RI democracy: A new paradigm?

I believe that the people of Indonesia can be optimistic about the Abdurrahman Wahid-Megawati Soekarnoputri duo. This is a good and winning ticket on paper. Now they face a tremendous task, putting Indonesia's economy back on track, knowing all the debts already accumulated under Soeharto's and Habibie's drives.

To accomplish that task, they will need a clear vision looking right into the future of the country and its silent majority. Focusing on the past would be a mistake. So they should put all cases of corruption, collusion and nepotism in the hands of the Ministry of Justice and ensure that they are handled by a clean and fair minister of justice. During these investigations, they will have to focus on more important points on their agenda.

That agenda could comprise the improvement of the welfare of the Indonesian people, the launching of federalism of the country to preserve its unity, the development of training programs in various ministries, the alleviation of discrimination from laws, the establishment of antimonopoly laws, the increase of civil servants' wages to decent levels (a minimum of four times current levels).

I believe that by looking at the composition of the Cabinet, we already have lots of indications. I am optimistic that the above can be done if the will is there. For a democracy to raise or exist, you need to have a clear opposition movement. But the way politics is culturally run in Indonesia does not allow a clear picture of the pros and cons in our legislative bodies. However, maybe Indonesia does not need the (Western) opposition concept in politics. Maybe Indonesia is on the verge of coming up with a new (Eastern) approach to democracy which would be based on elections and national conciliation at the government level. That would avoid part of the Indonesian people being left out of the decision process. In a way, that could be a new model of democracy even better than the current models developed during the last 200 years by the Western democracies. The Utusan Golongan (groups' representatives) you have here is, in my opinion, a plus.

Still the government will have to take lots of unpopular decisions because all the money borrowed by Indonesia in the past and in the near future will have to be paid back and many subsidies will have to be cut.

I hope that the new leaders of this country will act with integrity and honesty to enhance the spirit of democracy in their own country. I also appeal to Western democracies to assist Indonesia by pushing the IMF to reschedule, in a different and more clever way (not on a time basis), the overall Indonesian debt and to allow Indonesia to subsidize basic commodities concerning the lowest social categories. If not, we -- Western democracies -- would still be acting as mere and violent colonialists.

YVAN MAGAIN

Bandung, West Java