People told to intensify monitoring of political bills

People told to intensify monitoring of political bills

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesianist Adam Schwarz urged the country's
reform forces to maintain their pressure to ensure that the
upcoming deliberations on crucial political bills produce laws
which are neutral and objective.

While questioning the "legitimate right" of the existing
political system, the American political analyst said the country
should work with whatever tools it had at its disposal and
squeeze the best possible result from them.

"So if sufficient pressure can be kept on the system to ensure
the rules of the game are made in a neutral and objective way,
the election scheduled for mid next year could very much provide
a possibility for political change," he argued during a
discussion at The Jakarta Post here on Wednesday.

Schwarz, author of A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia in the
1990s, shot to fame several years ago when his book was banned by
the government of former president Soeharto.

He is currently a fellow at the Edward R. Murrow Council on
Foreign Relations in Washington D.C.

The political laws he was referring to are the three recently
drafted by a team at the Ministry of Home Affairs and currently
waiting to be submitted to the House of Representatives.

The three new laws will cover election regulations; political
parties; and the structure and position of People's Consultative
Assembly and House of Representatives.

They are to replace the package of five controversial
political laws passed in 1985 which many observers argue was used
to help preserve the status quo under Soeharto's regime.

Schwarz said the success of the reform movement showed that a
mass public outcry could have an impact on the political system.

"I think it is urgent for the proreform movement and the
community to keep a very close eye on that (the deliberation of
the bills) process and to ensure that it produces legislation
that paves the way for a neutral election, not one open to being
politically manipulated," he contended.

He reiterated that political reform was a long process and
that with the resignation of Soeharto the nation had only taken
the first steps forward.

"It has to be capped off, probably the less sexy part of the
process with doing the nitty-gritty part of creating rules and
the institutions that allow for a democracy."

He warned that there were forces out there trying to check the
amount of reform taking place.

"Habibie may be one that would really prefer to limit the
amount of change from the previous status quo ...

"There are strong forces on the other side that would strive
to hang on with to vested interests. However I don't think it's
going to be all that easy for them to achieve that," he remarked.
"The momentum is still on the side of the reform movement."

Bureaucracy

Speaking of the bureaucracy, Schwarz said that like anywhere
else in the world, Indonesia's would tend to be more status-quo
oriented. However as a whole it might not necessarily be opposed
to reform.

"Those who are would be those higher up in the bureaucracy who
actually have positions and power," he remarked, adding that this
is one area in which those likely to oppose change should be
identified.

Other "high-profile areas" to look at, Schwarz said, were
within the Armed Forces and Soeharto's family.

But Schwarz also warned that there may also be a prevailing
reluctance in the political process during the coming election.
He described such apathy and reluctance to trust the political
process as a natural consequence of the length of the Soeharto
regime.

"This is one of the legacies of 32 years of authoritarian
rule. And quite naturally they will take a very skeptical view of
the political process," he said.

Elections, he said, were the end product of a democratic
process and not the process itself. (aan)