Indonesia to face political vacuum in future: Expert

By Santi WE Soekanto

JAKARTA (JP): A prominent American expert on Indonesia warns against a "great vacuum" and pervasive uncertainty in the country if President Soeharto steps down from power.

R. William Liddle, a professor of political science at Ohio State University, said yesterday that Indonesia is ill-prepared for a change in national leadership.

He said the current political situation which has deprived the Indonesian public of experience with democracy and managing differences of opinions has led to this lack of preparation.

Liddle attributed the situation to the political system in which power is heavily concentrated in a few hands.

Acknowledging that the current administration deserves praise for the nation's impressive economic development, he expressed concern that things might go downhill when Soeharto no longer runs the country.

The question of whether Soeharto will run for a seventh term as president is not as important as whether the current "political stability" will prevail, he said.

"I think there will be a great vacuum in the political system," he said in a discussion at The Jakarta Post.

"I'm afraid for Indonesia's future because it's not yet trained (in democracy)... so it'll probably be better if President Soeharto is re-elected for another term," said Liddle, who speaks the Indonesian language fluently.

Liddle said there are other important things for the public to discuss in addition to the issue of whether or not there will be a change in national leadership in 1998.

Potential conflicts arising from the interplay between religions and politics, the middle and working classes, and regional concern, as opposed to central government policies, need to be examined in order to better equip the nation deal with the future, he said. "These factors are more important, and not whether Soeharto will remain in office for another 10 years."

Liddle attributed the potential for uncertainty and a power vacuum to the fact that President Soeharto has been the single dominant political player in the country for the last 30 years. "All this time he has been in control of the whole system."

"It's like Indonesia is back to the 1940s or 1950s ... It's no longer colonized, but its people are as politically untrained as it was during the colonial period," he said.

Liddle blamed the condition which exists today on what he termed "quasi" political institutions -- ranging from the ruling Golkar and the political parties to the people's representative bodies which were established in less than democratic ways.

The claims by senior government officials that succession of national leadership will proceed smoothly given the established mechanism, constitute a disguise for the fact that the real power has been centralized in a few hands, he pointed out.

He also spoke of measures to control the various groups in society, which have the potential to raise dissenting voices, such as the minority Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI).

He said the government's campaign for electoral reforms, and the possible changing of the current general election system, actually serves as a warning to the two minority parties, PDI and the United Development Party (PPP), that they could lose out in future general elections.

However, he placed great hope on a number of social institutions, including PDI and the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Moslem organization. The organizations led by controversial people are seen as capable of providing the dynamics that the current political condition lacks.

Although acknowledging that he has no recipe whatsoever with which to advise Indonesians on how best to avert the uncertainty, he did suggest that it would be better for the country to take moderate approaches.

Concerning the influence of religion, he suggested that it would be better if moderate Moslem communities, led by figures such as thinker and writer Nurcholish Madjid, play greater roles than "the militant Moslems" now emerging on university campuses.

"What I'm afraid of is if the country grows to become even more authoritarian (after Soeharto)," he said.