History repeated
Politics is the art of possibility but in Indonesia it has more often appeared as the agony of frustration.
The feeling is seemingly shared by most of the voters in last year's general election, who pinned their hopes for political reform on the changes promised by contestants from the two official opposition parties.
Change was not expected from Golkar, the ruling faction. Golkar believes that the general election is not an appropriate forum in which to censure government performance. It sees the election as a way of preserving the status quo, which is why the system has hardly been modified since 1971, when polls were first conducted by the New Order government. In the same period of time, Indonesian collective consciousness has blossomed and the electoral system cannot match the new aspirations now coursing through society.
The people feel that the opposition parties have breached their trust. Not only refusing to sponsor change, they have rubbed salt in societies wounds by tamely echoing Golkar's nominations for president and vice president.
The script for the five-yearly meeting of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), which begins tomorrow, has already been written, as it has been since 1971, allowing history to repeat itself in a repulsive way.
When discussion of the General Session first surfaced among scholars and political experts two years ago, the authorities responded by saying such discussion was premature. Nobody need worry about the forthcoming "feast of democracy", the country "already had a system".
Many distinguished Indonesians have been keen to see Dr. Emil Salim, a senior economist, nominated for the vice presidency. Working from outside the system, it was no surprise that their bid failed. Only the five MPR factions have the right to nominate candidates for the republic's two top posts. Emil was not on any of their lists.
Excluding a popular independent candidate from the elections is not consistent with the MPRs constitutional position -- it is the institutional embodiment of popular sovereignty. Efforts to block the nomination of Emil, who has played an important role in developing the country's economy from the beginning of the New Order, have been intensive, especially from the dominant Golkar faction.
Alarmed by support for the economist, which includes some Golkar activists, the faction has consolidated support for its own chosen candidates by collecting signed statements of allegiance from its members, denying them their constitutional right to put forward their own candidates before the Assembly.
The constitution stipulates that the president and vice president must be elected by majority votes. Every member of the MPR has the right to exercise freedom of choice. No rule states that either presidential or vice presidential candidates have to be nominated by a certain faction in the house. Furthermore, there is nothing to prevent an independent candidate from running for the job.
History is repeating itself. Two decades ago, Dr. Ismail Suny, a senior professor of constitutional law at the University of Indonesia, warned the nation that popular sovereignty had fallen into the hands of the MPR faction chairmen. MPR members had become willing to passively accept instructions imposed from above and had lost the courage to speak out of line, much less nominate alternative candidates. On Emil's failure, the nation should not be surprised.