Regional autonomy: A case study

By Donna K. Woodward

MEDAN (JP): A bleak view of regional autonomy as an important initiative on the verge of failure was presented in this newspaper's Dec. 21 special supplement. What is happening with respect to regional autonomy is happening with other reform initiatives.

Defective laws are being offered as proof of serious reform efforts. So-called reform programs devoid of meaningful, concrete action plans are consuming millions of dollars -- many of which are channeled through the Ministry of Law and Human Rights -- which, until Todung Mulya Lubis spoke recently, had strangely escaped the public criticism that the police, prosecutors and courts have drawn, though many of the obstacles these law enforcement agencies face arise from the absence of adequate legislation.

If it wants tangible reform, the legislature needs to stop spinning its wheels and switch to radical and concrete problem- solving methods. We might use the regional autonomy program as a negative case study in problem solving.

Why has the autonomy plan gone so wrong? The regional autonomy plan was a response to a problem. Problem solving is first of all an exercise in defining a problem. Defining problems means asking questions. What were the questions that initiated the law-making process? What were the specific problems that the drafters defined before they started?

The new regional autonomy laws provide inadequate answers to some basic questions, suggesting that the questions were not asked. The autonomy plan transfers power from central bureaucracies to regional bureaucracies, but it does not provide for a return of power from bureaucracies to the people.

Government of the people, by the people, and for the people is an axiom of democracy that does not yet have a firm place in Indonesia's law-making processes.

How can any power-sharing plan succeed when it fails to address the root question of where the power to govern ultimately resides? And what powers are being transferred? The focus has been on financial decentralization, because the central government's monopolization of wealth has been a major source of regional dissension.

Other power-sharing issues, such as rule-making and conflict of laws, are given short shrift. After autonomy, what will local officials actually be able to do without reference to Jakarta officials that they could not do before?

This is the bottom-line question, and the answer should be clear to the parties. But provisions of the new laws are ambiguous, contradictory to each other, replete with confusing redundancies and troublesome voids.

Problems are not solved in the abstract. Problem solving requires abstract reasoning but it cannot end there. Concrete problems need concrete solutions, and ideas need to be tested in three-dimensional terms.

From the beginning no one really seemed able to explain in concrete terms what autonomously functioning governments at the various local levels would look like after the implementation of the autonomy laws. The provisions of the autonomy laws seem not to have been tested in the arena of the real.

Local governments were given little specific guidance about how to prepare for autonomy. The regional autonomy team have not paid enough attention to real-world details; they did not take a test drive with their concepts to see where the concepts would take them.

Those who explain the problem in terms of the 1,200 provisions that need amending miss the point: any deficiencies are intrinsic to the new laws themselves. Several factors should have set off alarm bells that the regional autonomy plan was in trouble.

No one could describe authoritatively the new relationships between the central government and regencies and provincial governments, or explain how overlapping functions will be coordinated. Jurisdictional issues were dealt with superficially; accountability is uncertain (though the term is used often).

There were questions that needed to be asked and answered before the first lawyer put hand to mouse to start drafting the autonomy laws. But like the schoolboy who says "I know the answer, I just can't explain it," the architects of the regional autonomy plan have not finished their homework.

As regional autonomy's bewitching hour approaches, implementation seems unstoppable. Few problems have perfect solutions, and no plan is perfect. But this plan seems particularly ill-designed to solve the problems it purports to redress.

Premature implementation will set back the cause of regional reform and development and aggravate political problems. In one of its more retrograde aspects, Law 22 preserves a system of civil service assignments, rule making and property disposition which are rife with opportunities for cronyism and collusion.

Postpone implementation!

Effective problem solving allows for modification of action if circumstances warrant it; the autonomy plan should too. Let the plan's authors insist that the government clarify threshold issues before the laws are implemented. Prepare the local governments. Make governance autonomy dependent on completion of preparatory tasks in furtherance of grassroots reform.

These laws should have been a model of innovative legislation: clear, streamlined and forward looking. They are not.

Let responsible parties review current reform programs and related laws to assess whether problems and objectives have been defined satisfactorily and solutions crafted in a way which ensures that concrete, quantifiable change will result.

Let the regional autonomy debacle serve as a case study for learning how to move more successfully from problems to solutions.

The writer, an attorney and former American diplomat at the U.S. Consulate General in Medan, is president director of PT Far Horizons management consultancy firm.