Dissolve the current legislature

The following is the first of two articles based on a conference paper by sociologist George J. Aditjondro, a lecturer at Australia's Newcastle University.

NEWCASTLE, Australia: Recently, the move to push Megawati Soekarnoputri into the presidential seat has become stronger.

But is that the solution to the current stalemate between the executive and legislative branches of the Indonesian government? Or will it only be followed by another stalemate, centered around another corruption scandal, in six months time?

Reports of the growing cancer of corruption within Megawati's inner circle, and also those of corrupt practices among top leaders of the House of Representatives (DPR) and the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) clearly shows that simply replacing Abdurrahman Wahid by Megawati is surely not the solution.

The solution should rather be found in dissolving the current legislature -- most of whose leaders come from political parties which violated the 1999 bans against excessive party donations and electoral graft -- and have a new election, in which only those parties which did not violate those 1999 laws can take part.

The new elections would be supervised by a new General Elections Commission committed to enforce all bans against political corruption, especially excessive contributions and electoral graft.

Only in that way can we have a multiparty system, without the multiparty corruption now thriving in our political system.

Allegations of corruption and favoritism has been raised against Megawati's husband, Taufik Kiemas. He has been the focus of media reports in news portal detik.com and tabloid Adil which portray the South Sumatran businessman as rescuing Marimutu Sinivasan, the boss of Texmaco, one of the biggest debtors to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), from criminal investigations after allegedly accepting a position as a commissioner of the conglomerate.

Taufik has also attracted media attention for allegedly winning favorable deals in the US$2.3 billion Jakarta Outer Ring Road (JORR) project, the $2.4 billion double track railway project from Merak on the tip of West Java to Banyuwangi on the tip of East Java, the $23 billion Trans-Borneo highway, and the $1.7 billion Trans-Papua highway in West Papua (Panji Masyarakat, Aug. 30, 2000).

The JORR project seems to be the most politically sensitive among these potential megaprojects, since it strongly depends on Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso. This retired general is sitting on hot potatoes given his alleged role in the 1996 attack on the headquarters of Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party when he was in charge of the city's security as the Jakarta commander.

The government and the party's silence over investigations into the case, which led to days of rioting, raises questions over whether Sutiyoso might have offered Megawati's side a lucrative deal in the JORR project in return for being let off the hook, as reported by the above magazine.

The news bulletin, Xpos, mentions that Sutiyoso's bribe to Taufik amounted to Rp 15 billion, in addition to Rp 10 billion paid to Roy Janis, the head of the Jakarta branch of Megawati's party, PDI Perjuangan.

In its internet edition of May 22-28, 2000, Xpos showed proof of these alleged bribes and also exposed Sutiyoso's offer of another perk to win over Taufik's favor, namely a license to manage an offshore floating casino in Jakarta Bay.

As far as the JORR project is concerned, the Governor's attempt to be absolved from his alleged political crime in the July 27, 1996 disaster does not seem to be limited to Taufik.

The children of two ministers in the Cabinet are allegedly also involved in determining which company will be involved in the megaproject.

Further, two of Taufik's younger brothers, Santayana Kiemas and Nazaruddin Kiemas, have allegedly accepted appointments as commissioners of one of the Gajah Tunggal companies, to rescue Syamsul Nursalim, the conglomerate's boss, from similar criminal prosecution.

Taufik allegedly put some good words to the President about Syamsul Nursalim, after the tycoon sponsored Megawati and Taufik's New Year holiday in Hong Kong, according to Adil (Jan. 2001) and other reports.

Nazaruddin is also named in the same report as having lobbied on behalf of Djoko S. Tjandra, one of the main suspects in the Rp 546 billion Bank Bali scandal. After two hearings at the South Jakarta court, Tjandra was acquitted by the court.

This acquittal raised strong public protests in Jakarta, since this was one of the stumbling blocks for the legitimation of former president B.J. Habibie's presidency. Habibie's friends had allegedly used these funds to bribe a significant number of MPR members to elect Habibie as president in the October 1999 MPR session, as reported among others by Kompas in November 1999.

These reports show another feature of Taufik's business connections, namely the predominance of young people from his home town, Palembang, the capital of South Sumatra.

According to these news weeklies, Nursalim's link to Taufik is Dudy Makmun Murod, a legislator from Palembang. Dudy's father, a retired lieutenant general and former Army commander, also sits, incidentally, on Gajah Tunggal's board of commissioners.

Other members of this "Palembang mafia" reportedly include former student leaders and environmentalists, who have become business operators for Taufik, to the dismay of their fellow activists. This includes M. Yamin, a lawyer and former student activist in the campaign to defend victims of the huge Kedungombo dam in Central Java, and Zulkarnain M.S., an engineer and former director of the Indonesian Environmental Forum (WALHI).

Influence in the bureaucratic sphere seems to be divided between members of the two ruling families. While Gus Dur's brother Hasyim Wahid has attracted media attention due to his influence in IBRA, Taufik has been allegedly influencing the appointment of the Director General of Customs, Permana Agung.

The closeness of this financial officer with the Vice President's husband is alleged to cover up for Taufik's luxury car-importing business, Adil reported in January 2001.

A luxurious car dealer which the author visited last January in Cipete, South Jakarta, is allegedly partly or wholly owned by Taufik, showed dozens of luxurious sedans and four-wheel drive vehicles, that cost half of what other well-established car dealers were demanding in Jakarta.

None of these allegations against the Vice President's husband, his brothers and friends have been legally proven, so far. However, it is widely talked about in business circles and politicians in Jakarta, and among members of Megawati's own party.

Hence, MPR Speaker Amien Rais recently called for "people around Megawati Soekarnoputri to cease their corrupt practices, to safeguard Megawati's position when she becomes President", koridor.com reported in February 2001.

However DPR and MPR speakers are not free from corruption themselves.

Amien has allegedly amassed huge political donations from members of his National Mandate Party (PAN). These were to finance his campaign trips to Sumatra prior to the 1999 general election, and later his trips to maintain his constituency in Sumatra after becoming MPR Speaker.

These donations amounted to billions of rupiah, since it included such luxuries as helicopter trips during the 1999 election campaign. These costs amounted to approximately Rp 1 billion for every three days of his campaign.

Reports say these donations are mainly from PAN members who work at Mitra private hospitals, which are in turn part of the Kalbe Farma pharmaceutical company.

It is unclear whether these "donations" are seen as personal donations to Amien, or official donations from Kalbe Farma to the MPR Speaker -- hence a private donation to the state -- or a donation from a private company to a political party, namely PAN.