If Megawati is president

If Megawati is president

From D&R

If Megawati becomes Indonesia's fourth president, her leadership may hit a major stumbling block due to her limited capabilities and the conflicts of interest of those around her. They are interrelated. Owing to her limited capabilities, she will not be able to properly manage the conflicts within her party. In the meantime, conflicts of interest of her party's personnel have become more acute following her rise to the peak of power. As a result, turmoil will ensue and Megawati, as the new president, will not be able to consolidate her administration to take it to a more productive stage.

Ultimately, the leadership of Megawati Soekarnoputri will be brief and the people will confront uncertainty again. Political stability and the like will be seriously disrupted and disturbed.

Why have conflicts of interest become more acute when Megawati is on the brink of power? Well, simply because the party personnel around her come from different backgrounds and pursue their own interests. Some of them are from Golkar, like Theo Syafei and Jacob Tobing, for example. These people clearly tend to seize back the power they once had while still in Golkar. They will resort to anything and are even ready to fool the people, which Jacob Tobing did in the case of his radiogram about the pooling of fringe votes.

Megawati has in fact realized that she has been made a puppet by the people around her. Once she even hesitated to move forward. Yet those around her have kept on pushing her to move forward. Even Benny Moerdani has given Megawati her support.

Moerdani himself played a significant role in catapulting Megawati to the top position of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), which was then undergoing a leadership crisis as the Soeharto administration was trying to prevent Soerjadi from being elected PDI chairman again.

At that time the Soeharto administration considered Soerjadi as having deviated from the course charted by the government and needed to be removed from his position. When PDI was in this deep leadership confusion, Benny Moerdani and his comrades-in-arms were all too willing to fork out billions of rupiah to make Megawati a new chairwoman of the PDI. Thanks to this huge amount of money, support within the party could be bought in favor of Megawati. So, Moerdani and his company were successful.

Now, when Megawati is a little hesitant to move forward toward the presidential position, Moerdani has again appeared to give her his moral and other support. Benny Moerdani is really a true friend to Megawati. A friend in need is a friend indeed.

AGUS KUSAENI

Tasikmalaya, West Java