Megawati: Beyond the contrarian view

Megawati: Beyond the contrarian view

Max Lane, Visiting Fellow, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University
Perth, Australia

Professor William Liddle's article of Oct. 6 in this newspaper
appears to analyze the Megawati Soekarnoputri government's
policies in a kind of reality vacuum. In the economic field, he
asserts that the Minister for Economic Development Dorodjatun
Kuntjoro-Jakti and the Finance Minister, Boediono, are "widely
respected", with no analysis of widely respected by whom exactly.

This hides the issue of which interests view these ministers
positively. Liddle appears to be simply assuming that the current
economic strategy being implemented by Megawati, Dorodjatun,
Boediono, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are
the correct ones. This was the same mistake so many commentators
made with the whole history of the New Order.

However there has been no return of either foreign nor, more
importantly, domestic investment into the productive economy.
Indonesia has entered a period of de-industrialization.

The economic growth experienced over the last few years has
been driven by consumption. Recent data all show a decline in
this consumption, both at the macro level and in such examples as
drops in the retail sales of such indicator firms as the
cigarette manufacturer Sampoerna, the department store chain
Matahari and also Unilever.

The Megawati government has no economic strategy apart from
accepting the advice of the IMF and World Bank that by
liberalizing all aspects of the economy investment will
eventually return. The World Bank's credibility in making
economic assessments was shattered with the 1997 collapse of the
"miracle economy".

On decentralization, Liddle states that it may have gone too
far and asserts that the current minister is seeking a new
balance. How? Or is he referring to the current policy of the
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) backing
a string of former New Order generals for governorship positions
against popular sentiment?

Most amazing is the implication in his assessment of
Megawati's policies towards Aceh and Papua that these are helping
the cause of national unity. He cites the sending of the army to
Aceh, when it is historically been the militarization of the
political situation in Aceh which has generated pro-independence
sentiment.

Megawati's policies of splitting up Papua into three provinces
also defy majority opinion among Papuans. He also admits that her
policy is in defiance of legislation.

His discussion of Megawati's foreign policy is also
contradictory. He states "Megawati is a true-believing
nationalist". This is clearly not the case, despite her rhetoric
at home and overseas. Liddle earlier correctly stated, "She is
dependent on the U.S. for investments, markets and much else."
Yet he makes no comment on her abject acceptance of this
dependence and a complete absence of any serious search for
nationalist alternatives.

Liddle's most significant praise of Megawati is his assertion
that she has "created a democratically-elected government that
can actually govern the country, formulate and implement policies
and respond to domestic and international events."

This, he says, is "more fundamental" than reforming the
judiciary and reducing the role of the military in politics, both
of which he notes Megawati has not been able to do. This is just
mentioned in passing even though he describes these changes as
essential "if Indonesia is to become a modern nation".

First, the creation of a democratically elected government was
by no means due to Megawati but rather to the broad movement that
was able to force Soeharto's resignation and establish
ideological authority for a new democratic oriented political
agenda.

There would have been no "free" elections without the street
protest movement and ideological campaigns of 1989-1998. For a
brief period (1996-1997), Megawati became a rallying point for
this movement but never a real leader of it.

Second, Liddle ignores the total ineffectiveness of policies
and responses to domestic issues. De-industrialization and rising
unemployment and underemployment and socio-economic disruption in
the villages as protection of agriculture is dismantled make a
mockery of claim of any effective policy implementation. Liddle's
whole analysis is obviously based on assessment that Indonesia is
out of its economic and social crisis.

He emphasizes "her very normalcy as a working politician"
rejecting any need for crisis leadership.

Megawati's "normalcy" has meant she has played no leadership
role in fighting the biggest enemy of any kind of genuine
democracy in Indonesia at the moment: "Money politics." Of
course, "money politics" is a basic weakness of U.S. and
Australian politics where huge amounts of money are also
necessary for effective participation in parliamentary politics.

In Indonesia where tens of millions of citizens do not have
the money for even basic 21st century needs, the billions of
rupiah -- obtained how? -- available to the parties make a total
mockery of democratic pretenses.

The long struggle to unseat Soeharto which started with the
student protests of 1974, and which many commentators refused to
believe would ever succeed, brought into being a new political
agenda within society that stands in direct opposition to the
agenda, values and method of government represented by all the
current parliamentary parties.

This agenda, articulated in the documents and statements of
NGOs, of the new embryonic mass organizations, of student
organizations, and of some radical parties and in the press, has
not yet found a united organizational vehicle or ideological
banner.

When faced by even the most incipient confrontation from this
quarter in the form of protests which defaced her photograph,
Megawati gave public blessing for the arrest, trial and jailing
of activists. Her initial responses to minor protest from
opposition outside the ranks of the elite do not auger well for
when she will face a real challenge -- assuming she survives past
2004 -- from a stronger opposition based on an alternative
economic, political and social agenda. The arrest of and long
jail sentences for peaceful campaigners for Acehnese independence
also do not portend well.