Living with Sutiyoso

Living with Sutiyoso

If nothing else, it attests to the wisdom of the anti-Sutiyoso
camp that they chose to stay away from the City Council building
on Monday during the inauguration of the former Jakarta military
commander as Jakarta's governor for the coming five years.

By that act they may have disappointed those who had hoped to
see thousands of protesters gather to voice the widespread
dissatisfaction with Sutiyoso's reelection to a second term. At
the same time, however, they managed to prevent what had looked
like an unavoidable -- and unproductive -- violent confrontation
with security personnel and Sutiyoso supporters.

The inauguration on Monday of the widely unpopular Sutiyoso as
governor of Jakarta marked the culmination of a months-long
process of intensive politicking within the Jakarta City Council;
a process rife with allegations of bribery and manipulation.

Sutiyoso's reelection also came despite the intense pressure
that was put on the legislature to reject him because of his poor
record in managing the city, and for his alleged role as military
commander of Jakarta in July 1996 in the attack on the Indonesian
Democratic Party headquarters in Central Jakarta and in
suppressing the rioting that came in its wake.

For all those reasons, Sutiyoso is not the best person to lead
Jakarta in the eyes of many. Nevertheless, the fact remains that
he has been reelected and installed as governor of Jakarta for a
second term in office -- a reality that Jakarta's citizenry will
have to accept whether or not they like it.

That being the case, the only thing Jakartans can do now is
look ahead to the future and see what can be done to make certain
their newly installed governor performs his duties to the benefit
of the people, and that he does not repeat the mistakes he has
made in the past.

That, of course, would be much easier for Sutiyoso's critics
-- especially those non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
experts and members of the public who have disparaged Sutiyoso's
performance in the past -- had the governor used the occasion of
his inauguration to give the public a brief outline of his vision
for Jakarta in the coming five years, in the way that presidents
do upon their inauguration. Sutiyoso himself, in remarks he made
to the media before and after his inauguration, appealed to the
public to let bygones be bygones and to work with him to improve
conditions in Jakarta.

While it may not be so easy for some people to forgive and
forget, certainly Jakartans can do much by exercising control
over how the city administration -- and the City Council --
carries out its duties in making life better for the populace,
including improving the distribution of wealth and opportunity
among the Jakarta's more than 10 million residents, the city's
urban poor in particular.

Certainly there will be no shortage of obstacles for Governor
Sutiyoso to overcome during the coming five years. The problem of
flooding remains one of the major headaches for both the city
administration and the citizenry. Governor Sutiyoso must be seen
to be making good on his promise to do something about this
yearly recurring and worsening scourge. Traffic congestion is
another problem Sutiyoso will have to confront, and increasingly
frequent and brutal street crime must be reduced to a minimum and
if possible eliminated, as to rampant corruption in the
administration. To confront all these problems and many more, the
governor will need the support and cooperation of the entire
community -- not an easy task given the criticism that has been
hurled at him in the past.

So much for what has been. As for the future, it is a rare
person who does not realize that most of the problems with past
gubernatorial elections -- including vote manipulation and "money
politics" -- stem from the fact that it is the political parties,
rather than the populace that nominate and elect the candidates.
Political parties have their own programs and interests to
fulfill.

Therefore, if gubernatorial elections are to satisfy the
wishes of the populace at large, our provincial governors must be
elected directly by the public. This is the message that can be
drawn from the Sutiyoso experience this week, and this is the
goal toward which Indonesians must work.