Much ado about autonomy

Much of the hype about granting increased autonomy to the regions will most likely end up as empty rhetoric. The government's bill on regional administration, presented to the House of Representatives last week, promises more authority and responsibility to provinces, regencies and mayoralties to run their own affairs, but not to the extent promoted by officials. Real power will still rest in the hands of the central administration in Jakarta, in this case the President.

In the bill, the President will still have to approve candidates for governorship of the provincial legislatures. While the President can remove a governor from office, the legislature can only recommend this course of action to the President. A governor is accountable to both the legislature and the President. However, there is no doubt who the real boss is; loyalty is to Jakarta first and to people in the region last.

A major innovation in the bill is that regional administrations -- at provincial, regency and mayoralty levels -- will have increased authority over local affairs. All administrative business -- with the exception of foreign, security and defense, justice and monetary and fiscal policies -- will now be decided by regional authorities.

The bill on regional administration essentially states that you can run your own affairs but we will still call the shots in the crucial areas of policy formulation and leadership choice. Whether this will satisfy the people in the regions remains to be seen, since the content of the bill has not been widely disseminated.

Expressions for increased autonomy stemmed from growing discontent by regional pressure groups, not only concerning distribution of the national cake, but also regarding Jakarta's inclination to meddle in regional affairs. This discontent, in turn, has raised the specter of a disintegrating republic.

We commend the government for moving quickly to defuse tension, however, its proposal could fall dangerously short of expectations. The bill is only proposing to decentralize administrative tasks, not power, away from Jakarta's hands.

Understandably, underpinning the bill on regional administration is the need to preserve the unitary state system. It seeks to decentralize the government without moving to a federal system. Prevailing views favor preserving the current system. Federalism is widely regarded as suspect.

Indonesia lost one of federalism's rare advocates with the passing away of writer YB Mangunwijaya last week. In a book on the subject, published last month, Romo Mangun, as the Catholic priest was popularly known, argued that democracy would be more likely to flourish and be easier to manage in a country as large and diverse as Indonesia under a federal system. Our experience with the unitary state system during the past five decades supports the argument that Indonesia may only be governed by a totalitarian regime. Romo Mangun also said a federal system of government could stop the process of national disintegration; a topic of concern to many people.

Romo Mangun and Indonesia's first vice president Mohammad Hatta, who also advocated a federal system at the inception of the republic, were probably way ahead of their time.

While Romo Mangun and Hatta argued for federalism from a practical point of view, their detractors remain insistent in defending the unitary state system. For them, the subject is not even up for discussion. As the bill on regional administration shows, they remain reluctant to relinquish substantial power to the regions.

Ironically, in their obsession to preserve the unitary state system, they may be sowing the seeds of disintegration themselves. And if the "Balkanization" of our republic begins, it will probably be too late to talk about federalism or any other alternative system.