How critical is the role of the vice presidency?

How critical is the role of the vice presidency?

By Pandaya

JAKARTA (JP): The raging debate on who will become the
republic's next vice president has died down since all of the
five political factions that make up the 1,000-strong People's
Consultative Assembly picked B.J. Habibie as their sole
candidate.

Although the presidential and vice presidential elections do
not formally kick off for another week, every informed Indonesian
has in their minds that the next president will be Soeharto and
the vice president Habibie.

Now that the main agenda -- the presidential and vice
presidential elections -- has been all-but sealed, the ongoing
Assembly convention that will eat up almost Rp 45 billion ($5
million) in taxpayers' money will be largely 11 days of gavel-
banging formality, as critics put it.

The mounting calls for political reform will be overlooked and
the State Policy Guidelines enacted without significant changes.

Thousands of intellectuals and informal leaders' call for the
Assembly to consider Emil Salim, a former environment minister
acclaimed for his integrity, as an alternative vice-presidential
candidate will most likely be consigned to the dustbin of
history.

An underlying issue is how indispensable is the vice
presidency in the coming five years when the economy is on the
verge of calamity and the government faces declining credibility.

Never before has the selection of a vice president sparked as
thick a cloud of controversy as it has now, especially since
Soeharto, who has been in power for 32 years, turns 77 this year.

Besides getting on in years, the President's health has been
of particular concern although it has appeared robust since he
canceled, on his doctors' advice, his attendance at an ASEAN
summit in Kuala Lumpur last December and took a two-week rest.

Given his age, many see Soeharto's next term as a critical
time and that the vice presidency may no longer be such a largely
ceremonial post. Five years ago this was the argument that people
used to describe what they hoped would be the strategic role of
then vice president-elect Try Sutrisno.

Five years ago, some people hoped the expected strategic role
would stop the criticism that the vice president is a mere "spare
tire" in Indonesian politics, someone who is there to take over
the president's job in case the latter is absent or becomes
incapacitated.

Favor

Even though there has never been any formal declaration of
preference, it is clear that Soeharto favors Habibie, the
outgoing state minister of research and technology, as his
running mate.

Chairman of the influential Association of Indonesian Moslem
Intellectuals (ICMI) and the German-educated technology czar is
Soeharto's long-time confidant.

Until the dominant political party Golkar announced it was
fielding Habibie as its vice presidential candidate, many people
believed Soeharto would pick a figure with a military background
as his next deputy.

They had assumed, wrongly, that Soeharto would need a military
man so that if anything happened to him, the Armed Forces (ABRI)
would retain its domination of the political arena.

When Soeharto accepted Gen. (ret) Try Sutrisno as his deputy
in 1993, speculation abounded that the President might step down
mid-term, which also proved wrong. Now, the speculation is no
longer even being heard.

Despite rumors that some people in ABRI want to see the next
vice president as someone with a military background, former ABRI
commander Gen. Feisal Tanjung has affirmed the military's support
for Habibie.

The choice of Habibie is to show that ABRI, too, is committed
to promoting democracy, Feisal argued.

Indria Samego of the National Institute of Sciences says the
question of who the next vice president is, remains a critical
issue given Soeharto's age and the global challenges facing
Indonesia.

"As we enter the 21st century, the country needs a national
leader who has a good reputation both at home and in the
international arena," he told The Jakarta Post.

And for Indria, who is also a researcher at ICMI's Center for
Information and Development Studies (CIDES), Habibie is the
standard bearer and best choice for the vice presidency.

Habibie, he says, is an acceptable figure for all spectrums in
society and therefore, if anything happens to the President, the
transition of power (to Habibie) would be without bloodshed.

The immediate challenge that the next national leadership team
will have to handle is to end the economic crisis. The markets
are watching closely to gauge how the coming leadership team
might restore both local and international confidence in the
Indonesian economy.

Pessimists are worried that the election of Habibie, whose
economic vision is called "unorthodox" by foreign media, would
not restore global confidence in Indonesia.

A day after Golkar hinted its choice of Habibie in January,
the rupiah crashed to a then all-time low of 12,000 against the
U.S. dollar. This argument, however, has been rejected by
Habibie's supporters, including some CIDES researchers.

Government critic Amien Rais says that since Soeharto and
Habibie's elections are foregone conclusions, they should be
given about six months before the public and the Assembly should
be allowed to pass judgment on them.

"Then we'll figure out the next step to take," says Amien, who
leads the 28-million-strong Muhammadiyah, a "reformist"
educational Moslem organization.