Indonesia will survive, but needs fresh leadership

Indonesia will survive, but needs fresh leadership

By Michael Vatikiotis

HONG KONG (JP): When the Soeharto regime collapsed in May
1998, the world was in a hurry to herald a new democratic era in
Indonesia. But, two years on, one transitional government, a
hastily held general election, and an indirectly elected
president hardly constitute a political transformation.

Optimists say give the process time; at least it's moving in
the right direction. They applaud President Abdurrahman Wahid for
keeping the military out of politics. "He's our Yeltsin," says
one Indonesian senior editor, admiringly.

But successful political change needs constant momentum, and
Russia is not the model. More realistically, reflecting on the
past two years, not enough has changed. If anything, some of the
worst aspects of New Order political culture have, like lingering
bacteria, survived and now threaten reform.

Abdurrahman Wahid's government has employed some of the extra-
legal and autocratic ways of the New Order regime to consolidate
power and pursue its aims.

Parliament is investigating allegations that the President
abused his power, bent laws, and engaged in corruption. Gus Dur's
position in the political party he leads, PKB, has been compared
to that of Soeharto in Golkar. He shows little respect for
parliament and threatens to use a loyalist mob if his position is
challenged.

His protection of crony businessmen is no secret -- he has
named them in cabinet meetings. On his numerous overseas trips,
aides complain that his family's shopping habits are already more
extravagant than anything seen under Soeharto.

The failings of Gus Dur's presidency reflect to a great extent
the shortcomings of democratization in Indonesia, which has been
erratic and half-hearted.

Indonesia's political and business elite simply does not have
the courage or the imagination to push for real democratic reform
and are happy with a presentable status quo. Look no further than
the leadership of Golkar, or the PDI-P.

What's more, the conservative leadership of these parties find
support in the wider region for not rocking the boat too hard
because no one wants to see another political upheaval in
Indonesia.

The international community is more or less impotent.
Americans bark and bay, but seem incapable of biting where it
hurts.

Likewise the IMF and World Bank issue stern warnings, but
cannot afford to cut off the money. Foreign powers are afraid of
being labeled colonial.

Singapore, where leaders tried to impress upon Gus Dur that it
is time to get serious, earned a vitriolic riposte from the
president.

The result is a disappointing array of half-measures. For most
of the country's political leaders, reform is simply a matter of
changing clothes. There simply isn't the will to change, and here
lies the source of Indonesia's political problems and perhaps the
key to its survival.

Of course, it may be unfair to give this government a negative
report card in the face of all it has to cope with: feed and
settle over one million internal refugees, deal with fractious
politicians, as well as appease foreign creditors.

It may also be too much, after just two years cleaning up
after the Soeharto era, to expect the emergence of a tidy
democracy with all the trimmings.

Nevertheless, it is time for some real change in Indonesia.
The world is tired of hearing about the obstacles to reform posed
by the old guard, the need to consolidate power and deal with
unrest or secession.

Apologies for Gus Dur generally dwell on his ability to keep
everyone off-balance-keeping the old guard at bay. Yet even his
closest advisors have given up hope that he can implement real
reforms and they wait despondently for the next political crisis.

Gus Dur flies around the world telling people that things are
improving. He tells his advisors divine voices assure him that
this period of upheaval will be followed by a long period of
peace and prosperity.

Who is the president fooling? The knives are out, and guess
what? The cast of characters waiting in the wings to replace him
doesn't have a radically different plan. The real threat to
Indonesia comes from the people who claim to be its leaders.

Old elite survives

Long term stability in Indonesia will only be assured if
democratic reforms lead to more direct representation to reflect
the popular will on the one hand, and real legal and
administrative reform on the other.

Presently, the president is elected by the People's
Consultative Assembly, which itself is not wholly comprised of
directly elected representatives. The status quo suits the elite
for two reasons.

Firstly, it ensures that the country's leadership is
determined by a narrow group of vested interests. Secondly,
it keeps popular concerns at bay. We must assume that if
politicians were more directly elected, the people would demand
swifter and deeper changes.

The current system of indirect election means that the old
political elite survives, and therefore not much changes in
Indonesia.

Why is Indonesia's elite so selfish? First of all, there are
many reasons to hide the past and seek protection from it. The
nation's founding fathers were already divided one upon the
other.

There were civil military tensions from the start -- Remember
General Sudirman: "the government can change everyday, but the
army stays the same". There were tensions between those who
fought the Dutch and those who collaborated; and there were
ethnic and religious tensions.

Then came 'Gestapu' and the upheavals of 1966. The trauma of
anti-communism and the rise of military rule created an overlay
of new fissures and a debt of blood.

Hence today, we see Gus Dur struggling to reconcile his record
of support for human rights and religious tolerance with the
bloody legacy of his religious organization's role in the anti-
communist purges of 1966. Indonesia's history is littered with
unresolved and unreconciled conflicts.

History has been hidden for so long that these conflicts are
only now surfacing.

Another reason why the elite finds it hard to embrace
democracy is that it is far too rich. Wealth creation in
Indonesia has been fantastically lopsided from the beginning. The
rhetoric of liberation was unaccompanied by a real re-
distribution of wealth.

The old elite, which was supported and patronized by the
Dutch, continued to take shelter in a legal system after
independence that drew on colonial Dutch law, which was framed on
principles of inequality.

This situation remains basically unchanged, and no one wants
to see the system reformed overnight, because it would mean
handing over their wealth and yielding to popular scrutiny and
justice. That's the basic fear.

Key to survival

Without a genuine commitment to democratic reform, it's hard
to imagine a stable outlook for Indonesia. But the country can
survive without democracy. How?

By employing tried and trusted tools of authoritarian
political control. This means in all likelihood that the military
will continue to play a role in politics and civilian supremacy
will be hard to achieve.

The army was unhappy about being sidelined politically and
never had much faith in the democratic political process. Asked
recently if he felt the civilians could succeed in stabilizing
the situation in Indonesian, a senior army general replied: "Make
me believe it."

Sudirman's "diktat" lives on.

Now, because the political elite is fearful about the future,
it has no choice but to protect the army's role in politics. This
explains why the politicians agreed to preserve the military's
presence in parliament until 2009.

That's why Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri is seen riding
in tanks and sporting military uniforms. She has acquired a
coterie of former generals on her political staff.

Gus Dur has angered the military by failing to manage the
threat of secession in Aceh and Irian Jaya. The army has felt
hamstrung by the forced surrender of its security duties to the
police.

Senior generals are now openly calling for a new strategy,
one that involves a greater measure of military security. Even
the president's cabinet colleagues wish that he would, in the
words of coordinating economics minister Rizal Ramli, "bring in
officers who can lead the troops."

Firm leadership is a refuge of those who fear exposure to
the popular will. Of course, in Aceh and Irian Jaya, they may
just be too late and political compromises that make concessions
to the separatists will need to be hammered out.

Another major area of concern for the future is
decentralization. Although few members of elite acknowledge it,
the way Indonesia is governed is on the brink of change.

From January 2001, all the country's districts will gain
more autonomy. But again, the way Indonesia's elite works, this
may obstruct rather than promote democracy. No one expects the
provinces to have the resources to govern themselves -- the
current budget does not provide for it.

Local officials are if anything a thousand times more corrupt
than their colleagues at the center, and consensus on how to
divide up resources will be hard to reach.

The prospect of local factions seeking help to resolve their
disputes from powerful figures at the center has many observers
already expecting Jakarta's power to be enhanced, not weakened.

Bad name

Meanwhile, the legacy of a full year of "democratic rule", has
left many people wondering if the exercise was worth it.

Democracy means little to ordinary Indonesians whose
livelihoods have not improved; democracy means nothing to Chinese
Indonesians who have not seen their opportunities to integrate in
society widen appreciably. Democracy means nothing to those in
the business community, which sees missed opportunities to stamp
out bribery and corruption.

The number of passive reformers, those who would support
democratic change, but not fight for it, far outnumbers committed
activists.

To many ordinary Indonesians or visitors to the country,
political freedom has brought anarchy and a breakdown in law and
order. Petty thieves are lynched in broad daylight, nightclubs
and bars are ransacked for staying open late, and dubious Islamic
activists threaten to expel Americans, or worse.

Government isn't working. Even the president's own spokesman
admits that Gus Dur "doesn't have the competence to govern."

"With democracy what you get is chaos," says a recently
retired army general. "So people begin to think maybe the Chinese
are right, perhaps the Pakistanis are right." In short, democracy
Indonesian-style is giving democracy a bad name.

After a recent visit to Indonesia, a Malaysian said he feared
the "the spillover effect all this uncertainty and instability
will have on Malaysia and Singapore." Although critical of Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad, he said that "one thing I see truth in
now is what he has always said -- there are some people who are
not ready for a full-fledged democracy."

Fresh blood

So, what can be done to save Indonesia's democracy and restore
the region's faith in democratic values? Top of the list has to
be a replacement of the current political elite.

Avoiding messy conflict with the old guard by allowing them to
stay on may be appropriate in cultural terms, but it is holding
the country back.

Fresh blood is needed to remove lingering obstacles to reform.
Sadly, under the current government or legislative arrangement
this is hardly a realistic prospect.

Proportional representation protects the old political elite
by ensuring they continue to be elected. "In the proportional
system so long as you are close to the party leadership, you are
assured of a place," says Andi Mallarangeng, a young politician
who is staying out of the fray for now.

The MPR is constitutionally empowered to elect the president
and vice-president, but is virtually powerless to remove them.
Gus Dur is out of touch with the country's youth; so is Golkar
and all the other major political parties. Their game is self-
preservation.

Many of the smartest young political aspirants, figures like
Andi Mallarangeng, Faisal Basri, and others who made names for
themselves at the dawn of "reformasi", are steering clear of the
political arena until closer to 2004, when fresh
elections are due.

They are practicing a form of political cryogenics -- trying
their best to stay fresh and untainted so that when political
conditions improve they will be able to emerge.

The only way to improve conditions sooner is to change the
rules. Indonesia needs a new constitution, and perhaps more
importantly a fair and transparent constitution-writing exercise,
similar to the mechanism by which Thais accommodated public
opinion in the framing of Thailand's 1997 Constitution.

There is nothing wrong with the principles enshrined in the
1945 Constitutions. But a new charter, building on the old one,
would elaborate on the rights and obligations of the Indonesian
people; it would make less ambiguous the form of democracy the
country now has.

Skeptics thought that the new Thai constitution would be
ineffective in the face of an ingrained tradition of patronage
and corruption. Yet powerful politicians have been hauled up on
corruption charges and lost their jobs.

Democracy would be served well by true legal reform. It simply
isn't possible to have any faith in the courts or law enforcement
agencies if members of the elite can flaunt authority and escape
justice by paying for protection from the law.

The military would have done well to help enforce the law,
rather than standing aside and allowing the police to expose its
institutional weakness.

Finally, Indonesians need to be properly enfranchised. Direct
elections are a must. It isn't sufficient to create layers of
representation that insulates the elite from popular anger and
frustration.

All politicians must be accountable. Given the history and
track record of Indonesia's politicians, this will be the hardest
change of all to swallow. For despite enjoying almost six decades
of freedom, the majority of Indonesians have yet to have a real
say in how they are governed.

The writer is Managing Editor of the Far Eastern Economic
Review in Hong Kong. A former Jakarta Bureau Chief for the
Review, he is the author of Indonesian Politics Under Suharto and
a regular writer on Indonesian affairs.