Golkar's felonious ploy

Every time Indonesians, whose sense of humanitarianism remains intact, speak about civil servants, they do so with strong emotion. This is due to the fact that for decades, administration after administration, the crusade to improve the lot of civil servants has proved unfruitful.

However, with or without this sense of empathy, when leaders of the government party, Golkar, speak about this worst paid group of our workforce, they always assess the political importance of the hapless civil servants.

As inhumane as it may sound, for more than three decades under the implementation of president Soeharto's dirty politics, members of the Indonesian Civil Servants Corps were made part and parcel of the authoritarian machine. Soeharto's fall was no guarantee that the rotten mentality he left behind would vanish, and today there are still many reminders of this ugly legacy.

The weird fuss now dominating the House of Representatives' discussions on political bills, which are now touching upon the status of civil servants, was initiated by Golkar, the dominant faction.

In the minds of Golkar leaders, the four million civil servants, many of whom still hold key position in the administration, should be given the freedom to become executives of any political party. The government, which sponsors the bill, and all other House factions are not in agreement over the idea because it will possibly disrupt the fair services rendered to the public by civil servants.

According to the bill, the civic rights of civil servants will not be denied at all since they will have the right to vote in general elections.

A political analyst has warned against such a move, saying that if civil servants are allowed to be executives of political parties, it would create potential "power politics", whereas in any situation the bureaucracy should remain neutral in politics. They should serve all with absolute impartiality. Another political observer has also said that allowing civil servants to enter politics would be tantamount to allowing them to violate other people's human rights.

While Golkar has cited human rights as a reason for its proposal, many people have no difficulty in guessing what kind of human rights the group believes in. Golkar leaders must be well aware that in the provinces, bureaucrats, who used to violate every constitutional right of their citizens to ensure the reelection of Soeharto, are still operating under the same old mentality. Many of them foolishly feel that Soeharto still rules supreme both over the country and over Golkar.

By fighting for the proposal -- and it will surely get what it wants due to the majority it enjoys in the House -- Golkar leaders will have to make use of the remnants of the politically corrupt bureaucrats to keep the group's head above water in next June's poll.

Many Golkar executives have appeared panic-stricken at the burgeoning of new political parties and the rejection of Golkar by the public, many of who blame it for impoverishing the people.

With new members of the executive board or not, with new political clout or not, in the eyes of the public Golkar comes with a hereditary sin attached to it. It is felt that the group is nothing but a horrible ghost of Soeharto's past and it must be the first party rejected in the elections.

Its determination to see the proposal accepted shows that it is a curse to the nation's fight for reform. That so many parties have called for public support outside the legislative body to foil Golkar's intrigue shows how serious it would be if the proposal is enacted into law.