Media confirm Akbar's public relations skills

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.