President, legislature on collision course again

President, legislature on collision course again

SINGAPORE: Indonesia's President and legislature are again on
a collision course, as legislators prepare to censure Abdurrahman
Wahid a second time next week over questionable financial
dealings. From all accounts, there is more multi-party agreement
now than for the first motion in February.

Crucially, the move reportedly has the support of Vice
President Megawati Soekarnoputri, who has sought admirably
through the months of Abdurrahman's capricious management to
avoid displays of disloyalty and dissension at the top.

She has been a model deputy -- supportive despite
provocations, unthreatening and quick to dampen demands from
within her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle that she
dislodge the unpopular President.

If it is her judgment that a renewed censure is in order,
Abdurrahman's position would be greatly eroded. Unavoidably, an
open split in the leadership will sharpen tensions in Jakarta and
bring in its train all manner of ill consequences. Indonesia
needs to show confidence it can cope with its problems, not add
to the impression of drift.

For good or ill, the censure motion is a constitutional
process. If it is presented, it would only authenticate the will
of the people as expressed through the House of Representatives.
Abdurrahman, just as legitimately, can disprove the allegations
and still carry the day.

The worry is that a process mandated by law could be thwarted
by extraneous, extra-legal means. In an unwise display of
agitation, Abdurrahman spoke last week of a "rebellion" if
Parliament were to turn on him.

He said he had 400,000 of his supporters from the Nahdlatul
Ulama movement, his power base, who would protect him from his
political enemies. Of the many who would be descending on Jakarta
from East Java and Sumatra, he said: "... you can see it is a
nationwide rebellion against the ways of the legislature." This
is not what Indonesians would expect of their head of state.

Open incitement to civil disobedience, even violence, is an
extraordinary disregard for the rule of law elected officers of
the state are sworn to uphold. Abdurrahman is described by his
critics as erratic and mercurial; he need not have to reinforce
also their doubts about his fitness to govern.

The divisiveness in the body politic can be healed, if that is
at all possible, only by constitutional means. And it is solely
Abdurrahman's responsibility to make it happen. The opposition
legislators are poised to challenge him.

It is their constitutional prerogative occasioned, in some
ways, by his own doing. The military and police are not treating
his threat of civil disorder as a game of bluff to see who blinks
first. They will have 42,000 men deployed during the period of
the parliamentary session beginning on Monday. Abdurrahman can
draw back from the brink by sticking to the dictates of the
legislature.

If the House votes to censure him again, he has 30 days to
make his defense. Only if the House is unsatisfied with his
response would it invoke impeachment proceedings in the People's
Consultative Assembly, the higher chamber. He can still prevail
at the first step, or the second.

It will not help the Republic and the presidency if he were to
defy an organ of state, or treat it with disdain. In the February
session, he responded to the censure by questioning the standing
of the investigation panel which examined two transfers of money,
the subject of the complaint.

The House did not think he had cleared its doubts. Abdurrahman
should keep the monetary probe within its technical bounds.

He should not turn it around into a dark plot against his
person and office.

-- The Straits Times/Asia News Network