Political reality
How much, or how little, popular support President Abdurrahman Wahid still enjoys today is reflected in Saturday's resolution at the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) when it overwhelmingly voted to call him to account for his erratic leadership.
Eight of the 11 factions said they wanted to proceed with the MPR Special Session to begin what is effectively an impeachment process against the President. Two factions, including President Abdurrahman's own Nation Awakening Party (PKB), boycotted the session. The Indonesian Military/National Police faction, professing neutrality on the issue, left the matter entirely up to the MPR leadership.
When the matter was put to an open vote, 591 of the 600 Assembly members present, including all 38 military and police representatives, voted to proceed with the constitutional process to require the President to account for his leadership. That is more than 98 percent. Even if we assumed that the other 100 Assembly members who were absent for one reason or another would have voted in favor of the President, that would still leave us with 84 percent who felt that the time had come for Abdurrahman to present his accountability report at the Assembly session on Monday.
Setting aside momentarily the debate about the constitutionality of the Special Session or even of the Assembly itself, the MPR remains the best available measure to gauge the President's popularity. In Abdurrahman's case, the vote on Saturday was a measure of his unpopularity.
The MPR is the product of the 1999 general election, which, every one agrees, was the most democratic election held in this country since independence. For Abdurrahman to denounce the MPR as undemocratic now is tantamount to denouncing his own presidency, for this is the same institution which put him there in the first place, in spite of his party winning a paltry 11 percent of the vote in the general election.
The 700-strong MPR is also a better reflection than the House of Representatives (DPR), which initiated the current Special Session after serving two memorandums rebuking the President. Besides the 500 House members, the MPR includes 135 elected regional representatives and 65 representatives of societal groups. Even the majority of these 200 additional representatives voted to proceed with the Special Session.
The simple numbers emerging from the opening plenary meeting of the MPR on Saturday speak volumes about how support and goodwill for the President, which were overwhelming when he took charge of the country in October 1999, have eroded since then.
These are the political realities which for some unexplained reason have not sunk into Abdurrahman's head.
Granted, the President is right when he says that the other political reality is he still has the constitutional powers vested in him by the MPR. The President may just get away with his plan to carry out his threat to impose a state of emergency, a constitutional prerogative that comes with his job. He would then be able to dissolve the MPR and arrest his political rivals.
He might just survive this MPR impeachment attempt, but he would have to resort to increasingly authoritarian measures. He would then be ruling by power but without the popular consent or political legitimacy. Going by the experience of previous presidents in this country, he would then have to become more and more authoritarian in order to keep his power.
As for the constitutional debate, there is simply no end to it. The 1945 Constitution is a vaguely worded document that is open to far too much interpretation. Everyone can interpret it according to his or her needs. Presidents Sukarno, Soeharto and BJ Habibie each had his own interpretation. Abdurrahman is now committing the same mistake of trying to impose his own interpretation on the rest of us and justify retaining his power.
The ultimate measure to justify one's grip on power therefore cannot be the 1945 Constitution, but the popular legitimacy one has. On that count, based on Saturday's vote at the MPR, Abdurrahman's presidency is no longer defensible.
President Abdurrahman will make a grave mistake if he thinks that he can escape his destiny by deploying his fanatical supporters on the streets to help keep in him power. This will only make things more difficult for himself and his supporters, including the Nahdulatul Ulama Muslim organization, later on. His decision to expel Matori Abdul Djalil as PKB chairman, a moderate figure in the party, will make reconciliation that much more difficult once this power struggle is settled, one way or another.
He should also bear in mind that two can play the same game, and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), the Golkar Party and the United Development Party (PPP) are all far larger than Abdurrahman's PKB. They too could, if so inclined, deploy their equally fanatical supporters on the streets to counter his supporters.
Let's keep this ongoing power struggle limited to within the nation's political elite. Whether elected or not, that is what our politicians are there for, to settle the question of the nation's leadership. Keep the masses, who are already mired in problems of their own due to the prolonged financial crisis, out of this messy political fight. But most of all, let the political reality keep us all in check.