Regional autonomy: Building a ship while sailing

Regional autonomy: Building a ship while sailing

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia is set to launch in the New Year its
ambitious project of granting unprecedented autonomy to its
regions, hoping to allay widespread discontent and even threats
of national disintegration following heavily-centralized regimes
of the past.

Dubbed by some scholars as the world's largest experiment in
decentralization of powers, the autonomy policy may not
necessarily face a quick death as some doomsayers have predicted
but pessimism is indeed great. There are all the signs that the
infant project will face difficulty breathing as even its most
ardent proponents, including the man responsible for initiating
the drive, Minister Ryaas Rasyid, have predicted chaos.

Poor preparation over the past months since the issuance of
laws No. 22 and No. 25/1999 on regional autonomy and fiscal
balance respectively, is only the beginning of a long list of
complaints that some scholars have cited. The two laws have also
received their fair share of criticism; "good intention but bad
laws" as one legal expert has put it.

The most important factor lacking in the drive is strong
leadership, Ryaas pointed out in a recent interview with Kompas.
Imagine doling out authority over affairs that concern the
livelihood of 210 million people to 400 regents and mayors who
all have interests and whims of their own!

Even some non-governmental organizations are increasingly
aware how some regents and mayors have begun to treat regional
resources as their private property, parceling them out to the
highest bidder.

"We need strong leadership to guide regions in establishing
the necessary regulations," he said. "Otherwise, those regions
will race with one another making up their own rules, and in fact
they have already started to do this."

"Meanwhile, the government has not completed the necessary
guidelines and it is only a matter of days before the
implementation of the laws," he said, underlining the second most
important problem facing the drive, namely the incomplete legal
infrastructure.

Some scholars, for instance, have counted up to 1,200 decrees
and regulations at various levels of administration that need to
be amended before the autonomy drive can proceed smoothly. This
seems unlikely in the near future, as many have noted.

The problem of legal infrastructure is worsened by the fact
that some decrees on autonomy actually conflict with one another.
A People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) decree on regional
autonomy, for instance, permits regions to set up their own
rulings for matters that are not regulated by the central
government.

The Government Regulation No. 25/2000, a set of directive
regulations for Law No. 25/1999, on the other hand, stipulates
that the central government complete all guidelines and rulings
that will serve as the guidelines for the regional
administrations to introduce rulings on aspects such as mining,
trade, investment, agriculture and others.

"It (the contradiction) can be dangerous," Ryaas said.

"The two most important factors that need to be present for
the autonomy drive to be successful are complete regulations and
strong leadership, an effective supervision," Ryaas said,
implying the absence of both.

For all good intent and purposes, Ryaas' complaints about how
the autonomy drive has been progressing may be interpreted as the
whining of a sore loser in a higher level political game.

After his hard work in formulating the policy, he was removed
from the government team of autonomy and, by his own admission,
all of his further actions were effectively thwarted by President
Abdurrahman Wahid. The president, for instance, rejected his
suggestion that the dissolved office of state minister for
autonomy, which Ryaas occupied for nine months, be enhanced into
the Supervisory Board of Regional Autonomy.

To give credit where it is due, Ryaas continues to champion
the need for decentralization and regional autonomy. His
colleagues and supporters such as Andi Alfian Mallarangeng, even
while decrying what they believe is Abdurrahman Wahid's
reluctance to decentralize powers, insist that the drive commence
as scheduled.

"We are not ready at all, it will end up in chaos,"
Mallarangeng said. But, ever onward because the stakes are too
high, namely the survival of the unitary state of Indonesia,
according to some observers including British economist Anne
Booth and Indonesian legal expert Bagir Manan, citing the
irreversible push for greater say for the regions.

"We have to go ahead with what we have, while preparing to
launch the amendments (of the existing regulations)," another
scholar said. Yet another scholar indicated that Indonesia would
have to resort to old, "centralized" regulations but "with
adjustments here and there."

With such a patch-work approach to the huge undertaking,
public apprehension is therefore understandable. Indonesia is
being forced to build the ship while sailing, as one writer puts
it.

The authority on autonomy is now in the hands of Surjadi
Sudirdja, appointed minister of home affairs and regional
autonomy in August, he has yet to educate the public about how
his office is planning to go about implementing the campaign on
January 1, 2001.

He is widely considered to be reticent. He does not talk much.
A self-proclaimed egalitarian and poor conversationalist, Surjadi
indicated in a September interview with Forum Keadilan that he
was aware of signs of troubles in the regions in relation to the
autonomy drive.

"With all of their shortcomings, the two laws are basically a
democratization of the administration. Some authorities that were
part of the central government are now being transferred to
regional administration...We are now facing problems (from
regions)," he said.

"We will have to work hard to deal with these problems," he
promised.

We are banking on this promise to ensure that the good
intention contained in the laws will materialize, and the feared
chaos does not. (swe)