Media confirm Akbar's public relations skills

Ardimas Sasdi, Staff Writer, The Jakarta Post, Berkeley, California
ajambak@uclink.berkeley.edu

In a verdict seen by many as a blow to efforts to build clean governance in Indonesia as one of the aims of the reform movement, the Supreme Court acquitted House of Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung of corruption in the Buloggate scandal on Thursday.

Of five justices handling the high-profile case, only one expressed a dissenting opinion against the controversial verdict, the others ordering that appropriate action be taken to restore the name of Akbar, popularly known among his peers and enemies as a veteran politician.

The highest judicial body, in a verdict that saved Akbar from jail, which would have blocked his plans to enter the presidential race in July 2004 if he won the Golkar Party convention, said that the defendant was not found guilty of receiving money to enrich himself, and that as a minister at that time he was merely carrying out then president B.J. Habibie's instructions.

The drama in the Rp 40 billion (US$5 million) Buloggate, which implicated Akbar as chairman of the ruling party during the Soeharto era, began in 2001 when President Megawati Soekarnoputri approved an investigation into the case. The district court sentenced Akbar to three years' imprisonment in a verdict that was confirmed by the appellate court.

But unlike Dadang Sukandar and Winfried Simatupang, two accomplices in the case, Akbar has been living as a free man pending his appeal.

Lower courts sentenced Dadang and Winfried, respectively executives of a foundation and a subcontractor, responsible for distributing aid to feed the poor who were reeling under the economic crisis that had crippled Indonesia since 1997, to three years' imprisonment for the misappropriation. Both are currently serving their sentences in jail.

Human rights lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis (Kompas, Feb. 13) said there was a legal problem in the Supreme Court verdict because the acquittal of Akbar left the graft case without a main defendant, as Dadang and Winfried were only accomplices who had taken orders from another person.

Apart from the disputed court verdict, criticized by many as lacking a sense of public justice amid alleged pressure from invisible hands on the justices tackling the case, the ending of Akbar's trial is an interesting phenomenon seen from the perspective of communications.

Media-savvy Akbar won not only the case, but also an information war.

Print and electronic media, working under pressure to meet deadlines with newspapers, must go to print at 1 a.m., while television airs its news at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. Both focused on the human interest aspects of how Akbar, like a person in distress, waited for the court verdict. Media reports said, however, that Akbar followed the trial merely to clarify leaks he had reportedly received from informants.

Akbar, fasting as part of common practice among Muslims who pray for a good thing to happen at a crucial time, followed closely the live television coverage of the session at the Supreme Court from his residence. The reading of the verdict ended around 6 p.m., a time for Muslims to say their evening prayers and break their fast.

Upon hearing his acquittal, Akbar, who had managed to maintain his composure throughout the six hours he had monitored the verdict delivery, immediately kneeled to God in an evening prayer after receiving a big kiss from his wife, a scene that would have undoubtedly moved any sentient being. Akbar was also accompanied by two of his four daughters and his loyal supporters during the "television drama". (His other daughters are studying in Oregon, U.S.)

Media reports have described Akbar, the leader of Golkar, a party used by former president Soeharto as a political machine together with the military in suppressing his political opponents, a hero because he was depicted as the oppressed party. The media also failed to link Buloggate to the rampant abuse of power by Soeharto's regime, which almost sank Indonesia to bankruptcy.

The problem stemmed from the failure of the media to present another side of the story of the scandal, especially the fate of thousands of poor people in urban and rural areas who formed long queues under the burning sun for small packs of cheap rice during government distribution of the aid via workers paid by Dadang and Winfried. Rice is main staple food of most Indonesians.

The timing of the verdict delivery, though merely a matter of coincidence, was also not conducive for the media to dig and present the background story of the case for the reading and viewing public. But it provided a free advertisement for Akbar, who opened his stately residence in the housing complex of high- ranking government officials, an area normally highly restricted, even to journalists.

By any account, media reports on the trial were in favor of Akbar, though the media, with all its limitations, tried its best to balance its coverage by showing how policemen charged thousands of protesting university students, gathered around the Supreme Court, who demanded a guilty verdict on Akbar.

The verdict and media coverage have confirmed the status of Akbar as a great political communicator as symbolized by his name, which literally means "great". But whether this victory will translate into voter support for Golkar in the April 5 legislative elections or Akbar himself in the July 5 presidential election, remains a question.

The writer is a visiting scholar at the Graduate School of Journalism of the University of California, Berkeley.