Megawati's political views

By Angus McIntyre

The following article by Angus McIntyre is based on presentations at a conference of the Indonesia Council of the Asian Studies Association of Australia at the University of Melbourne on July 11, and at the Mini-Update Conference of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences on July 26 in Jakarta. The writer is senior lecturer in politics at La Trobe University in Melbourne.

MELBOURNE (JP): We hear much speculation about Megawati's behavior and politics. I would like to begin with her habit of removing herself from the realm of political criticism and attack by presenting an agreeable exterior to the world while cultivating her inner strength. The evidence for this characteristic comes from some remarks she made at the end of October 1998 just after a Muslim politician, A.M. Saefuddin, had claimed that she was a Hindu and that the next president of Indonesia must be a Muslim male.

Last Oct. 29 Media Indonesia Online reported: "In front of cadres, sympathizers and members of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) yesterday, Megawati said that whoever tries to attack and discredit her personally will be faced with a smile because that is the best way in politics. Beforehand she also expressed the hope that PDI members would not react. "Why must we react. Just let it be. What is important is that we continue to cultivate our inner beings, she stressed."

It is evident from this quote that Megawati has elevated this way of dealing with adverse experiences into a principle and urged it upon her followers. Indeed, she even urged something like it upon the soldiers from the much criticized Special Forces (Kopassus) whom she visited in late September 2000. She told them, as quoted by this newspaper: "You should rebuild your self- confidence and improve your professionalism as part of the effort to improve the image of Kopassus. Self-confidence is not inspired by other people, but it emanates from deep down in your hearts.

This manner of behavior -- adapting to a difficult world while working on one's inner resources -- which she has recommended both to her followers and to members of Kopassus also appears to underpin her vision for Indonesia. Writing for the Yomiuri Daily of July 22, 1999, she said: "I always tell myself how lucky Japan is to have had in its history the Meiji Restoration, which allowed Japan to step into the modern era with its culture and traditions intact. This is what makes me jealous and forces me to question myself, deep within my own heart -- how to make Indonesia a modern and developed society without losing the spirit of its own very deep and unique cultural identity. To achieve this is my dream."

This conservative vision of modernizing Indonesia while preserving its highly valued, traditional culture is consistent with what one might call Megawati's populist political outlook; and nowhere was the latter more evident than in her opening speech at the Sanur Congress of the Indonesian Democracy Party (PDI) on Oct. 8, 1998.

There she spoke of her party not as a vehicle for the representation of diverse groups and interests within the community but as an instrument of her leadership of the Indonesian People (always with a capital whom she regarded as a single entity which speaks, or should speak, with only one voice, and which willingly acknowledges her as its leader). In some of her remarks it was possible to hear not only the strains of populism but also an echo of her father's voice: "Listen to the voice of the People, feel the heart beat of the People, give voice to the aspiration of the People, and side with the People. Because the voice of the People bears a message".

Most populist leaders have, of course, been males (her father for one), and it is interesting to see her approach leadership differently, replacing the pride and rage of her male predecessor with a proclaimed maternal love. For example, she addressed herself to the people of Aceh in the following terms in her speech of July 29, 1999:

"Especially to my brothers and sisters in Aceh, I say, 'Be patient'. Later when your Female Leader (Megawati uses the Acehnese term 'Cut' here) is running this country, she will not allow one drop of blood to be spilled of the people whose achievements were so great in the struggle for Indonesian independence. To you I will give my love, I will distribute the proceeds from your Arun [Liquid Natural Gas Refinery] so that the people can relish the beauty enjoyed by the Verandah of Mecca as a consequence of it being developed with love and responsibility by fellow Indonesian citizens".

But we also recognize in these remarks the authoritarianism that tends to go hand in hand with populism in her emphasis on a personal style of leadership in which her word is considered sufficient guarantee of her steadfastness of purpose.

In light of this populism and authoritarianism, it is puzzling to find that Megawati has also shown a strong commitment to the rule of law. However, this phenomenon can be explained by her recent history. If her conservative, Meiji-like vision for Indonesia and her populism have roots in her past and her personality (specifically in identification with her father), then her commitment to the rule of law has its origins in the rough treatment she received at the hands of second president Soeharto in the mid-1990s.

Perhaps support for the rule of law had enjoyed a rudimentary existence in her mind for many years but it only crystallized into a firm and brave commitment in 1996 as a consequence of both her ejection by Soeharto from the PDI leadership in May 1996 and the subsequent, murderous attack on her party headquarters by government thugs on July 27 of the same year. Ignoring the advice of those who advised her to lie low, she immediately challenged the legality of the Soeharto government's behavior, employing a veritable army of lawyers in the process -- with her so-called "Team for the Defense of Indonesian Democracy" -- and she never missed an opportunity thereafter to affirm strongly her belief in the rule of law, or negara hukum.

By 1999 it seems that Megawati had come to the view that the negara hukum depends for its very existence on a separation of powers, a view that she then tried to reconcile with her father's hostility to Montesquieu's trias politika. She said in a speech in Singapore in mid-March 1999: "Although Indonesia does not adhere to Montesquieu's Trias Politika system, the PDI Perjuangan still holds strongly to the position that there must be a clear and transparent division between the legislative, judicial and executive powers and that this must be applied to our future political system."

The remark is somewhat contradictory but at least one may observe the daughter trying to shed an unedifying aspect of her father's legacy (Indonesia has rued the day first president Sukarno made the chairman of the Supreme Court a member of his cabinet).

We have the interesting phenomenon, then, of a leader, conservative, populist and authoritarian by dint of her background, being propelled in the direction of the rule of law and the separation of powers by her experience as a victim of the arbitrary actions of the Soeharto regime.

Thus it is that Megawati is particular about the rule of law in Indonesia even as she thinks of the Indonesian people more in terms of their collective uniqueness than their individual diversity. In benign circumstances, it is likely that these contrary elements in her political thinking will continue to coexist. But the difficult circumstances in which the Republic of Indonesia finds itself today, with its territorial integrity threatened by separatist movements in Aceh and Papua, may tip the balance in favor of her authoritarian side, in favor that is of preserving the collective uniqueness of the Indonesian people by force.

The first casualty of such a step would, of course, be the rule of law or the negara hukum -- and, as there is no situation of local conflict in Indonesia that cannot be made infinitely worse by the introduction of its military, the second may very well be the unitary state (negara kesatuan) itself.