Indonesia awaits its future

By Patrick Schwarz

This is the first of two articles exploring the stake of Indonesian people in the days to come.

SEMARANG (JP): Many foreign executives, diplomats and educators that faced a posting to Indonesia over the last few years were handed a book by their organizations that served as a political introduction to their future host country.

The book is titled Nation In Waiting and was brilliantly written by a former Indonesia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, Adam Schwarz (no relation to this writer).

The book was banned in Indonesia for being too critical of then strongman Soeharto. The writer was expelled from Indonesia. Consequently, and certainly to many reader's regret, the book's depiction of Indonesia's state of affairs ends in 1994.

Nation In Waiting describes Indonesia's more recent history and takes the reader from her humble beginnings since independence from the Dutch colonial rulers and its first constitution, through the era of nation building under its first president, Sukarno, the amendments of the constitution that followed, and into the new order regime of the former dictator, Soeharto.

It provides a thoroughly researched analysis of the strongman's build up and hold of tremendous power. It describes how ordinary Indonesians, the economic elite (cronies) close to the strongman, foreign investors and the Indonesian economy fared under such power. A power that was so enormous, there is no comparison to it in modern history. It makes the Marcos's of the Philippines, the Chiang's of Nationalist China and the Park's of South Korea -- to name but a few -- appear like pussy cats.

If Adam Schwarz were still in Indonesia today, the past 12 months would have provided him with enough material for an entire follow up book. Starting with the May riots of precisely one year ago, it has been a very moving period, full of ironic, violent and sad events, that made local and international news. And that are pure history in the making.

Nation In Waiting could not be a more appropriate descriptive term for what Indonesia is going through at this very moment; for the days leading to the June 7 elections will culminate the event-filled past 12 months. These will be followed by presidential elections at some later date as to who will lead this nation into the new millennium. Note the term "lead". In a multi-party democracy, a president leads. The law rules.

The elections will determine whether history will repeat itself. Whether powers that were and should finally become history will succeed in their endeavors to cling on, or the nation that has been waiting ever since its foundation will finally succeed in taking the giant leap into a full democracy.

At the present stage of this countdown to election day, it appears that two major powers have now emerged:

On the side of the "old-powers-that-were" is the naughty ruling Golkar which has announced that the current President, B.J. Habibie, who stepped into Soeharto's shoes 12 months ago, will be it's sole candidate. Other names, some of which were associated with the KKN (Indonesian idiom for collusion, corruption and nepotism) methods of the Soeharto era in the public's mind, have been taken off the list. Well into the countdown toward the elections, Golkar has started pulling lots of registers from money politics, to outright politics of terror that includes wanton killings at voter registration meetings. Even an unbiased, unsensationalized publication like Newsweek names this "murdering, maiming and bullying for votes".

On the opposing side are the "democratic reformist-humanists" consisting of three major parties: the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI Perjuangan) who nominated Megawati Soekarnoputri as their candidate; the National Mandate Party (PAN) who nominated Dr. Amien Rais and the National Awakening Party (PKB) with the leader of Nahdlatul Ulama -- Indonesia's largest religious grouping -- Abdurrahman Wahid, popularly known as Gus Dur. Each one of them is a seriously viable presidential contender in his or her own right.

Megawati, a daughter of Indonesia's first president Sukarno, is embedded in the public's mind with the color red and the logo of a fierce looking black bull over it. She has the furious, the young and the restless behind her.

In addition, she has funding from the mostly rich Chinese- Indonesian community. As a result, she sports the largest and most numerous flags flickering all over Java and Bali, where most of the votes will come from. And she boasts the most noisy vote- gathering rallies where the masses' idea of making oneself heard is to rev up unmuffled motorcycles and blast thousands of thousands of watts of dangdut music. This, and the fact that she is the only female contender, makes her a potential front-runner.

With a far more subdued pale-blue-on-white party color, Amien Rais comes across as the educated, sophisticated intellectual with the most pronounced (if not only) clear political agenda. The former leader of the second largest Muslim grouping called the Muhammadiah, Amien is the favorite of the educated elite. And he certainly strikes a chord in the international arena. Whether it is at an unofficial showing at the world economic forum at Davos, Switzerland, or during an impromptu visit to Hong Kong, or in an interview with CNN's Riz Khan during the haj pilgrimage at Mecca, he most definitely comes through as truly presidential material.

Gus Dur has the backing of Indonesia's largest Islamic religious organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama, which he has chaired for a long time and counts over 30 million members. Gus Dur is a tremendously popular figure. He has made a mark for tolerance not only in religious circles, but in society as a whole. A deeply religious Muslim, he nevertheless came through as a staunch defender of Christian minorities, and told his own Muslim flock to keep religion out of politics. He has brokered peace on innumerable occasions of religious unrest in many parts of the country. He was at odds with the former dictator Soeharto until before the latter's downfall, when the two made lukewarm amends. Soeharto, once so often, needed the backing of the Islamic flank. Gus Dur is a presidential contender against his personal wish. But he will back the idea. He has just returned from the United States where he underwent eye surgery that gave him a substantially more vigorous appearance.

These three powerful contenders announced on May 18 that they will unite to face the mighty, naughty Golkar. This, following electoral logic, narrows down the political battlefield to these two opponents: The "old-powers-that-were" versus the "democratic reformist-humanists". It will be a close call. While the latter has the backing of every righteous, free thinking Indonesian, the former (Golkar) might still make all the difference with the 38 unelected votes that are constitutionally allocated to the Indonesian Military (TNI).

The writer is managing director of ANP Corporation, Semarang.