Evaluating Gus Dur

Evaluating Gus Dur

President Abdurrahman Wahid is always the center of attention,
and sometimes because of his controversial statements. He will be
under the media microscope on Monday morning at the opening of
the Annual Session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).
What do the people think of the President's performance so far
and his future?

JAKARTA (JP): While President Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid may
have disillusioned millions of people in this country, many feel
he should still be given a chance to lead the nation out of its
present political, economic and social predicaments.

This view, already voiced by political analysts in the
plethora of seminars and talk shows held in recent weeks, largely
corroborates what 21 ordinary people said about the President's
performance when asked by The Jakarta Post this past week.

In the run-up to this week's annual gathering of the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR), the Post approached 21 people from
all walks of life in different cities and towns to get their
evaluation of Gus Dur's performance (See Page 6).

The main agenda of the MPR meeting, which opens on Monday, is
to listen to the President's progress report on his first 10
months in office.

While the threat of the meeting turning into an impeachment
process has been widely discounted, the Assembly nevertheless
will debate a motion to allow the MPR at any time to call for an
emergency session to impeach the President.

Gus Dur will survive the grilling this week, but the threat of
impeachment, which first surfaced in May amid growing public
disenchantment with his leadership, will continue to haunt him
after the MPR meeting, especially if he fails to take heed of the
reservations expressed about his presidency and mend his ways
accordingly.

Answers given by the 21 people questioned tallied with the
result of a new survey on the opinions of members of the House of
Representatives conducted by the Independent Election Monitoring
Committee (KIPP), which was reported in the Tokoh magazine last
week.

The KIPP survey, with a random sample of 50 elected House
members from 10 factions, reflects to a large extend the degree
that House members truly represent the aspirations of the public.

Only 4 percent of the respondents in KIPP survey say that Gus
Dur's performance has lived up to people's expectations, while
the majority, 56 percent, say there has been progress but not
enough. Another 27 percent of the respondents say conditions in
the country have worsened.

As many as 58 percent of the respondents say they will accept
Gus Dur's progress report with reservations, 13 percent say they
will accept it unconditionally and 2 percent say they will reject
it.

Some 46 percent of the respondents say Gus Dur should be given
a chance to continue with his presidency, 33 percent say he
should reshuffle the Cabinet and forge a new political consensus
and 2 percent say he should resign or be replaced.

KIPP's survey as well as the response to the Post's questions
indicate that talks of impeachment may have stolen the headlines
these past few weeks, but the prevailing attitude in the House
and among the public is that, for all his shortcomings, Gus Dur
must remain president.

Different reasons have been cited for wanting Gus Dur to stay,
but they fall into one of two groups. The first are those who
feel that replacing him would only lead to more chaos and would
therefore solve nothing. The second group feels that there are no
viable alternative candidates to take his place.

Many people also feel that Vice President Megawati
Soekarnoputri, who will take over by default if Gus Dur resigns
or is impeached, is either not ready or not capable of filling in
his shoes.

There is a general consensus that Gus Dur's greatest
contribution during his presidency has been in promoting
democracy, particularly free speech, and civil society, including
in bringing the Indonesian Military to a large extent under
control.

There are divergent views, however, about what have been his
biggest failures, ranging from the economy, the security
situation including the rising crime rate, enforcement of the
law, eliminating corruption, to his penchant to make statements
that confuse the people.

There is also consensus that some of these problems were not
Gus Dur's fault, that they were inherited from past regimes, and
that these problems would have been too complex for any president
to deal with.

There is also a general feeling that the political elite --
meaning the political parties, the House and Assembly members --
have played a part in creating the current political chaos and
therefore in undermining Gus Dur's efforts to bring the country
out of its current predicament. (emb)