Dissolve the current legislature

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.