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.