Gus Dur's leadership and Indonesia's survival

By Jusuf Wanandi

JAKARTA (JP): Many have asked whether President Abdurrahman Wahid can survive the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) session next month, such is the amount of criticism that has been directed against him over the last two months.

Theoretically and constitutionally the MPR can act against the President, including impeaching him, if he has acted against the constitution and/or has seriously violated the law. The President, or Gus Dur, has done nothing of the sort.

Politically, replacing a president before his five-year term is over, or every year like an Italian prime minister, creates a very bad political precedent, and opens a Pandora's box that could destabilize Indonesian politics for the foreseeable future.

Furthermore, it is not such an easy political maneuver to replace Abdurrahman -- all the other candidates that come to mind at this stage are even weaker than him. It would not be easy to elect any one of them in the MPR session in August.

In spite of all this, it does not mean that the President will not have a real problem in the future if he is not willing to change in a few basic ways.

First, his style as president has to be more structured. He cannot behave in the erratic and capricious way he did when he was an NGO leader. It has been questioned whether he can change. Anybody facing a survival problem is able to change; and Gus Dur is facing a survival problem. More importantly, the nation as a whole is facing a survival problem. His staff and assistants should support him in these vital but difficult tasks.

Gus Dur should not talk as freely as he used to do when he chaired Nahdlatul Ulama. More than ever, he should demonstrate a deep sense of crisis, because the problems facing the country are huge and complicated. And more importantly he should not allow even the faintest smell of corruption, collusion and nepotism around him.

He should form a new economic team that he trusts and that can work together, and give it a full mandate to implement reforms and undertake efforts to rehabilitate the economy.

Other political leaders should also show more responsibility. Instead of criticizing Gus Dur, they should be aware how difficult the problems are and how deep the crisis is. They should also assist and support Gus Dur, because the nation's survival is at stake. They have as much responsibility as Gus Dur in overcoming the crisis. If they want a united and democratic Indonesia to come out of this crisis they better play their part as well.

A special remark here is warranted about the leadership of the armed forces and the police. If they ever want to restore their names, and become the vanguard of the nation as their predecessors were in the 1945 national revolution, they better get their act together now, and support Gus Dur by maintaining law and order and preventing or overcoming regional conflicts.

They must do their utmost, and do it in a most conscientious way. The way they have shown their leadership skills so far, except for in the rhetoric department, has been so dismaying that they are surely losing all the residual trust that the elite and the people have in them.

After all the criticism and debate in the last two months, especially about Gus Dur's leadership, a certain sensibility and common sense has returned to the Indonesian political scene. It started with the meeting of the elite in Bali several weeks ago and was followed with a meeting between the three national leaders -- Gus Dur, Amien Rais and Akbar Tandjung -- about political developments in anticipation of the MPR session next month.

Furthermore, the statements by the 11 factions of the Assembly and other respected leaders such as Nurcholish Madjid, the new chair of Muhammadiyah Ahmad Syafi'i Ma'arif, and Hasyim Muzadi, the chair of Nahdlatul Ulama, urging a calming of the political debate and asking the political elite to become more responsible were encouraging.

Being at the brink of political chaos, it is hoped more sense and responsibility will be shown by our leaders and elite. Otherwise, another opportunity to establish a democratic and just Indonesia like in the early 1950s will be wasted again. Which would be a failure the nation could no longer afford.

The writer is chairman of the supervisory board at the Jakarta- based Center for Strategic International Studies.