Presidency: Beginning of the end

Presidency: Beginning of the end

By Kusnanto Anggoro

JAKARTA (JP): An overwhelming vote (393-4) supporting the
dispatch of a memorandum against President Abdurrahman Wahid, or
Gus Dur, in the last plenary session of the House of
Representatives (DPR) is an omen. The end has already begun. Gus
Dur has lost his moral authority as well as the legitimacy to
lead and govern.

His party, the National Awakening Party (PKB), with barely
less than 50 seats in the legislature, is the only party
determined to support him.

The mudslinging match between the President and the
legislature is likely to continue in the weeks to come. The DPR
special committee's findings from their investigation into the
Buloggate and Bruneigate scandals have already been handed over
to the Attorney General and Police Chief.

The scene is set for a bitter, protracted legal struggle
between the President and the DPR. The PKB continues to lodge
protests over iniquitous procedure anomalies, flaws, lack of
ethics and the possible abuse of democratic mechanisms in the
proceedings of the committee and the DPR as a whole.

As a fallback, Gus Dur is seeking redemption by turning the
spotlight on opponents. Many DPR members are indeed allegedly
involved in significant corruption cases and/or improper business
practices.

Golkar officials are prominent in the firing line, with
investigations into their nefarious activities, including tax
evasion and the misuse of bank bail-out funds, being long-
overdue.

The President is trying to divide mass politics, which may
lead more people to argue that the furors over the President were
a conspiracy or smoke screen which Gus Dur's arch-enemies
instigated in the hope of seizing back power.

And the real battle is about to start. Many in the DPR seem
determined to flex their muscles, plotting once again and
gathering signatures for two petitions -- one asking Gus Dur to
resign and another demanding a fast-tracked special session of
the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) at which Gus Dur could
be impeached.

About half of the DPR members have already supported one or
the other. Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri seems to be in
oblivion, yet sticks to last week's decision by the DPR to
censure the President rather than requesting a special session.

Meanwhile, a massive power struggle is underway. Gus Dur's
ability to keep his job is uncertain. Kickbacks and backroom
deals have long been part of the political landscape. He has
survived his presidency largely as a result of tit-for-tat
maneuvering.

But now the President is losing his chance. His bargaining
power may be ebbing away by the day as party leaders hostile to
Gus Dur pressure their members in the cabinet to resign.

The weeks ahead could be a patchwork of tensions. In rhetoric,
the political elite, including Gus Dur, continue to call for calm
among their supporters. In reality, they have gone to his
constituency to secure predictable statements of blanket support
and/or keep sending useful warnings to his opponents that he is
ready to fight.

The potential of spreading conflict is imminent. Out on the
streets Gus Dur still has plenty of support, particularly in his
party's heartland in East Java.

It remains unclear how Gus Dur will ride out the storm. He is
a formidable political fighter who is dangerous and unpredictable
when his back is against the wall.

For sure, he should not be so disillusioned as to emulate
Russian Boris Yeltsin or Peruvian Alberto Fujimori by exercising
somewhat authoritarian measures. Gus Dur can no longer count on
the military to back him in his tussle. Mobilizing popular
support and violence would of course erode his credentials as a
democrat.

Long term democracy may depend less on critical moments of
decision than on the painstaking construction and care of
democratic political institutions, practices and culture. In the
short term however, such logic should read the other way around.

We have now arrived at such a critical moment. More
importantly, this is not about who will assume the presidency.
Nor is it all about whether Gus Dur should or should not resign.

This time may be the beginning of the end for Gus Dur.
Nonetheless, this is not the end of beginnings for anyone. Even a
President Megawati would be extremely vulnerable to anti-Mega
sentiments, paradoxically the primary driving force of Gus Dur's
ascendancy 15 months ago.

Any overthrow of Gus Dur now could be turned against her in
the future. The presidential system in a parliamentarian
atmosphere strongly flavored with a "ganging-up mentality" is as
much an unpredictable as it is an unworkable system of
government.

What Indonesia needs is a new political contract among the
political elite, a sort of political moratorium between, at
least, the executive and legislative branches of government,
during which they must focus only on their primary jobs.

If it is to take place, a special session of the MPR should
also agree on this principle. Transitional Indonesia needs at
least two full terms of stable presidency to arrive at a state of
democracy.

Sadly, we do not know when these terms of presidency will even
start.

The writer is a senior researcher with the Centre for
Strategic and International Studies and a lecturer at the
postgraduate studies program at the University of Indonesia,
Jakarta.