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.