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.