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.