Kalla, for president? No thanks

Kalla, for president? No thanks

John McBeth, The Straits Times, Asia News Network/Singapore

Just for a moment there, it seemed like almost the unthinkable
had happened. In a translated interview with the state-run Antara
news agency, Indonesian Vice-President and Golkar party chairman
Jusuf Kalla announced that he would run for the Indonesian
presidency in 2009.

Even by his mercurial standards, it seemed a strange time to
make such an announcement as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
had four more years of his term left.

It took some hours, but it finally emerged that Indonesian
reporters working for Agence France-Presse had misinterpreted
what Jusuf had said. In a measure of the often imprecise nature
of the Indonesian language and the Vice-President's own jerky
manner of speaking, he had not been discussing the presidency but
his successful bid last December for leadership of Golkar.

But imagine, just for a moment, how that would have changed
the political dynamics and provided more fuel for the already
rampant, but still entirely unsubstantiated, reports of a rivalry
between the two leaders?

And who would President Susilo have turned to for his new
running mate if he were to seek a second term?

The use of the word "rivalry" implies that Jusuf does have his
eyes on the presidency in 2009. But does he really?

Javanese politicians almost chuckle over the prospect.
Although the 63-year-old South Sulawesi-born businessman has a
far stronger political base than President Susilo, that counts
for little in any direct presidential election where Java
accounts for 60 per cent of eligible voters.

Political analysts say that for all the progress Indonesia has
made towards democratization, a non-Javanese has no real hope of
capturing the nation's highest office -- not yet, anyway. And
Jusuf knows that better than anyone.

"In the United States, it took 200 years for a Southerner to
become president," he pointed out in an interview in the Oct. 24
issue of Tempo newsweekly. "So it's not easy for a Bugis
(Sulawesi native) like me to become president. There was Habibie,
but that was an accident."

In fact, former vice-president B.J. Habibie, born in Pare Pare
on Sulawesi's west coast, only became president when the long-
serving Soeharto resigned in 1998.

Seventeen months later, Habibie failed to win even the Golkar
nomination. Most pundits put that down to his previous close ties
with Soeharto (who incidentally still adamantly refuses to see
him). But Sulawesi party faithful preferred to pin the blame on
party chairman Akbar Tandjung, a North Sumatran with strong
Javanese ties, for undermining his chances.

And now Akbar is effectively out in the cold too. But Jusuf
only ousted him from the party chairmanship last December because
Susilo prevailed on his Vice-President to help in shoring up his
support in Parliament. Akbar had wanted to take Golkar into the
opposition camp with former presidents Megawati Soekarnoputri and
Abdurrahman Wahid.

For the rank-and-file in Golkar, a party which has always
ruled, that was not an option -- even if it did mean choosing a
leader from among the minorities.

There was even a Sulawesi connection that brought Jusuf and
Susilo together in the first place. According to most accounts,
that introductory role was played by Environment Minister Rachmat
Witoelar, whose wife Erna -- a former human settlements minister
and current UN special envoy for Millennium Development Goals in
Asia and the Pacific -- is a member of Sulawesi's prestigious
Walinono family.

Witoelar, a regular Jusuf golf partner and former Golkar
secretary-general, was one of Susilo's senior political advisers
during last year's presidential campaign.

So what of this high-level rivalry? As far back as January,
Indonesian newspapers were reporting that the rift had reached a
"critical stage" -- whatever that meant. But in February, Jusuf
was telling interviewers that the talk was all nonsense.

Now, as the administration marks its first year in office,
Jusuf is tired of having to answer the same question from
journalists who cannot seem to understand that differences of
opinion between two very different people are, well, perfectly
normal.

Some ministers who have watched the two in action believe
those differences may even be healthy -- Susilo, with his
penchant for thinking things through and trying to come up with
the perfect solution; Jusuf, with the instincts of a trader who
willingly acknowledges he sometimes gets ahead of himself and the
President.

"If we had the same characteristics, this country would be in
danger," he told Tempo. "If both of us were quick to act, we
would be issuing hundreds of licensees. So, the combination
between us is good."

Last month, Susilo seemed to tire of the speculation as well.
This time, it centered on his controversial decision to hold
video conferences with his ministers while he was on a visit to
the US.

To many commentators, that was because he feared Jusuf would
act unilaterally over the politically sensitive oil price issue.

"It's wrong to say I don't have confidence in my Vice-
President," he told reporters, noting that as far as he was
concerned, the relationship was "very harmonious".

Most of the more recent rumors did stem, in fact, from the
agonizing that went on in the government over how much to reduce
oil subsidies by. It is well known that the President took a long
time trying to calculate the political fallout from raising the
price of benchmark premium petrol by 50 per cent, or taking the
advice of Jusuf and Economic Coordinating Minister Aburizal
Bakrie and going for an 80-90 per cent increase.

In the end, he opted for the high end, but only after putting
in place a Rp 4.6 trillion (S$775 million) program to give Rp
100,000 a month to 15.6 million of the country's poorest families
for the rest of the year. That idea, according to well-placed
Cabinet sources, came from the high-energy Vice-President
himself, even if he is not claiming credit for it.

From the beginning, Jusuf was always going to have a much more
constructive role in government than most of his predecessors.

The way he explains it, his role was to be a "chief of staff",
with Susilo focusing on strategy and the vision thing, and the
Vice-President taking care of technical matters. The two leaders
still talk on the phone every day, just as they have from day one
of the administration.

But Jusuf understands that this is not about sharing power in
a system where the real authority is vested in only one person --
a directly elected president.

"I have always stressed that to build this country, we need to
work together," he had told Tempo. "The President is supreme, his
word is final. If he makes a wrong statement, no one can correct
him. If I make a wrong statement, the President can correct me.
But every statement that I make has been previously discussed
with him."

Jusuf even has a ready answer for why it was decided not to
move his office across Central Jakarta's Merdeka Square to the
Presidential Palace -- a change in plans seen as further evidence
of the rocky relationship at the top. As it turned out, the
building he was to move into, previously the office of Soeharto's
Supreme Advisory Council, was deemed to be too close to the
street.

"A bomb," he said, "would blow it sky high. We would have had
to erect a fence as solid as the one around the Australian
Embassy."

Like many of his fellow Bugis -- seafarers who have migrated
across Indonesia more than any other ethnic group -- Jusuf
apparently finds fences far too confining.