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.