Higher office or higher service?

Higher office or higher service?

By Donna K. Woodward

MEDAN, North Sumatra (JP): Abdurrahman Wahid's presidency is
all but history, thanks mostly to his own stubborn refusal to
accept criticism or advice. But in destroying his own presidency
-- and derailing Indonesia's recovery -- Gus Dur had an
accomplice, in the person of Amien Rais.

With his role in mobilizing Indonesia's students in the days
before Soeharto's downfall, Amien played a major part in
Soeharto's ouster. Amien had a singular leadership role, and an
obvious sense of entitlement regarding his plans for national
office.

He was one of the few emerging political leaders in 1998-1999
who stated directly that he wanted to be president. During the
months leading up to the general election Amien and Gus Dur
competed for public attention and support, though Gus Dur was not
so explicit in stating his ambition.

Amien seemed abashed at his poor showing in the June 1999
general election, but accepting of the outcome. In the 1999
presidential election, Indonesia politics took a strange turn
when Amien Rais, who didn't have the base for victory, turned
kingmaker vis-a-vis his erstwhile political rival, Gus Dur.

Frontrunner Megawati Soekarnoputri was unacceptable to a large
part of the population and uninterested in coalition-building.
Gus Dur's reputation as a supporter of democracy and inter-ethnic
and inter-religious tolerance seemed to make him the perfect
compromise choice.

In orchestrating Gus Dur's election, Amien showed his
political craftiness and solidified his reputation as a political
force to be reckoned with.

From the start Gus Dur and Amien were strange political
bedfellows. Though he played the key role in engineering Gus
Dur's smooth ascension to the presidency, thereafter Amien seemed
driven to challenge, and could even undermine the President at
every turn.

Amien seems to have made the removal of the President his
priority, achieving few substantive policy or constitutional
initiatives as MPR leader. Amien often comments on Gus Dur's
first-year failures; but Amien's first-year legacy seems no more
productive or praiseworthy.

Given his background as a student of modern political science,
it is a pity Amien didn't devote more energy to the MPR's
constitutional mandate of deciding the broad outlines of the
country's direction.

Now Amien has again put on his kingmaker's hat. He has given
his imprimatur to Megawati's right to become president -- as if
there were any constitutional question needing affirmation.

Is Amien currying favor? Amien has met with fraction heads to
discuss a Megawati presidency. Has he made any overtures to them
regarding a future role? Does Amien covet for himself the role
of vice president? How should Megawati Soekarnoputri respond to
this initiative, if it comes?

"Beware, Megawati." Amien has shown great impatience to
liberate the presidency from its current incumbent. There is no
guarantee he would not soon become impatient again, especially if
he were in line to assume the presidency.

The Constitution gives the MPR the right to elect the
President and Vice President; Amien may prove as adept at
engineering his own election to the Vice Presidency as he did in
getting Gus Dur elected president.

It is hard to imagine Amien playing second fiddle to Megawati
for long. Many are hoping that as President, Megawati will
surprise the country with a new-found strength to lead.

She may hardly have the chance, if she is talked into having
such an ambitious second by the party leaders Amien has been
courting -- including Taufik Kiemas, apparently the "first among
equals" in these meetings.

Does Amien view the spouse as an influential middleman who can
deliver a favor from his wife? If so, what does this say about
Amien's respect for Megawati as her own person?

Megawati's limitations are well known, but if she becomes
president she deserves an opportunity to devote herself to the
job at hand without the constant threat of MPR action.

If she has deficiencies, Amien and the legislature's Speaker
Akbar Tandjung and the faction leaders need to support her, to
criticize her performance when needed and offer advice, but not
to keep her presidency under siege.

Indonesia can ill afford another short-term president. Let
Amien focus on his MPR leadership role and prepare a reformist
agenda for presentation to "President Megawati", particularly
with respect to the military and separatism, two areas wherein
Megawati is more oriented toward the status quo than to reform.

Let Amien's MPR draw Megawati a clear, straight roadmap toward
political, economic, and bureaucratic reform. If she becomes
president, Megawati will need not an unfaithful political
bedfellow, but a loyal political partner.

This time around, let Amien focus not on higher office, but on
higher service.

The writer, an attorney and former American diplomat at the
U.S. Consulate General in Medan, is president director of PT Far
Horizons management consultancy.