogative to
choose his second in command.
By September of last year, Habibie had given strong signals
that he would claim the august post. Disagreeing with a political
analyst who said that civilians were not as qualified as the
military to lead the country in the near future, Habibie instead
insisted that the former were more deserving of top leadership
posts because they made up the majority of Indonesia's
population. "It's deplorable if we allow only a small group to
obtain national leadership without giving a chance to the larger
group," he said.
When his nomination was officially announced last week,
reaction at home and abroad was mixed. However, President
Soeharto seems to have given little heed to pessimistic comments.
He is telling the world that his decision prevails.
In this situation we deem it necessary to draw attention to
another nomination for the vice presidential post. A group of
academics, prodemocracy activists from various religious
backgrounds and members of the public have informed the regional
faction in the MPR that they are putting forward the name of Emil
Salim, a noted American-educated economist who had held several
posts in Soeharto's cabinet.
It is hard to envisage that their moves will be successful as
they are not backed by any of the powerful factions in the MPR.
Although the regional faction and the Armed Forces have not yet
announced their nominations, it is highly unlikely that they will
oppose the President's hand-picked candidate.
Undeterred, Emil's supporters apparently believe that they
have a moral obligation to remind the people that there is a
strong and able candidate besides the official one. Emil has many
strong points. He has been involved in developing our national
economic power since the early years of the New Order government.
He also has mastery of technology, the environment and
population, he is close to the grass roots, has a good
relationship with the Armed Forces and lives a sincere and modest
life.
As an exercise of democracy the initiative is a precious step
and will be marked in the national history as evidence of the
fact that, even in our present difficult situation, this nation
still yearned for democracy.