Coalition government is the only way out

Coalition government is the only way out

This article is based on a presentation by political observer
Cornelis Lay of Gadjah Mada University in a discussion on "Post-
election Indonesia: Who is going to be the fourth president?"
held in Yogyakarta last week on the occasion of the opening of
The Jakarta Post representative office.

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Beside constitutional problems, the
establishment of the next Cabinet will also be made more
difficult or worse by the fact that the so-called reformists'
agenda is never clear. They want to stop Habibie, Golkar and the
New Order, but at the same time they do not want to accept
Megawati, as a leader, and the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan). They refuse to accept anything. In a
way they seem to be in a battle against all sides albeit without
no clear direction.

As long as the reformist camp has no clear focus of where to
go, it's quite predictable that the final winner will be the
Indonesian Military. This has been the scenario of Indonesian
politics for a long time.

There has been a mix-up between our desire to build an
objective, reasonable, and acceptable system and that of
supporting a particular figure out of a mere personal and
emotional relationship. This has made all the arguments unclear.

It's a good sign indeed that many people are beginning to use
the 1945 Constitution's amendment and even use it as a yardstick
to distinguish between the status quo forces and the reformists.
Yet, all the arguments they use to halt a particular force from
being the leader of the nation is indeed substantively
unconstitutional.

You can see this during the last few days. There is a tendency
among certain people to use the so-called extra electoral process
as a basic political mechanism to form the government. They said
Megawati doesn't deserve the position as president because she is
stupid, reticent and such. Habibie doesn't suit the position
because of his close relationship to Soeharto. The only person
suitable for the presidential position is, therefore, their man.
Such a stance is certainly ignoring all the results of the
elections.

It is time for us to show the nation that whoever wins the
elections -- should we believe it as a democratic mechanism and
the political parties the instruments to reach democracy -- will
be the president, regardless if the party can't reach a single
majority.

Extra electoral processes will only give us two possible
winners: the Military or Golkar. No other parties are prepared to
face such a situation. The question is whether we would like to
build a system without an amendment to the 1945 Constitution.

The argument that we're facing a deadlock on is a logic coming
from the 1945 Constitution. The Constitution says that the
President is elected by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR)
based on the highest number of votes. Therefore we're making an
assumption that such a regulation could make the presidential
election process end up in a deadlock. Clearly, it's just wishful
thinking of many groups of people who are surprised by their loss
in the election. They dream of being supported by many people,
but in fact there are only four to five of them.

The question is, could we put this back on the democratic
track, meaning can we believe in both the party and the election
mechanism? If we could, and a particular political party --
regardless if it is Golkar, National Mandate Party (PAN),
National Awakening Party (PKB), or Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) -- wins the election at only 0.5
percent or even 0.01 percent above the average, it should be
given the authority to govern this republic. Otherwise, we're
only practicing the 1945 Constitution. In other words, all the
arguments for changing the Constitution will be nothing but
nonsense.

Unfortunately, this kind of confusion about the reform agenda
has also been infiltrated by confusion in ideology. This is
incredible. PDI Perjuangan or Megawati, for example, have been
regarded as part of a conspiracy of Catholic and Christian
minority groups. My serious question then is how could a person
like Theo Safei who is rejected everywhere, have the power to
influence all the political bosses in PDI Perjuangan? The same
question can be posed to Sembiring Meliala, who is regarded as
the second most influential person in PDI Perjuangan.

Such an exaggerated imagination is very dangerous and would
bring the political process to two big political blocks. In
Indonesian history again, once the fissure of nationalist and
Islamic camps got stronger, the last winner was always the Armed
Forces. There was no historical date refuting this fact. This is
a political reality.

Should the reformist forces in the community fail to set
themselves free from the confusion, the question about the next
president would be irrelevant. The one we should look at is the
candidate who will be from the Armed Forces ranks. The General
Elections Commission (KPU), also plays a role. KPU chairman
Rudini gave political parties amazing authority to campaign. His
only dream was that small parties would gain votes and join in a
coalition, and say "I will become the president". It was just
that simple. And everyone was surprised to know that small
parties gained no support.

I think it's time for us to reunderline that it's not the
person that matters as the properness of someone who becomes
irrelevant in an unclear system. Whoever the next president is,
if he/she is elected through a non-electoral process, he/she will
only result in a serious political problem of legitimacy.

Of no less importance is the political reality indicating that
PDI Perjuangan will collect more than 40 percent of the total
votes. Yet, in reality, the seats it gets in the House of
Representatives will be below that. It may be less than 35
percent of the total seats. This alone raises a serious question
about representation. How can a political party which may win
nearly 50 percent of the votes have less than 50 percent of the
political representatives? This could be a serious problem in the
future.

The political parties should also not think that the problem
will end there. When the time comes for them to decide who will
represent which territory, the questions about the percentage and
the cumulative number will also become a serious matter among
party representatives. We can probably see that a particular
party gains a high percentage of votes in a particular regency.
Yet, when it is compared to other regions cumulatively, the
percentage becomes very low. In this case, on what basis should
the party representative for the region be selected?

Take the case of PAN's votes, for example. If we use the
Gunung Kidul village's percentage, it could be very high. Yet if
it is compared to Sleman's, it will be very low. The question is
who will represent PAN in Jakarta? It looks simple but it could
result in an internal complication in the party as every person
has an interest to be in power. In PDI Perjuangan, the same
problem occurs, as well as Golkar or any other parties.

If the composition of the vote is stable like at present,
there will be certainly two determining forces in the political
process: PAN and the Armed Forces. The problem is PAN itself is
facing a dilemma between a desire to join with PDI Perjuangan and
the possibility to join with Golkar.

The first choice will cause the party's faction, supported by
A.M. Fatwa and friends, to leave PAN, while the second choice
will cause a conflict with the force or network supported by
Faisal Basri and friends. This has made PAN powerless and left in
the middle: it will become an opposition but will never form a
coalition. It's a compromised choice, otherwise, PAN will be left
behind by one of its factions. I think PAN is realistic in seeing
this matter.

In the meantime, we seem to forget the tangible enemy of ours
is the last symbol of the status quo force grouped in the
Indonesian bureaucracy. The tension between elected politicians
and the Indonesian bureaucracy during the 32 years of the New
Order regime and the Golkar era will be difficult to conquer. I
see that the concrete political conflict will occur at this
level.

Just imagine how legislative candidates of political parties
-- who are only elementary school graduates, have prejudices and
extremely high political suspicions and were previous objects of
harm of particular parties -- all of a sudden control the formal
political structure on regional levels, have the authority to
govern the region and state everybody as a thief practicing
corruption, collusion and nepotism. At the same time, there are
also highly talented bureaucrats who master high levels of
information -- as they have been in power for 32 consecutive
years -- and who have to obey whatever instructions they receive
while there is no raise in their salary.

Indonesia's most crucial political issue will be in the
balancing of these two forces. We can not imagine the new
Indonesia without the existence of Golkar, Habibie, Megawati or
PDI Perjuangan. Likewise, Mega could not imagine the new
Indonesia without Islam, and so on.

It is, I think, time for the Islamic political force and the
nationalist one to fully realize that this republic cannot be
built only on one leg. That's why there is a need for both forces
to move to the middle and build a healthy coalition or
cooperation. It is the only possibility.

How can such a thing be done? There certainly should be PDI
Perjuangan's accommodated politics as well as a desire to get
closer to politics from the Muslim political forces.

The problem is Muslim political forces have been putting a
distance between them and PDI Perjuangan for the last two years.
This was evident when Muhammadiyah leader Mochtar Buchori
declared himself a PDI Perjuangan member. He was indeed isolated
from the Muslim political forces, the Muhammadiyah Muslim
organization. This should become reflective material for the
political forces to see that such a concrete political force
might not be distanced. We have to be able to build a rational
cooperation.

If this doesn't work, read once again Indonesian history. In
1927 Muslim youths and nationalist ones failed to reach an
agreement. They succeeded in 1928. We thank God that there was
Hatta who was able to be a bridge for both forces in 1945. We
failed in 1959 and as a result the Armed Forces began to take an
important role in Indonesian politics.

Should we fail again this time, we will certainly give the
Armed Forces a mandate to rule the nation and say that they are
the most important force in this republic. Such awareness should
be built among the reformists.

How should we do that? Rector of Gadjah Mada University,
Ichlasul Amal, has been trying to put this across. Among all
limitations, the Gadjah Mada University has made a draft of it.
We say there's no need to care so much about the person. Whoever
the person is and whatever desire the person has in ruling the
nation, as long as he/she is supported by a system which makes it
possible for any proper check and balance, distribution of the
authority and limitation of power, it can be guaranteed that
he/she will not be the second Soeharto. (swa)