Mega told to retain ultimate authority

Mega told to retain ultimate authority

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Political analysts have urged President Megawati
Soekarnoputri, who delegates too much of her power to her chief
ministers, to retain ultimate authority over all governmental
matters.

Kusnanto Anggoro of the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS) said on Thursday that the President's willingness
to delegate some of her authority to others may be an
acknowledgement on her part of a lack of the requisite managerial
skills.

"Such a system is okay as long as the President is still in
full command. She should also make all government decisions
because ultimately she should account for all that she has done
before the People's Consultative Assembly," Kusnanto told The
Jakarta Post.

The problem was that the President would be faced with various
difficulties if her aides abused their authority for their own
political gain or if her aides were more dominant than the
President herself.

Megawati could prevent such problems by insisting that all
decisions had to be made in Cabinet meetings, not in
coordination meetings led by the coordinating ministers.

Indria Samego of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)
shares Kusnanto's views, saying that Megawati needed to use
effective leadership skills to monitor her aides, especially
those who have various political interests.

"If necessary she can reprimand those aides who she thinks
have failed to abide by her policies," Indria told the Post.

He said that such warnings were necessary for ministers who
had made excessive use of their positions to pursue their own
political interests.

Indria said it would not be unusual to see her aides pursue
their own particular political agendas in the lead up to the 2004
general election.

Ryaas Rasyid, former regional autonomy minister, said that the
most important thing was for Megawati to give her aides clear-cut
guidelines setting out those political activities that were
acceptable and those that were not.

Megawati and her aides should abide by the regulations chosen
by the President, Ryaas said, adding that she had to issue a
reprimand as soon as she found that any of her aides had deviated
from the guidelines.

"What I know about Megawati is that she fully entrusts
everything to her staff. Therefore, both the good and the bad
aspects of her government very much depend on them," he said.

Supporting Indria's opinion, Ryaas said it was not wrong for
Megawati's aides to have their own political agenda, but added
that all activities conducted by her aides in connection with
government affairs should be under her control.

"Megawati cannot ban her aides from being involved in politics
because she herself is still the chairperson of a political
party. But she has the right to control the activities of her
aides," said Ryaas, who is also an expert on constitutional law.

Samego said the impression that Megawati could not control her
aides was caused by an inability to articulate government policy
by herself.

He said that when she assumed her vice presidency her
secretary Bambang Kesowo took the leading role in articulating
Megawati's policies.

"We hoped that she would change after she became the number
one person in the country. But it seems this has not been easy,
so that coordinating ministers seem more dominant than Megawati,"
he added.

Meanwhile, Pratikno, a lecturer at the school of social and
political sciences at the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University
said that, since the beginning, Megawati had established a system
that delegated some of her power to her aides.

"It is actually good for institutional development. Not all
problems should be handled by the President herself," Pratikno
said on Wednesday.

Pratikno said that problems arose if the system was not
consistently implemented and a particular trusted person used his
position for his own political interests. But such weaknesses of
the system could be minimized by creating an effective control
mechanism, he added.