Network asks govt to pursue reforms
Network asks govt to pursue reforms
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A national network of some 40 non-governmental organizations,
mass media, government institutions and political parties called
on the government on Wednesday to pursue badly needed reforms to
dig the country out of the current multidimensional crises.
They also expressed a commitment to assisting public policy
makers in policy reform after next year's elections.
State-owned Gadjah Mada University rector Sofian Effendi told
a press conference here on Wednesday that the government should
cut its role in controlling the people in order to strengthen
democracy.
"Civil supremacy must also be upheld and the military must not
return to rule the country even if it has strong discipline and
leadership to manage the country."
Sofian was asked to address the press after Jajaki's two-day
meeting that ended on Wednesday.
Fears of the military returning to the political stage have
resurfaced after polling carried out by a number of research
agencies showed that some former military generals had gained
strong support from the grassroots for the presidential post.
Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Gen.
(ret.) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has topped several presidential
candidate surveys, while former Indonesian Military (TNI) chief
Gen. (ret.) Wiranto, and former commander of the Army's Strategic
Reserve Command (Kostrad) Lt. Gen. Prabowo Subianto are joining
Golkar's convention to choose the party's presidential candidate.
Sofian also said that civil service reform must also proceed
and regional autonomy should be based on economy and social
justice rather than political consideration to distribute power.
"Those are priorities in political reforms that we would like
to deeply analyze in the upcoming years. We will come up with
policy recommendations to be handed to the government," he said.
The head of the United Nations Support Facilities for
Indonesian Recovery (UNSFIR) Satish C. Mishra attended the press
conference.
UNSFIR facilitates the network that aims to provide an
informal but organized channel of government and non-government
institutional consultation on priority policy issues.
Among the Jajaki network members are state-owned University of
Indonesia, Gadjah Mada University from Yogyakarta, the West
Sumatra administration, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences
(LIPI), Muslim organizations Nadhlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah,
Golkar and The Jakarta Post.
The Office of Coordinating Ministry for Political and Security
Affairs and other ministries are expected to join the network.
Sofian said the Jajaki network also wanted economic reform to
focus on reviving the real sector.
The present government has so far still focused on assisting
the ailing banking sectors instead of real sector.
On social reform, civil society groups must be continuously
empowered to help meet the people's aspirations on good public
policy.
More and more people should also be educated to better
understand their rights as citizen, while poverty must be
eradicated, he said.
On legal reform, the network called for concerted efforts at
the national level to fight corruption.
"Otherwise, our corruption problem will never end," he said.
The Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) ranks
Indonesia as the second most corrupt country among members of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the sixth
worst of the 132 countries surveyed worldwide from July 2002
through June 2003.
Meanwhile, Satish emphasized that Indonesian people should
push for a broadened public participation in determining public
policy.
The government has always made important decisions regarding
public interests based on lobbies among political elites or
foreign pressure without the involvement of the people and
explanations to them, he said.