Indonesia's progress in last four years

The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

The constitutional changes approved last week by the Indonesian People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) are remarkable for a country that has known rule by fiat for two generations.

So much that is inimical to national and neighborly interests has happened in Indonesia since the fall of president Soeharto that people tend to forget that that era ended only four years ago.

In that period, Indonesia gave up East Timor (with its load of oil and gas wealth), the rupiah has not been the same after the 1997 financial crash, religious strife and separatist tendencies have got worse in some outer provinces. Despite the delicate state the country is in, one factor has been constant.

This is the people's demand for full political accountability that was given voice by the street rabble that brought Soeharto down in 1998, and then got picked up by the more circumspect intelligentsia.

All wanted a fairer system by which political leaders earn the right to manage their lives and the nation's finances, and they wanted the military's omnipotent power checked. That has now been fixed with the latest set of amendments to the 1945 Constitution, which provide for direct presidential elections (very likely from 2004) and an end to the practice of allotting automatic parliamentary seats to the armed forces (TNI) and the police.

So, four years do seem swift for the country's democratic evolution to move to this stage, but it was not a phase the MPR could dare to drag out. Persistent street protests convinced the legislators they were sitting on a volcano. Still, the recognition the MPR accorded the inevitable is commendable.

It shows that adherence to the Pancasila's ideals of national equilibrium is taken seriously. An objection to the old method by which the president was chosen by the 700 members of the MPR (more than 200 of them unelected) was that this was pretend- democracy. Appointees and many elected legislators were in thrall to the president, and the MPR merely put its seal on presidential decrees and re-elected him every five years.

The counter argument could be made that this variant of democracy ensured strong, undistracted rule that a huge developing country of clashing interests needed. That was what Soeharto provided, and pre-1997 Indonesia was coming along nicely because the constitutional system partly made for it. But this method has plainly outlived its historical role. There was no way the MPR could stall the issue. It had to acknowledge the new orthodoxy, or risk more protests.

Less certain is what to make of the TNI's role in the nation's political life. It will obviously remain the force it has been, if less visible, to take account of the new public mood. An irony is that the generals had not been all that keen to hang on to the 38 "free" seats they share with the police. It has been suggested the TNI is more concerned about exercising regional command, its power node, and keeping control of its many business interests.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri was cool to the idea of excising completely the military's role in choosing the president, but she was wise not to press her case.

Expediency has brought her into a close working relationship with the TNI to better deal with religiously parochial presidential contenders, but the constitutional changes are intended to address a nation's evolving needs. An outcome of the 1998 revolt had been to convince the military that it should show its muscle only rarely. This has been taken care of partly by the MPR vote. But it is a naive person who thinks losing parliamentary representation will clip the army's wings.