Is anyone capabale of running this country?

Is anyone capabale of running this country?

J. Soedjati Djiwandono, Political Analyst, Jakarta

Indonesia's tragedy is a crisis of leadership, I wrote in this
newspaper in October 1998. Alas, we are now going through the
worst stage of leadership crisis since the resignation of
president Soeharto in May of that year, which was generally
understood as the onset of the "era of reform".

Since the monetary crisis in 1997, which has developed into an
ever-worsening multidimensional crisis, there seems to have been
little, if any, serious sense of crisis or sense of urgency on
the part of any of the leaders from Soeharto down to Megawati
Soekarnoputri. The leadership crisis also lies behind the current
legal confusion and uncertainty and the increasing tendency
toward lawlessness, with people taking the law into their own
hands.

Of no less significance, however, the crisis of leadership
also means a scarcity of potential leaders who are likely to meet
the needs, requirements and aspirations of the people in many
terms: their vision and their commitment to that vision; their
capacity for coordination, management and organization; their
ability to inspire and motivate, their intellectual quality and
knowledge; their integrity, morality, personality and lifestyle;
their modesty and honesty, including their readiness to listen,
even to criticism, and thereby their capacity to learn. The
present generation of political leaders clearly lacks consistency
in their attitude and commitment to moral values and ethics.

Prominent in the weaknesses characteristic of the present
leadership under the Megawati government is a wide gap of
communication between the government and the people at large,
particularly as regards the government's policy on the price
hikes in fuel, electricity and telephone charges with all their
possible dire consequences for the lives of the common people.

Hence the continuous nationwide protests against the
government demanding not only the cancellation of the policy, but
also for the resignation of Megawati from the presidency and
Hamzah Haz from the vice presidency.

While the policy may be understandable in terms of economic
theory, it has not been properly communicated to the people. The
Megawati government has no good communicator; unfortunately, the
President herself is not at all a good communicator.

She has not tried seriously to tackle the problem at issue
head-on, arguing and explaining on the basis of the merits and
demerits of the policy, especially from the perspective of the
interests of the common people, in a language that people would
properly understand and thus offer their support.

Instead, not untypical of a dictator, she has blamed the
media, as she did before on the question of illegal Indonesian
migrant workers. She has also dealt with trivial matters such as
the burning of her picture and that of Hamzah Haz by
demonstrators. Worse, she has been trying to find those behind
the recent mass protests involving university students, workers
and other people of various walks of life.

More particularly, she has been trying to find out who is
trying to topple her from power. In fact, she challenged her
political foes to meet face to face in the 2004 elections.
Interestingly, Amien Rais of the National Mandate Party (PAN) and
speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), responded in
a similar manner. Both unnecessarily, for they are bound to face
each other next year anyway; yet they seemed to have been engaged
in a show of mutual challenge and name-calling in a style
characteristic of Javanese shadow play.

Indeed, even if no one seriously intends to force or at least
ease Megawati as well as Hamzah out of office, the end result of
the widespread protests against the policy on the price hikes,
one way or another, barring constitutional means through a
special or annual session of the MPR, might well be the fall of
the Megawati government.

Should that be the case, to form a presidium (as a temporary
form of national leadership), the possibility of which was raised
by many among the protesters, would be meaningless. That,
however, would be the worst scenario that could happen to the
country, for their successors would most likely be found among
leaders of the existing political parties; granted, that is, that
the present generation of politicians have mostly lost public
confidence.

Therefore, the question is whether the 2004 general election
will resolve the leadership crisis, even with a direct
presidential election. The issue of whether the proportional
system of election should be closed or open has been resolved
particularly now that Megawati's party, the Indonesian Democratic
Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), has finally agreed to an open
proportional (open list) system.

In theory, a closed proportional system, as so far practiced,
would result in the election of "representatives of political
parties" instead of "representatives of the people".

This is not to say that an open-list system does not have
serious weaknesses, especially under the present circumstances.
With the spirit of "regional autonomy" tending to become "ethnic
autonomy", not only the election of provincial governors, as has
been the case with some provinces, but also that of
representatives of the people, may heavily and adversely be
affected by both ethnical and also sectarian oriented candidates.

As far as the election of a president and vice president is
concerned, however, and thus a way of resolving the leadership
crisis, the main obstacle would be a condition set by the
election law that only political parties that have won a certain
percentage of the vote can nominate presidential and vice
presidential candidates.

Given the possibility, even the probability, that the major
parties of 2004 will more or less be the same as today's major
parties in terms of the result of the 1999 general election, then
the "new" leaders after the next election in 2004, even with a
direct presidential election, will most likely come from these
same big parties.

Unfortunately, our electoral law does not provide for
independent (nonparty) candidates to contest the election. So we
would be back at square one. A deadlock! Most existing political
leaders are beyond the pale.

It seems hard to believe, though, that among over two million
people in this country, no one at all is capable of becoming a
leader of this nation. He or she, however, civilian or military
(by then retired), is almost definitely to be found outside the
party system. This would give us light at the end of the tunnel.

Would there be a political party, or better still, a coalition
or alliance of parties, big or small, or big and small, which
share this concern and this big dream, genuinely concerned with
the survival and future of this great but suffering nation, and
which would nominate their candidates for president and vice
president from outside any of the existing political parties?

We need the best, or second, even third best, if need be, in
terms of the qualities or set of above criteria to lead this
nation. That would be the deus ex machina the nation is waiting
for.