RI politics still a host of uncertainties

By Peter Richards

This is the first of two articles on possible developments in Indonesian politics ahead of the general election planned for May 1999.

JAKARTA (JP): Eighteen weeks of living dangerously began on May 21, when president Soeharto stepped down.

This second year of dangerous life will be different from the first because it has different goals.

* The reversal of the economic collapse that has affected all Indonesians except those with millions of U.S. dollars in foreign bank accounts and those who have always lived at a subsistence level.

* The political and economic restructuring of Indonesia so that it will not be possible in the future for more Indonesians to prosper in good times and to survive with dignity in bad times.

Both goals require capital, a quicksilver commodity currently in short supply in Indonesia.

It turns out that capital flows from foreign governments and international financial institutions, though larger than ever this year, are not enough. It seems that foreign private capital is needed to stimulate the repatriation and investment of domestic private capital.

This foreign capital will not begin to come until there is a certain level of confidence about the details of the post- Soeharto system. Indonesia is risky and big business and, notwithstanding its rhetoric, likes to minimize risk and assure return on investment. Besides, there are many other places crying out for capital.

So Indonesia's problem is how to deliver a system of sufficient probable stability and predictability to satisfy foreign and Indonesian investors. Anything related to the Soeharto era lacks persuasive value. So what is needed is a process that delivers a "legitimate" government that has the credibility to reassure investors.

"Legitimacy" is no longer a matter of (only) bureaucratic/military/police protection against competition and unhappy dispossessed landowners and restive workers. The reform process has set loose various lobbies in the deceptive form of prototype political parties. Many of their positions cannot be easily ignored.

The current plan pins hopes on a political process, including, centrally, a liberalized press and the election of House of Representatives (DPR) members, that will sort out these contending claims. It will thus yield a more accurate sense of what Indonesians want, and will challenge rather than meekly put up with the past platitudes of the government's various public affairs branches.

The process up to the elections of May 1999 is important, and so are the political negotiations that will precede the General Session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) in late 1999. This MPR session is after all charged with the selection of Indonesia's president and the elaboration of the broad state guidelines for the first five years of the 21st century.

Indonesians and interested foreigners will be watching closely the political reform process, including the debates on the bills on political parties, the restructuring of the DPR and the MPR, the formation of political parties and the conduct of the general election. They will be watching also how the successful and unsuccessful parties behave after the election as they politick to identify the next Indonesian president and vice president for the period 2000/2005.

In 2000 Indonesia reopens for business, initially with the tentativeness of the early 1970s but hopefully accelerating on the basis of the strength (and strengthening) of Indonesia's physical and institutional infrastructure.

So what can go wrong in the next year? Three things for starters.

* Engineered violence that requires the Armed Forces (ABRI) to intervene, thus risking reversion to the practices of the Soeharto regime or something even less attractive to Indonesians and foreign investors.

* The excessive reliance by the incumbent Golkar party on its funding, organizational and influence advantages in the run-up to the selection of the new Indonesian regime.

* The refusal by some major political party or force (for whatever reason) to accede to the outcome of the political process of 1998/1999.

President B.J. Habibie has said the government will suppress sporadic violence and looting. And many claim that even peaceful political activity is unduly circumscribed.

But the real danger lies with those faceless people with the means to mobilize and even train people motivated by the despair of their hungry children or with no higher motive than thuggery. In a word, people in or with contacts in the military and its integrated police force.

There is a natural desire to unmask the authors (in uniform and not) of a whole series of episodes since 1996 if not before. How far back is it useful to go? Surely, at least as far back as the July 27, 1996, rioting after the forcible takeover of the Indonesian Democratic Party's (PDI) headquarters; the kidnapping, detention and torture of students; the killing of the Trisakti University students; and the looting, murder and rapes in the middle of May.

Not just so that justice may be done, desirable though that is. But so that the "engineers" of the recent past cannot act again and that others think twice before imitating them. As the May incidents showed, these people do not seem to understand that the world has changed dramatically since 1965.

The ideological calculations of the Cold War can no longer excuse the bestiality of friendly governments. Electronic media envelop the planet. It is harder to get away with murder. And, thanks to modern communications and the transparent shamelessness of the late New Order government, Indonesians are vastly more politically aware.

The writer is a former Canadian diplomat who is now working as a tourism marketing consultant for the Indian Union Territory of Pondicherry. He has written this article in his private capacity.