Next president 'needs a chief minister'

The sense of an imminent change of power in Indonesia is felt as far afield as Australia. One who has never lifted his eyes off the continuing crisis in Indonesia is noted political scientist Dr Herbert Feith.. Following is an excerpt of Dewi Anggraeni's interview with the former professor at Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University, on July 18 in Melbourne, Australia.

Question: Support for President Abdurrahman Wahid seems to be waning, and Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri may soon be taking over. Many believe that she may simply be a stepping stone for Wahid's political opponents and detractors. What do you think?

Answer: One cannot rule out the possibility that her term in office could be a short one, but that is far from inevitable, if only because there are no obvious other candidates. If the people are right who say that Megawati is very likely to be president in a matter of weeks, it makes more sense to think about what would make her presidency effective.

You have argued the case for the post of chief minister, and you have drawn attention to the role that Ir Djuanda played in that post in the first years of the guided democracy period. Do you still see that as a relevant model?

Answer: I certainly do. He became chief minister in July 1959, when Sukarno decreed "a return to the 1945 Constitution", abandoning the 1950 parliamentary constitution. At that point president Sukarno, whose formal position had previously been that of a figurehead, became an executive one, calling himself "President-Prime minister". Djuanda, a non-party engineer who had been prime minister for the two previous years, became chief minister.

Megawati would be fortunate if she could find someone like that who would take principal responsibility for the day-to-day workings of government. That would leave her free to concentrate on big decisions and on renewing the nation's vision of the future.

Djuanda was often described as a technocrat. Is that a fair description?

His overall outlook was like that. He had a good general grip on economic issues and worked hard at seeing to it that they were not neglected. However, he exercised authority in non-economic areas as well, especially in dealing with conflict between ministers.

But why would Megawati not leave that role to the vice president, assuming that the People's Consultative Assembly appoints someone to fill that position? She would be unlikely to choose that option, I think, and unwise to do so.

Why unwise?

After all, she would see any vice president as a potential threat, as a likely focus for groups that want to oust her from office. What she would need in a chief minister is someone who could never succeed her as president. One of Djuanda's great strengths was that he had no presidential ambitions. That made him unquestionably loyal.

When Djuanda died in September 1963, Sukarno could find no suitably loyal replacement for him. So he did away with the chief ministership and appointed three people as deputy prime minister. Dr Subandrio became first deputy prime minister, but Sukarno knew him to have presidential ambitions of his own.

He knew he could not trust him completely in the way he had trusted Djuanda. So he appointed Chaerul Saleh as second deputy prime minister, and Dr Leimena as the third. Chaerul was thought to have presidential ambitions too, and was one of Subandrio's rivals. So neither Subandrio nor Chaerul was given the position of total trust that Djuanda had enjoyed.

Would the combination of three deputy prime ministers be similar to the arrangements of coordinating ministers in recent years?

Yes.

So what would be the advantage of having a single person called "chief minister", rather than three coordinating ministers?

The main one is that it would ease the load on Megawati, making it easier for her to concentrate on the greatest of her tasks. One president who did that successfully was (former United States president) Ronald Reagan. He was far more of a delegator in the way he ran government than (Bill) Clinton. He was far less "hands on". Yet he was no less effective.

So do you see someone who could do for Megawati something similar to what Djuanda did for her father?

One person who might well be effective in that role is Emil Salim. He has had a great deal of cabinet experience and his appointment as first minister would be seen as a signal that Megawati's government was according a high priority to economic tasks. Emil is highly regarded in the outside world, as a former minister for the environment as well as for his success with various economic portfolios.

In the 1980s he was a member of the Brundtland Commission whose recommendations led to the conference on environment and development in Rio de Janeiro.

Would he be too old for such a demanding role?

He was born in 1930, but I am told that he continues to be in good health.

Would his membership of those various New Order cabinets not be seen as a barrier?

I guess it could be seen that way by some, but he is widely respected among people who were active in the reformasi movement in 1998-1999. Unlike so many of the ministers in the Soeharto cabinets, he is seen as clean, and free from the stench of nepotism and cronyism.