Coalition a victory for people's power

As vote counting continues, people are predicting the shape of the country's new political map. Political analyst Wimar Witoelar shares his views.

JAKARTA (JP): One week after the elections, concern over the snail's pace of the vote count is matched only by increasing confusion about coalitions.

Of the two issues, the coalition issue is by far the more important. Having clean and fair elections capped by a quick and clean vote count is like having a successful medical operation. But failing to use the people's electoral mandate to form a new and clean government would mean "the operation was successful, but the patient died".

Because of the strange mathematics of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) and Golkar's use of money politics, the possibility of Habibie being elected president by the MPR is still very real.

A report in The Washington Post said: "in many other countries, a leader who presided over a party that could win only 20 percent of the popular vote nationally might resign on principle, or at least not seek reelection."

But if Habibie were a man who cared to read the mood of the people, he would not have hung around this long. Clearly, the public must force out the current regime. If this does not occur, these emergency elections which came about out of a unique set of circumstances would lose their meaning.

We still remember the chain of events which led to last week's polls. It started with the students marching on the legislature and forcing president Soeharto to resign on May 21, 1998.

It happened with such speed that nobody was ready to pick up the pieces, particularly the opposition, which is supposed to take over power in such a situation.

The people made their will very clear. No more of Soeharto's corruption and abuse of human rights. Yet no politician rallied to the people's cause, allowing Soeharto to pass the reins of government over to Habibie, who turned out to be the nation's premier entertainer. Like Emperor Nero who played the fiddle while Rome burned, Habibie would have been funny if so many people had not died as a result. The press, the International Monetary Fund and the world's governments watched Habibie's performance as we lost our security, our dignity and our money.

Clearly this was not what we wanted, and by mid-1998 various groups, from students to senior statesmen, were calling for Habibie's removal from office and replacement by a leader "acceptable to the people".

This was easier said than done. After the revolutionary events of May 1998, the effort to put the reform movement back on track bogged down in legalistic details and a strong money-driven defense by the Soeharto-Habibie-Wiranto triad.

They bought all the best lawyers money could buy, used government money to try to resurrect Golkar, Soeharto's political machine and rained terror down upon East Timor, Aceh, Ambon and Sambas. A coherent political opposition became difficult because all the noise made it difficult to tell friend from foe.

Then all of a sudden, the general election, an idea which had been tossed around by conventional political thinkers, took shape and distracted people from the immediate removal from office of Habibie and the immediate trial of Soeharto.

The law framing the elections had a shameful beginning, forced through by a MPR political machine driven by the Indonesian Military and Habibie, adding the lives of students lost in the Semanggi tragedy to the roster of student heroes killed in the Trisakti shooting. Students and intellectuals were skeptical, but then something occurred which made the elections respectable. What was that something?

Quite simply, the promise that this time politicians would stay true to the demands of reform. We had been disappointed once before, just before the Semanggi tragedy in November 1998.

Three widely respected leaders, Megawati Soekarnoputri, Gus Dur and Amien Rais, refused to rally to the side of the students then occupying the MPR building.

Now, in May 1999, these three leaders' respective political parties, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the National Mandate Party (PAN), stated explicitly they were allied in a united front against the New Order, now represented by Golkar and the Habibie government.

This revived hopes the elections would lead to the removal from power of Habibie and Golkar. That is why it is confusing to hear that some PAN officials have considered the possibility of forming a coalition with Golkar. It is equally confusing to hear some Golkar officials are considering a coalition with PDI Perjuangan.

The only coalition which makes sense is PDI Perjuangan-PKB-PAN as the ruling coalition, with Golkar and the rest of the parties comprising the opposition. It was a relief to hear Amien Rais say PAN would never enter into a coalition with Golkar. Amien further said such a coalition would be a betrayal of his principles and integrity. A party whose platform stipulates a complete break from the New Order regime could hardly turn around and embrace Golkar, which, along with the military and the bureaucracy, was one of the three pillars of the now-defunct regime.

Still, we wonder which parties will form alliances ahead of the meeting of the MPR and the presidential election? For ordinary citizens, the paramount questions are who will be Indonesia's next president and what kind of government are we going to get?

A PDI Perjuangan victory in the elections means a triumph for Megawati and the people's will. The PKB's strength is Gus Dur's leadership and the gentle morality of Nahdlatul Ulama, the Muslim organization led by Gus Dur. The emergence of PAN means deserved recognition for Amien Rais and an opportunity for a pluralistic middle-class.

A coalition demolition of the New Order would be a gift to the people; a reward for bearing the burden of the current economic crisis and decades of oppression. The coalition must be a victory for people's power and an affirmation of reformasi.