Megawati: Her father's daughter?

Megawati: Her father's daughter?

By R. William Liddle

OHIO (JP): Megawati Soekarnoputri, Indonesia's newly elected
president, lives under the gaze of her father. A life-size
portrait of Sukarno, in his quasi-military uniform and
nationalist cap, dominates the cavernous living room of her home
in suburban Jakarta. To many Indonesians, a Megawati presidency
promises a return to the revolutionary spirit of her father and
his generation of leaders, who struggled successfully for
independence in the 1940s.

To this observer, who first lived in Indonesia during the
tumultuous final years of Sukarno's presidency, hope that the
daughter shares the father's high ideals is tempered with fear
that she will copy his often disastrous policies.

As president, Megawati confronts challenges in three major
policy areas similar to those faced by President Sukarno in the
1950s and early 1960s: center-region relations, the
politicization of the armed forces, and a declining economy. In
his time, Sukarno's response to each challenge was ruinous,
especially in its long term implications for society and
politics. Demands for regional autonomy were answered with
tightened control by the central government in Jakarta. This laid
the foundation for today's pervasive restiveness and for the
separatist movements in Aceh and Irian Jaya, Indonesia's
westernmost and easternmost provinces respectively, that now
threaten the integrity of the Indonesian nation.

Demands by officers at central armed forces headquarters for a
share in national power were acceded to in return for support of
Sukarno's presidential leadership. This led to the entrenchment
of officers in non-military posts and of the military as an
institutionalized and-in its own eyes-legitimate political force.
The army also became a major player in the economy, owning large
businesses which freed it from reliance on government budgets.
The most powerful state enterprises, including the national
petroleum company Pertamina, came under military control.

Sukarno had little understanding of modern economies.
Indonesia's then tiny band of professional economists attempted
repeatedly to teach him the fundamentals of macro-economic policy
and development planning. But Sukarno chose to sacrifice economic
growth and stability in return for short term personal political
gain or the simulacrum of national glory. Examples of the latter
are his campaign in the 1950s against the ex-colonial ruler, the
Dutch, over sovereign control of the territory of Irian Jaya
(then called Western New Guinea) and his agitation in the 1960s
against Great Britain and the United States over the formation of
neighboring Malaysia, which included territories bordering on
Indonesian Borneo.

The ultimate result, negative growth and runaway inflation,
was finally curbed by the army general Soeharto, who did listen
to the economists. During Soeharto's presidency, Indonesia
enjoyed 30 years of East Asian-style development, combining an
average growth rate of more than 6 percent per year with a
significant measure of distribution of the benefits, especially
on Java and in major cities throughout the country, which earned
him considerable legitimacy as the father of development.

In the end, however, Soeharto like Sukarno also chose to
sacrifice the modern economy, not for national glory but for the
personal financial interests of members of his family and his
cronies.

As vice president under President Abdurrahman Wahid since
October 1999, Megawati showed disturbing signs of following her
father's lead in two of these three areas. Abdurrahman at first
responded positively to demands for regional autonomy by adhering
to the timetable for implementation of new decentralization laws
adopted by the previous government. As problems arose, however,
Megawati repeatedly spoke out against what she considered
excessive pressure for the devolution of decision making power to
the regions. Most troubling, she has appeared to favor strong
military action against separatists in Aceh and Irian Jaya. Based
on recent experience, in East Timor as well as Aceh and Irian
Jaya, military action will be counterproductive, sharpening local
anger toward Jakarta and heightening the probability that in the
end these two provinces will become independent.

Megawati also appears to have little understanding of the
importance of civilian control of the military in modern
democracies. In this respect, unfortunately, she is not alone.
Most top party leaders and parliamentarians have passed up
several opportunities to depoliticize the armed forces. Last year
all the major parties voted to keep appointed armed forces'
representatives in the People's Consultative Assembly at least
until 2009. But Megawati has seemed especially willing to listen
to officers' grievances against Abdurrahman and especially quick to
defend them against charges of brutality in East Timor and
elsewhere. The suspicion is strong that, like her father, she
intends the military to be a supporting pillar of her presidency.

The one bright ray of hope, so far, for a Megawati presidency
is economic policy. In this area it is former president
Abdurrahman, known to fall asleep during cabinet economic policy
discussions, who was the throwback to the Sukarno era.
Abdurrahman deeply distrusted the policy recommendations of
economists. Like many Indonesians today, he believed that they
serve the interests of big business, not ordinary people, despite
the overwhelming twentieth century evidence that capitalist-style
growth is the best foundation for shared prosperity in modern
economies.

To her credit, Megawati has distanced herself from Abdurrahman in
this area and sought the advice, Soeharto-style, of market-
oriented economists. The widely respected Widjojo Nitisastro, a
professor trained at Berkeley and for decades Soeharto's chief
economic advisor, spoke frequently at cabinet meetings chaired by
Megawati when she was still vice-president. Younger economists,
shut out of the Abdurrahman government, prepared policy papers
for her and wrote glowingly of the prospects for a Megawati
presidency in their newspaper and magazine columns. Most
importantly, as vice president she made significant policy
decisions of her own, tightening the state budget and reducing
petroleum subsidies, that demonstrated both understanding of the
economy and political courage.

One for three, in politics as in baseball, is perhaps not a
bad average, especially since economic growth is so crucial to
the construction of a modern society. But it is also imperative,
if growth is to be maintained for the decades that will be
required before Indonesia becomes fully modern, that Indonesians
bring their armed forces under civilian control and that they
work out a widely acceptable pattern of relations between the
regions and the center.

If Megawati bats three for three, even Sukarno in the end
might agree that his daughter had truly forged a revolution.

The writer is professor of political science at The Ohio State
University in the United States of America.