RI needs new political system

RI needs new political system

By Robert Walker

AMLAPURA, Bali (JP): Many reasons have been put forward over
the last few months to explain why Indonesia has got itself into
its present mess.

For some, it is the dual function of the Armed Forces which is
to blame; for others it is the endemic corruption; or it is a
left-over feudalism, or it is too much centralization of the
bureaucracy, or it is a combination of any of these. There is no
statement declaring it is the parliamentary system itself which
is at fault.

When Indonesia traumatically wrenched itself from its colonial
past, it had a blank sheet of paper on which to write its system
of government.

The country then opted for what one might call "the Franco-
American model" of administration -- under which an executive
president, who is head of the government, is also head of state
and commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

As is laid down in the Indonesian adaptation of the Franco-
American model, the president names whom he likes to be his
ministers, nominates who shall be in charge of the Armed Forces
and appoints lawyers to run the judiciary. More importantly, he
can dismiss anyone from any state or provincial institution,
without consultation, if that person displeases him. The
representatives of the people in the House of Representatives
(DPR) and the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) are supposed
to be the sole check, the one balance by which excesses and
abuses of power may be restrained. Why did Indonesia adopt such a
system?

The French system, which has been through umpteen republics in
the last 150 years until the present one, could hardly be thought
of as a model of stability. As can be seen in the last few days,
the American version is hardly any better. Is it right that the
American president can bomb whom he likes, or send troops into
combat without consulting the representatives of the people, who
pay for the missiles and the personnel who operate them on their
behalf? "No taxation without representation" is one of the core
tenets of modern democracy. "No payments out of taxation without
representation" should also be shouted from the rooftops.

What tends to happen with the Franco-American version of
democracy is that it blurs the distinctions between the functions
of the state and the operations of government. Because the
president is head of state and, at once, head of the executive
government, it is often difficult to distinguish which hat he is
wearing. In a fledgling democracy, the government tends to become
the state, and the state is beholden to the government. The
judiciary -- nominally a function of the state -- becomes an arm
of the government by osmosis. The Armed Forces' commander does
the president's bidding or his own, and is theoretically only
restrained by fiscal sanctions which may be imposed by the
people's representatives. In reality this is so "theoretical"
that it never happens.

What is the "state"? Who are the "government"? We can look to
another common form of democracy to see these distinctions in
greater clarity -- the Anglo-German model.

According to this model, a president (or in many cases a
monarch), who is head of state and commander-in-chief of the
Armed Forces, is placed by the people above the government. The
state is the people, the people are the state, and they either
elect (usually through their representatives) their head of state
as a president or, by assent, accept their monarch through an
arbitrary accident of birth.

In either case, the government and parliament run the day-to-
day affairs of the country but are separate from, and answerable
to, this higher authority. This higher authority is the people
themselves, as represented by the head of state, who is held to
be above politics. Executive ministers (including, most
significantly for emerging democracies, the minister of defense)
are drawn from already elected representatives. They are not
necessarily in the pocket of the head of government because they
have to answer to their own constituents who elected them.
Regularly answerable to the head of state, the head of government
-- the Prime Minister -- is himself drawn from that pool of
elected representatives. He is primus inter pares -- first among
equals -- and can be dismissed by his equals at any time.

The armed forces swear allegiance to the state, as represented
by their commander-in-chief and have no special allegiance to the
government, other than the fact that the government supplies the
money to pay them and directs them in times of strife. This is a
most important balancing act. The armed forces or their
commander-in-chief cannot easily step out of line because the
government can simply cut off their means of supply.

The government, for its own ends, cannot easily order the
armed forces to act excessively because the head of state can
step in to prevent it. (That marvelous moment when the King of
Spain ordered his gun-slinging generals out of the parliament
building and back to their barracks, which they obeyed because he
was their commander-in-chief, was of defining significance for
that country. The judiciary is appointed by the head of state and
represents not the government, but the state, and by inference
the people, in courts of law.

Although in practice these appointments are made on the advice
of the government, the head of state need not take that advice.
At any time, the head of state can dissolve parliament (and
therefore the government) if situations get so out of hand that
such a move is warranted.

This rarely happens (except in Pakistan and India, and that
most infamous of cases with the Whitlam government in Australia)
because the checks and balances, the formal and informal
consultations usually diffuse any potentially explosive
situations before they occur. This system has its imperfections.
Malaysia currently demonstrates the way a ruthless head of
government can render the head of state impotent. Where has the
King been throughout the Anwar turmoils?

It seems to me Indonesia has opted for the worst of all
possible worlds, and this will get no better after the next
election. Not only is enormous, unrestrained power invested in
one person, but that person is not elected by the people (as
individuals) to possess that power. At least in America each
person gets the opportunity to choose who his or her head of
state shall be, and a mid-term election of people's
representatives ensures a change of political climate if the
representatives need a cautionary message.

In France it is even more subtle: The executive president is
elected by the people every seven years but the assembly is voted
in every five years. Thus only once in 35 years (that is once in
a generation) the political will of the people coincides with the
election of a president and his parliament at the same time.
Although this system is also by no means perfect, it does at
least ensure healthy competition between the two arms of
government.

Indonesia has none of these subtle checks and balances, none
of the healthy competition of either system. In both systems, the
various functions of state and arms of government, by stressing
and straining against one another, ensure moderation, continuity
of purpose and stability between them.

So far, because there are no moderating influences in place,
this country has lurched from one excessive power-holder to the
next. Because the president is unlikely to admit he was wrong in
appointing them, ministers can say and do the clumsiest things,
but are never asked to resign in consequence.

The Armed Forces do what they like; the judiciary does as it
is told under the threat of dismissal or worse; parliament hardly
ever argues with its omnipotent leader and the people are
powerless to do anything about any of them.

This will not change after the next election because, not just
the individuals involved in it, but the system itself has nothing
to offer in the way of healthy competition, fiscal restraint and
opposing forces balancing and checking each other's actions.

The Indonesian system relies too much on the ludicrous idea
that the president will always be a good person -- a man or woman
of complete integrity.

Some students have recently been quoting Lord Acton, but
inaccurately. "All power tends to corrupt; and absolute power
corrupts absolutely" is the precise words. It is that word
"tends" which is most eloquent.

The Indonesian political system, as it now stands, presumes
too much in its constitutional hierarchy; that the president, all
powerful and answerable to no-one, will be superhuman in his or
her ability to be all-seeing, all-doing but at the same time tend
to withstand the pressures which Lord Acton's dictum so
trenchantly suggests. It is unconscionable to expect any human
being to be that perfect.

The reformation movement naively assumes the next elected
president will be that perfect person of complete and unwavering
integrity, and will change things for the better in an uncharac
teristic burst -- for Indonesian politicians of altriusm.

This is impossible unless the next holder of untrammelled
power has the foresight to go back to that blank sheet of paper
and rethink the whole system.

The writer is an English composer and broadcaster and an
observer of social and political trends in Indonesia.

Window: The Indonesian system relies too much on the ludicrous
idea that the president will always be a good person -- a man
or woman of complete integrity.