Name the candidates

For the past few months, our politicians, elected or otherwise, appeared to have developed a new favorite past time: discussing the upcoming election of the vice president. They have virtually explored everything there is to discuss on the subject, except the most important one -- naming the candidate, or candidates. Their favorite theme is making an endless list of criteria for the vice president, as if the ones written in the 1945 Constitution are not enough.

Not one of the 1,000 honorable members, nor one of the five factions, of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) has been heard to have uttered his, her or its candidates. Yet time is running out fast. As an electoral college, the MPR, which will convene to elect the country's president and vice president in March, is once again keeping the nation in the dark about who it would like to fill the number two slot.

Barring any major unforeseen circumstances, most people assume that President Soeharto will accept his renomination again in March. To date, his is the only name mentioned by politicians and the five political factions for the number one job. In contrast, the vice presidency is not even discussed in the current sessions of the MPR working committees, which are in their final stages of drafting the Broad Outlines of State Policy for the 1998/2003 period and a host of new MPR decrees. That means that about the only thing not settled come March is the question of the vice presidential candidates.

Given their endless indulgence in discussing criteria, our politicians have effectively narrowed down the candidates from around 150 million or so people, who by constitution qualify to run for the post, to a few thousands or hundreds. But even if we accept that the candidates should be from those who are currently serving in the cabinet -- one criterion often broached recently -- that still leaves us with 40 or so candidates.

One thing that is holding back politicians from naming their vice presidential candidates is an old MPR ruling which states that the candidate should be someone who can work together with the elected president. This ruling was enacted in the early years of the New Order administration because of a traumatic experience during the administration of president Sukarno, Indonesia's first president. Open discord between Sukarno and vice president M. Hatta in the mid-1950s led to the estrangement of the latter, and eventually his resignation from public office.

The MPR decree on the vice presidential nomination was enacted to prevent a repetition. As a result, since the New Order administration, naming the candidate has been deferred until the very last minute, that is, after the president is elected. The MPR, in compliance with the decree, always "consulted" with the elected president regarding the vice presidential candidate, or candidates, to get his approval before it formally endorsed the candidate.

The MPR decree, while well-intentioned, may go against the spirit of the 1945 Constitution, which says that the MPR, as the people's sovereign, elects the president and vice president. The decree has effectively handed over the MPR's constitutional right of choosing the vice president, in part or in whole, to the elected president. It takes two to tango: the onus should be on both the elected president and vice president to work together for the sake of the nation; it should not simply be on the vice president.

The nomination of the vice president this coming March is more important than ever, given President Soeharto's age. A presidential succession is almost a sure thing, in five years' time, if not sooner. Whoever is elected in March, therefore, will be a leading candidate to succeed President Soeharto.

The nomination of the vice president has become too important for the 1,000 MPR members to exclude the rest of the nation from the process. And it is too precious to be left until the very last minute as has been the practice these past 30 years. The people should be allowed to scrutinize the candidates as much as possible. They should be allowed to have a say in this.

Politicians, or the five factions in the MPR, must stop indulging in irrelevance, such as debating criteria after criteria for vice presidential candidates. They should publicly announce the names of their candidates to test the people's response and obtain their approval.