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.