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.