Emasculation of the presidency

Emasculation of the presidency

On Aug. 7 President Abdurrahman Wahid gave his progress report
before the Annual Session of the People's Consultative Assembly
(MPR). On Aug. 8 the MPR members responded negatively, in
particular criticizing the President's management failures.
After failing for months to heed warnings that his style of
managing government affairs was not succeeding, it took the
President only two days to announce what sounds like a major
presidential management innovation. On Aug. 9 the President
announced that to improve his performance, he would delegate
responsibility for day-to-day details on domestic matters to Vice
President Megawati Soekarnoputri. What's wrong with this picture?

The President has announced that he will delegate management
responsibility for "the day-to-day technical details of running
the government" to someone who has no more of a track record for
modern management expertise or orientation to technical details
than he does. One must wonder what the President is thinking of.
One must wonder why the same MPR members who criticized the
President's lack of management expertise have so eagerly embraced
this proposition.

The President's errors of judgment, tactical mistakes, and
management failures have weakened his authority dangerously.
Political figures feel emboldened to prey on the President's
weakness to wrest the presidency from him, if not in name then in
effect. Knowing that impeachment could be a fatal wound to
economic recovery, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle
(PDI-Perjuangan) and the Functional Group (Golkar) instead
engineered the President's capitulation to a constitutionally
defective form of power-sharing with a Vice President whose
strengths do not complement the President's but replicate them.
President Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid might have needed a wake up
call from the MPR, but he should not have his presidential role
limited this way. This is a victory for backroom politics and a
setback for constitutional government.

DONNA K. WOODWARD

Medan, North Sumatra