Political battle between Amien and Laksamana heats up

Political battle between Amien and Laksamana heats up

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A political battle is close to peaking ahead of the 2004
elections between People's Consultative Assembly Speaker Amien
Rais and State Minister for State Enterprises Laksamana Sukardi
as the two figures are determined to settle their differences
over the privatization issue in court.

Amien, who is also chairman of the National Mandate Party
(PAN), refused on Thursday to bend to Laksamana's demand for him
to apologize for his comments against the minister and his
policies on privatization.

Speaking to journalists in Jakarta, Amien instead challenged
Laksamana -- also a senior figure with the Indonesian Democratic
Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) -- to take him to court in
response to the minister's legal notification against the MPR
speaker last week.

Responding to Amien's refusal to apologize through the mass
media, Laksamana's lawyer Amir Syamsuddin told Metro TV station
on Thursday that his client would soon file a lawsuit against
Amien for branding the minister a "foreign agent", who sold state
companies cheaply and not transparently.

In a recent interview with the Forum Keadilan weekly magazine,
Amien, when asked about the man behind the government's decision
to exonerate debtors from criminal charges, said: "I don't need
to mention a name. However, I see a very dangerous minister in
the Gotong Royong Cabinet. I have long been suspicious that this
person is actually a foreign agent. I doubt if there is a little
nationalism, a feeling of love for the nation in this person".

Although the conflict will likely go to court, it will also
drag Amien's PAN and Laksamana's PDI Perjuangan into a heated
political battle ahead of the 2004 elections.

Laksamana controls trillions of rupiah of state assets, which
his political rivals said could be misused to support PDI
Perjuangan's coffers for the financing of his party's electoral
campaigns.

Political analyst Ikrar Nusa Bhakti said on Thursday the
Laksamana-Amien legal battle was politically motivated.

It was part of Amien's early campaign to run for the
presidency in 2004, he added.

Ikrar said Amien and PAN were also trying to show to the
public that they were more nationalistic than PDI Perjuangan,
which President Megawati Soekarnoputri currently chairs, in the
issue of the national privatization program.

Another political analyst, Andi Mallarangeng, concurred with
Ikrar, saying: "The conflict between Amien and Laksamana is
politically motivated".

However, Andi said many people had voiced similar criticism
over the complaints Amien raised against Laksamana over the
privatization issue.

Amien insisted on Thursday that the government had made a
mistake by selling state assets "cheaply and arbitrarily",
including state-owned telecommunications firm PT Indosat, thus
prompting losses to the country.

At least 41.9 percent of government shares in Indosat was sold
for Rp 5.6 trillion (US$610 million) to Singapore
telecommunications firm Singapore Technologies Telemedia Ltd.
(STT).

Economists and other critics of Laksamana, including activists
of the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), said that Indosat's
price was too low as it could have been sold for an additional Rp
1.8 trillion, or over Rp 8 trillion.

They also accused the Indosat sale of not being transparent
and that there was a lack of accountability as the actual buyer
was Indonesian Communication Ltd.

In addition, Indosat's workers have opposed the sale of their
company to a foreign firm.

Andi threw his support behind a legal settlement to solve the
Laksamana-Amien dispute in the hopes that the court would be able
to disclose whether Indosat's sale was transparent and
accountable.

However, Ikrar suggested that Laksamana and Amien should
settle their case amicably by arranging a meeting between the
both of them to clarify the dispute.

The House of Representatives should also hold a hearing with
Laksamana over Indosat's sale to investigate its transparency, he
added.

"If Laksamana and Amien press ahead with their legal battle,
there will be no winner or loser. Laksamana could lose the
current battle as his case is weak, but the actual problem of
privatization has not been resolved," Ikrar said.