Friends to those in high places

Friends to those in high places

By Muhammad Sauri Hasibuan

JAKARTA (JP): Political connections are not much different
from any other kind, although they often have dire consequences
for our democracy. Nowadays, people who can break through the
clamor and actually whisper into the powerful ears are in greater
demand, and their rewards rising precipitously.

Former legislators can reach powerful ears by virtue of their
past associations. Even relatives of legislators and former
legislators are busily trading on their valuable names. Who you
know is very important. Someone with a great deal of money can
gain direct access to the powerful.

Political corruption in Indonesia rarely takes the form of
outright bribes, or even campaign contributions expressly linked
to particular votes. It is more subtle. Money does corrupt
politics, and the current system stinks, but to think about it in
terms of purchasing specific policies or pieces of legislation
misses the real corruption.

Here's how it works. A wealthy individual receives an
invitation to have coffee or breakfast with the president or, say
members of the legislature. The invitation may have come about
without any effort in the part of the wealthy individual, or the
wealthy individual may have solicited it.

In either case, the real value of the event to the individual
is that it confirms the impression to others that he is capable
of commanding the attention of a president or another powerful
person in the presidential palace. The photograph immortalizing
the coffee chat, complete with signature, hangs by no means
discreetly on the person's office wall. The personal thank-you
note to the wealthy individual that arrived from the politicians
is slyly shared with others. Word spreads of a subsequent
invitation to other private events.

What this does to the wealthy individual is incalculable.
Suddenly he has become someone with access to the powerful ear --
become a person, it is presumed, with connections, a person of
influence. Such a reputation is valuable to him socially,
financially, and all in the dimly lit areas in between.

It gives the people with whom he does business the sense that
he can deliver on whatever he proposes. After all, if he commands
the attention of a president or other powerful persons, he must
be capable of opening any door below that exalted level and, by
extension, of getting his way.

It doesn't matter if this inference is incorrect. The
appearance of power means that from now on his clients,
customers, suppliers, creditors, investors and contractors will
be more willing to cut a deal with him.

In return, the politician may or may not get a campaign
contribution directly from the wealthy individual. But as far as
the politician is concerned, that donation is not the point of
transaction. Through the wealthy individual, the politician gains
access to a network of wealthy people: individual's friends,
business partners and colleagues, and members of his club and
board.

These new contacts may have previously harbored misgivings
about the politician's values or objectives. They may have heard
unflattering rumors. But now the wealthy individual's
relationship to the politician reassures them: the photograph,
the handwritten notes, the golf, the breakfast, the coffee.

"If our colleague likes and trust this guy," they say to
themselves, "perhaps we should be more open-minded." The wealthy
individual introduces them to the politician when the occasion
arises. The politician is not a bad fellow, they conclude. And
then come their own invitations to breakfast, dinners and golf.
Members of the network are reassured, charmed and seduced. In
time, the new acquaintances will give money, and also ask that
others do so. The connections are made.

No policy has been altered or willfully changed. But
inevitably, as the politician enters into the endless round of
coffees, meals and receptions among the networks of the wealthy,
his view of the world is reframed. The seduction has been mutual.
The access that the politician provides the wealthy and the
access that the politician thereby gains to ever-expanding
network of money reinforce each other.

Increasingly, the politician hears the same kinds of
suggestions, the same voicing of concerns and priorities. The
wealthy do not speak in one voice, to be sure, but they share a
broad common perspective.

The politician hears only indirectly and abstractly from the
much less comfortable members of society. They are not at the
coffees and the dinners. They are on the street engaged in
demonstrations; most of the times being chased by the police and
soldiers, and running like frightened rabbits. They do not play
golf with him. They do not tell him directly and repeatedly, in
casual banter or through personal stories, between sips of
coffee, how they view the world. They do not speak continuously
into the politician's ear about their concerns. The politician
learns of their concern from the newspapers or pollsters, but he
is not immersed in them the way he is in the culture of the
comfortable.

In this way, access to the network of the wealthy does not buy
a politician's mind; instead, it nibbles constantly, sweetly, at
his ear.

The writer is an economic observer and lecturer at Universitas
Nasional in Jakarta.