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.