MPR fails to heed people's voice

By Rahayu Ratnaningsih

JAKARTA (JP): The popular joke about the three prominent presidential candidates (Abdurrahman Wahid, B.J. Habibie and Megawati Soekarnoputri) that they are "blind, deaf and mute" respectively, turns out to be applicable to most members of the People's Consultative Assembly.

These members are blind and deaf because they seemed to be totally oblivious to the dynamism that existed outside of the Assembly. They are mute because they don't voice the majority of people's aspirations that are itching for change.

It is true that deliberation in the Assembly was a far cry from what happened in the New Order. It was far more democratic, transparent, and dynamic. However, what we cannot fail to notice is the bitter fact that the sovereignty of 200 million Indonesians was disastrously reduced to the sovereignty of less than 700 members of the political elite.

Democracy, anywhere in the world, cannot accommodate and please everyone but perhaps only in Indonesia can the election winner be the underdog and almost end up with nothing from the process. The oddity of Indonesia's politics cannot be more emphasized seeing the rapid development turning upside down the constellation of foes and allies in the counts of minutes.

The unpredictability has been so unnerving that the election result has practically been discounted. It was never used as a reference to begin with. In the Assembly building -- and among certain "objective and neutral" political analysts -- the people's voice became a source of polemics that echoes the magic question, "which people?", and the skill of "lobbying." In other words the flexibility of accommodating compromises has much more say.

The closest allies can turn out to be the most dangerous foes within minutes. The commitment of who-will-get-what is more alluring than a common mission, vision or ideologies, although on the surface it appears that the division is between the secular- nationalist camp versus the Islamic camp. But remember, it doesn't mean that the "commitment" cannot be broken.

There are several phenomena to note here. First, the unique on and off relationship between the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan). The two shared a commitment from the beginning to smooth Megawati's road to national leadership on the firm belief that to cultivate democracy, the first crucial step was to give the election winner the first opportunity to rule.

However, a big scenario purported by Amien Rais and his gang naming themselves the "axis force" despite their apparent rightist platform, successfully broke up the promising alliance at the last minute as well as splitting Amien's own party, the National Mandate Party (PAN) into two camps, the pro-Habibie Islamic camp and the anti-Habibie secular nationalist camp.

After Megawati's dramatic, if bitter loss, PKB then attempted to compensate for its unavoidable "betrayal" by nominating her to be vice president while PDI Perjuangan seemed to have lost interest in the whole unfair process.

When asked whether PDI Perjuangan would nominate Megawati for the vice presidency, its deputy chairperson Kwik Kian Gie in frustration gave a broad "mandate" to the "people's" representatives, in this case the 700 Assembly members, to decide whatever they wanted. He lamented that party officials had tried everything to win support, but they had repeatedly been doublecrossed. It was widely known that there was a deal between Akbar Tandjung's Golkar camp and PDI Perjuangan, among others, but apparently almost all of Golkar's votes were given to Abdurrahman.

Second, we can't help noticing the irony that the very people who were loudest about their commitment of total reform, the hardest in condemning Soeharto and the status quo and the staunchest and most consistent in deriding others who they thought to be less reformist than themselves, turned out to be one of those reluctant to reject Habibie's accountability speech.

Meanwhile, small and low profile factions, the Indonesian Nationhood faction (FKKI) and the Love the Nation Democratic Party faction (FKDB) proved themselves to have more guts by flatly rejecting Habibie's speech, something worth applauding.

Belonging to the former category are all members of Amien Rais' axis force, including his thought-to-be reformist PAN, which together with the Justice Party forms the "Reform" faction. This fact angered many PAN voters even further. Yusril Ihza Mahendra, who chairs the Crescent Star Party (PBB) and who was among the loudest in questioning PDI Perjuangan's commitment to reform, is himself suspected of money politics, as one of his party executives told the press that the party received Rp 1.5 billion from Habibie's camp; a charge which he has denied.

This might have led to the result which was a nerve-racking slim margin between those who accepted and rejected Habibie's accountability speech. This is, without doubt, most disappointing.

Thirdly, what we currently have is not entirely democracy. It is procedurally democratic but substantially is not. What happened was a process of unhealthy ganging up against the election's winner which was very dispiriting and heart-wrenching, using a superficial and manipulative dichotomy of Muslim non- Muslim, and to a lesser degree, Javanese non-Javanese or Eastern Indonesia-Western Indonesia. These issues were aggressively and consistently manipulated by Golkar, especially from A.A. Baramuli's camp, and have apparently found support among the axis force members.

The essence of democracy, which is rule by majority, bears little importance to the elite, particularly when they furiously advance the fuzzy logic that 65 percent of voters reject Megawati, which is not necessarily the case. The game was ridiculously and exclusively turned upside down between PDI Perjuangan, the "minority", and non-PDI Perjuangan, the "majority".

So what we have is not people's representatives but party's or axis force's representatives. Hence, the system and its elite have once again failed PDI Perjuangan and Megawati, though through the elite's "kindness and benevolence" she was finally "admitted" as one of the team.

They have failed the people which means they have essentially failed democracy. Amien Rais had claimed that Abdurrahman was the candidate with the most acceptability and the least resistance compared to Habibie and Megawati. This turned out to be not that simple, particularly after his own family homes in Surakarta were broken into and their belongings taken out and burnt by mobs.

Even the usually peaceful Balinese resorted to burning government offices in Denpasar and other areas in Bali. Nothing can be further from the truth than that the surest way of cultivating radicalism among the people is by unheeding the essence of democracy.

This is irrelevant to how much voting, how loud the cheering and jeering and how many interruptions occurred during the General Session. So, the political elite and those "objective" political commentators shouldn't rush to toast the "success" of the "democratic" elections of all the key positions. There is still a lot to be done and pondered over, so next time this principle is well taken care of.

Fourthly, nobody would ever expect that the unique relationship between the elected president and vice president would extend to these two key positions. Abdurrahman is widely known as a supporter of Megawati, despite his denial amid the rampant speculation about his seriousness in running for presidency.

Abdurrahman has been labeled as erratic by many since nobody can really predict what is on his mind. His quick oscillation from a supporter to a contender and then finally to being the greatest obstacle of his good friend's road to the palace is perhaps unprecedented anywhere else in the world, and begs a question of ethics.

His preference for taking Megawati as his vice president was apparently also a last minute decision considering the fast adverse developments in the grassroots as a reaction of Megawati's dramatic loss. The original plan was to take Akbar as a reward for Golkar's votes.

Finally, we should perhaps look at the bright side. The "happy ending" duet between the two close friends, widely accepted by the people, has practically kept Golkar and the armed forces on the periphery and, not less importantly, has appeased the various Islamic groups who hold great prejudice against Megawati.

The widely circulated speculation, after Habibie had been "taken care of", had always involved Akbar as the second man (either Mega-Akbar or Abdurrahman-Akbar) and sometimes then Indonesian Military (TNI) Commander Gen. Wiranto. Akbar's position, representing swing votes was strategic. Although we appreciate his big heartedness in retiring from both the presidential and vice presidential race, the banner he carries would have created a less than ideal situation as it had been profusely demanded by the majority of the people that Golkar be entirely stripped from top leadership posts.

What we have now is two morally sound people, of course discounting what some have interpreted as erratic behavior on the part of Abdurrahman following his two strokes. They should be able to lay the path to visionary leadership in accordance with people's aspirations. This restless nation now has both a father and a mother to nurture it. Perhaps we couldn't ask for more, at least for now.

The writer is the director of the Satori Foundation, a center for the study and development of human excellence through training in mind programming and meditation techniques.