Indonesia needs new, younger leadership

S.P. Seth, Freelance Writer, Sydney, SushilPSeth@aol.com

The recent elections in Indonesia have turned the focus once again on the country. While the results of the legislative elections are still being digested and analyzed, speculations are already rife regarding the forthcoming first direct presidential election. One sometimes gets the feeling that elections have become an end by themselves. In the process, the country's governing elite is conveniently forgetting that the electoral process is just a means to an end. Which is the betterment of the country's people.

While democracy, of which periodic elections are an important part, is a worthy goal, it is only an instrument. And like any instrument if it is not handled and channeled properly, it won't produce results and might even be counter-productive. Indeed, sometimes people can even become nostalgic about their past (however distasteful it might be, as in the Soeharto era), if the gap between their expectations (under the new democratic order) keeps widening from one election to the other.

That stage hasn't been reached yet, but popular dissatisfaction is growing. The people, for instance, seem quite disappointed with President Megawati Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). And they have punished her party by significantly slashing its voting share from the last election. The former President Soeharto's Golkar party hasn't done too bad, due to the nostalgia factor.

The smaller parties, with a cleaner image, have been the main beneficiaries. Which means that people haven't just given up on the democratic experiment, hoping that there still are elements in the political landscape genuinely committed to the country's welfare. If not, the country is in for further turmoil.

But why is it that there is such a sense of disillusionment? The answer: It is the same old problem of power holders lining their own pockets, with very little thought for their impoverished people. The corruption is endemic and institutionalized. There are now more crooks with their hands in the till than under Soeharto, because of the imperatives of democratic sharing of the spoils. It looks like the old system has a new coating, with necessary adjustment for new entrants. For instance, Megawati's party has now carved a large share of the spoils previously reserved for the Soeharto family and their cronies.

It would, therefore, seem that almost all politicians and their hangers-on are now partners in crime. It is a cosy club with Indonesia's expanded establishment interested only in feathering its own nest.

And where are the people? Well, many of them have joined unemployment queues. And those still with jobs are having to pay much higher prices (like their unemployed brethren) for daily necessities of life to survive. The result is a widening gap between Indonesia's haves and have-nots. And some well-meaning leaders and commentators have already pronounced that the post- Soeharto reform process has failed and that nothing short of revolution or fundamental change is needed.

A vital ingredient missing on Indonesia's political landscape is the absence of idealism. The country lacks a grand vision about its future. It was this vision which galvanized its people against Dutch colonialism. Unfortunately, after independence, the glue that held people together has frayed.

The country's founding father, Sukarno, wanted to perpetuate his rule by keeping the country in a state of perpetual crisis. It made him the dominant arbiter until his luck ran out in mid- sixties when Soeharto-led military counter coup placed the country under martial law and the army rule. Which lasted till May 1998 when Soeharto's much-touted sand-castle simply collapsed with the whiff of the Asian economic crisis. The emperor was seen to have no clothes. And the entire three decades of Soeharto rule looked like wasted years without sound foundation.

With corruption and nepotism surrounding the long military rule, any trace of idealism among Indonesia's shrinking ruling class simply evaporated. Indonesia thus ended up with a grubby and self-serving governing class knee deep in financial skullduggery. And when they were overthrown, they pooled their considerable resources to beat the new order to save their own skins. And that precisely is what has happened. The old and the new elite have entered into a partnership for their joint benefit, holding people hostage to their shenanigans.

Indonesia badly needs a new and younger leadership. Political leaders like Akbar Tandjung, Wiranto and their likes are not a solution but they are part of the problem. They are tainted and do not inspire confidence. They are not keen to change the system but to entrench it for their own good.

President Megawati might not be personally tainted but most, if not all, around her are under a cloud. People do not have credible choices, thus deepening popular cynicism about their leaders and the system they preside over.

It is not to suggest that Indonesia is doomed. Countries of Indonesia's size, population and diversity do not collapse just like that. There is considerable resilience in old cultures. Most of its people are tied in common destiny and are likely to swim and sink together. And the odds are in favor of swimming together because adversity creates new bonds for survival.

Having said that it is also true that one can't see clearly a new leadership emerging in Indonesia. And that is very worrying. But Indonesia has survived the megalomania of Sukarno and the suffocation of the Soeharto regime. In the latter case, students played a crucial role to bring about the fall of the dictator. Once again, they might at some stage become the catalysts for a new and more substantive change to lift Indonesia from its present quagmire. In the meantime, its politicians will continue to play on their fiddle while the country is cast adrift.