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.