Power sharing

Power sharing

From Republika

In the recent Annual Session of the People's Consultative
Assembly, President Abdurrahman Wahid, or Gus Dur, has shown how
clever he is in forming his power-sharing and compromising
policy. It is feared that his policy will sacrifice the existing
state system. We will soon enter the era of horse trading, i.e.
the second version of a new configuration with the old machine
and method.

Abdurrahman has succeeded in persuading the Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) and Megawati to
compromise with a new configuration: Abdurrahman to be head of
state and Megawati head of administration. But Abdurrahman
remains the supreme leader since the presidential Cabinet system
requires that the president is maintained as the foremost
responsible person under Indonesia's Constitution.

Two things are very hazardous to Abdurrahman's trap. First,
his intense determination to remain in power has forced the state
system to be "translated" under a momentary interest, i.e. to
accommodate Abdurrahman's incapability by sacrificing the
prevailing system. If this kind of solution is made a tradition,
this nation will repeat Soeharto's way of interpreting the
Constitution in line with his interests, enabling the president
to create a more operational legal apparatus for backing his
interests, for instance by producing laws, presidential decrees,
ministerial decrees and the like.

Second, the Assembly has again become Abdurrahman's plaything.
So the Assembly needs to think hard and respond to this problem
more firmly in compliance with the people's message entrusted to
it. This letter serves as a reminder to Amien Rais not to get re-
trapped by Gus Dur's "trick" regarding power sharing by making
Amien Rais take part in the administration's disorderliness
because of the "seats" allocated to his group in the Cabinet.

The maneuver is something that hinders Amien Rais' role and
the Assembly members from controlling the government, something
which doesn't differ from the New Order's concept where the
Assembly was reduced to a "rubber stamp" of executive power by
Soeharto. Amien Rais has betrayed the system. The Assembly which
should have been on the side of the people and not on the
government's, is an institution which has turned noneducative in
people's eyes. People can't differ the Assembly in the New Order
era from the current one chaired by Amien Rais, which could still
easily be made a fool by Abdurrahman.

JUSTIANI

Jakarta