Has the MPR failed the people?

Has the MPR failed the people?

I am writing in response to Ms. Rahayu's article MPR fails to
heed people's voice, of Nov. 2, 1999, and I consider her blanket
accusation against the honorable members of the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR) utterly unfair and self-righteous,
written exclusively from the point of view of an ardent, if not
broken-hearted, supporter of the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan).

It appears, indeed, that Ms. Rahayu writes more with her
feelings than with her head. She is just being emotional, repeats
herself over and over adds nothing to the validity of her theses.
She complains about some perceived peculiarities of Indonesia's
(present) politics. The main peculiarity, though, is probably
that a person who gets just one third of the votes is considered
"the winner of the election" (by herself and by those who adore
her for whatever reason).

The fact is, there was no clear election winner. Nobody can
say for sure how the people would have voted if the choice had
been limited to just the two persons who now have been chosen by
the MPR to lead the country.

There is absolutely no proof that Megawati Soekarnoputri would
have achieved a majority. I dare to guesstimate that the vast
majority of those who voted for the National Awakening Party,
United Development Party, National Mandate Party, Star and
Crescent Party and some smaller Islamic parties, plus most of the
Functional Group (Golkar) voters would have preferred Abdurrahman
Wahid as president. That would probably be more than 50 percent.

All of PDI Perjuangan plus, perhaps, one-third of the Golkar
vote may have been about 42 percent, and with a few more voters
from several mini parties Megawati might have reached 47 percent.
Now, isn't that exactly reflected in the outcome of the MPR vote?
-- 65 percent of the voters preferred a party other than PDI
Perjuangan; that's not fuzzy logic, as Ms. Rahayu is trying to
argue, it's a hard fact, and if there is anything fuzzy around
here, then it's probably Ms. Rahayu's perception of the
realities.

Megawati is simply not the winner of the election, however
much her fanatic supporters would want to believe that (and
forcefully make the other 65 percent of voters accept it). Nobody
can say for sure what all those people were thinking who voted
for a party other than PDI Perjuangan. To what extent are they
really divided in their goals, or to what extent do they just
choose different avenues toward the same destination, namely a
president other than Megawati? There is a high chance that unrest
would have broken out in other areas if Megawati had been elected
as president; the demonstrations in Sulawesi and Kalimantan speak
for themselves.

I feel that I have to defend the honor of the MPR members.
This is, indeed, a very difficult phase in Indonesia's political
history.

In Germany, the transition from Hitler's dictatorship to a
stable democracy took some eight years, half of that under
foreign political management. The 1949 election there resulted in
the same confusing picture as the 1999 election here, but Konrad
Adenauer managed to build a multiparty coalition he could work
with, given the sense of realities and the political skills that
he had, in contrast to the leaders of PDI Perjuangan.

I believe the Indonesian nation and the MPR have every reason
to be proud of themselves for the way they managed the transition
from dictatorship to democracy, in view of the fact that the
people's will is by no means uniform but varies widely between
regions and between social groups, and in spite of several
undeniable shortcomings.

GOTTFRIED ROELCKE

Surabaya