Future governance 'needs coalition and alliance'

BANDUNG (JP): When President Soeharto is no longer in power, Indonesia should be led by a coalition of all existing social and political powers in order to overcome weaknesses that would occur in his absence, it was advocated here yesterday.

Analyst Mochtar Buchori said that a combined force was needed as it was hard to find anyone like Soeharto whose "unique" administration has accommodated and has been supported by the majority of the country's political forces.

"Political power holders are now very compartmentalized, suspicious of and isolated from one another... This will make an ideal alliance difficult to reach," he said.

However, such an alliance would be badly needed, Mochtar said. "No one can rule this country on his own."

Mochtar, a former rector of the Jakarta Muhammadiyah Teachers Training Institute, was speaking in a seminar held by the Bandung Institute of Technology in conjunction with its fifth alumni congress.

He cited a faltering economy, overpopulation, high unemployment overlapping and a low education level as the reasons why Indonesia needed to push for a transformation of politics.

Mochtar quipped: "It will be easier to manage Singapore than to run our country."

Mochtar said the country was in a dilemma as to whether to overhaul its political system or to push for democratization -- something which he maintained does not even exist here yet.

"It's just like the question of which comes first, the egg or the chicken," Mochtar said, adding that he believed it would take Indonesia at least another ten years before it could embark on democratization.

He supported an overhaul of the political system, which he described as maintaining the domination of the executive over the judiciary and legislature, and failed to prepare the nation for future challenges.

"The (political) system has given birth to an autocratic and authoritarian social order," he said.

It was because of having to live under such a system that Indonesians have, over the past ten years, lost their ability to cope with problems sparked by globalization.

The other speakers at the seminar were economist Sjahrir and scholar Ignas Kleden.

The congress yesterday also featured an exhibition of the results of studies held by the institute.

Today, participants will visit the state-owned aircraft maker PT IPTN. Tomorrow, the association of the institute's alumni -- accounting for some 30,000 people, will elect its new chairman. (43/aan)