Justice vs politics

Justice vs politics

Disillusion is perhaps too mild a word to describe the news
that came out of the House of Representatives building on Monday.
With hundreds of student protesters jostling and shoving against
the House's front gate to push their demand for the formation of
a special commission to investigate the corruption scandal known
as Buloggate II, a majority of legislators inside the House of
Representatives nonetheless voted against such an inquiry.

As a result of Monday's debate, 193 of the 360 legislators
present voted against forming such a commission. With only 73
legislators voting for and 94 others abstaining, it appears to
have put an end to the months-long drive to have the House
investigate its own speaker, Akbar Tandjung, for his alleged
involvement in a Rp 40 billion scandal, which occurred during the
brief presidency of B.J. Habibie, when Akbar was state/Cabinet
secretary. It may be noted in passing that last year, Indonesia's
fourth president, Abdurrahman Wahid, lost his presidency after a
similar inquiry implicated him in what has become known as
Buloggate I, involving a sum of Rp 35 billion from the same
agency.

While the result of Monday's voting may be gratifying for the
Golkar Party, which Akbar leads, it is hugely disappointing for
the majority of people in this country. Particularly
disappointing is the stance taken by the Indonesian Democratic
Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), which, after months of
publicly wavering and privately maneuvering finally decided to
oppose the moves to form the commission of inquiry into Buloggate
II.

Given the fact that PDI Perjuangan, with its 153 legislators,
controls the biggest faction in the House, that stance
effectively killed any chance to form the commission.

Some 50 PDI Perjuangan legislators did not even bother to show
up to vote.

Also, that their position was announced at virtually the last
minute, it is indeed something of a surprise to find that only
three of its legislators voted against forming the commission.
Five openly supported the move and by far the biggest majority,
92 legislators, abstained. As some observers have noted, this
would seem to indicate a move by the party to appease its
critics, although, of course, the 92 abstentions would have made
no difference if they had voted for the creation of the inquiry.

On the face of it, there is some fairly good reasoning
underlying the argument that PDI Perjuangan is presenting to the
public, which is that the supremacy of the law must be upheld and
since a simultaneous inquiry by the House could only interfere
with the legal process, which is already moving, no commission
therefore is needed. Objections to this kind of reasoning,
however, are easily raised.
Throughout its most recent history, this country's legal system
has shown few signs of integrity, as was demonstrated most
recently by its handling of the case against Tommy Soeharto.

Hence the criticism being hurled at the party by some of this
country's most noted observers. The highly respected Muslim
scholar Nurcholish Madjid, for example, remarked that the party's
decision to drop the proposal to establish a special commission
of inquiry was quite unfortunate as it showed that the party with
the largest representation in the legislature was now against
upholding justice. Others have accused the party's chairperson,
Megawati Soekarnoputri, of betraying the people.

Whatever the case, it seems that all that is now water under
the bridge. So, it appears that the time has not yet arrived when
the representatives of the people carry out the will of the
people, but rather the interests of their own political parties
and those of their leaders. The real reason why PDI Perjuangan
took such an unpopular stance is of course clear to everyone: It
does not want, or dare, to antagonize Golkar by implicating its
chairman, Akbar Tandjung, in a major corruption case. The stakes
for the party are simply too high.

The only hope that justice can still prevail is that the
courts will show enough integrity and independence in its verdict
against all those involved in the case. The chance that justice
will be done may be slim indeed. However, it seems that this is
yet another bitter pill that Indonesians will have to swallow.