Seven years after Soeharto's resignation

Seven years after Soeharto's resignation

J. Soedjati Djiwandono, Jakarta

Exactly seven years ago on May 21, under intense pressure from
university students who had been demonstrating continuously for a
week on end, then-president Soeharto resigned. These thousands of
students, many even climbing over the dome of the huge and
magnificent parliament building, waving red and white national
flags, gradually managed to occupy the People's Consultative
Assembly (MPR), supposedly the symbol of the people's supreme
power.

For once, the MPR, which had in fact just reelected the
President for another four-year term through the voice of its
chair, supported the students' demand for the resignation of
Soeharto. In addition, the night before, a number his ministers
had tendered their resignations.

Under such circumstances. Soeharto could no longer run a
government and announced his resignation and immediately
appointed Vice President Habibie as his successor. Immediately
the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court swore in Habibie as
President.

This commentary is a modest attempt to learn the lessons for
the betterment of life in this nation in the years ahead. It is
to be a simple analysis but with honest, scholarly pretension.

For an average person, the lessons learned from the past are
almost instinctively felt, if not rationally understood. It seems
quite human for people disappointed with current developments to
glorify the past, though not without exaggeration.

I believe Sukarno and Soeharto were equally smart and
intelligent, despite their different formal educational
backgrounds. They understood the 1945 Constitution equally well,
particularly in terms of its weaknesses and apparent strengths.
While both cultivated in the Javanese concept of "tolerance" and
"harmony", both believed that democracy is the best system of
government. Sukarno left it to the Constituent Assembly to
determine the constitution to replace the "provisional" 1945
Constitution promulgated the day after the proclamation of
Indonesian independence.

However, having enjoyed the sweetness of power for 14 years,
but having witnessed the failure of the Constitutional Assembly
in enacting a permanent constitution as required by the 1945
"provisional" constitution, in 1959 Sukarno decreed the
dissolution of the Assembly and the return to the original
provisional 1945 Constitution. There were, however, three
essential weaknesses of the 1945 Constitution:

First, it created an institution with unlimited power, the
MPR.

Second, it provided no separation of powers, with the office
of President combining both executive and legislative powers.

And third, it provided no system of judicial review. Sukarno
was cunning enough to manipulate the constitution by dominating
the MPR: He created the provisional MPRS.

He was cunning enough to manipulate the constitution by
dominating the MPR: He created his own "provisional" MPR (called
the MPRS), and his own provisional House of Representatives DPRG
(the "G" standing for "Gotong Royong", "mutually cooperative").

That was, I believe, the main lesson Soeharto learned from
Sukarno, and that was precisely how he seized and later
accumulated power when he finally dominate the MPRS by accusing
Sukarno of betraying the 1945 Constitution, particularly
Pancasila, the nation's gravest political sin, by his alleged
involvement in the so-called Gestapu ("September 30 Movement"), a
coup attempt allegedly staged by the Indonesian Communist Party
(PKI).

Then Soeharto created the "New Order" regime to "implement
Pancasila in a consistent way", Pancasila Democracy. It was to
replace what he called Sukarno's "Old Order" with his "Guided
Democracy". This was the main basis for the legitimacy of
Soeharto's "New Order". And the transfer of power was based on
the so-called Supersemar (March 11 Order).

Interestingly, since Soeharto's resignation, a question
throughout the entire period of the "New Order" was taken for
granted and never questioned, has now emerged. That is whether
the so-called Supersemar ever really existed, and if so, who has
kept the original document? And a document has been made public
and shown on TV of Sukarno's speech, in which he said that "the
March 11 Order" was "not a transfer of authority".

It is also interesting that both Sukarno's "guided democracy"
and Soeharto's "Pancasila democracy" were claimed to be based on
Pancasila. Both used the decision-making mechanism called
"deliberations for unanimity".

Sukarno made sure it worked by making himself "the Great
Leader of the Revolution", and then "President for Life", and
Soeharto did the same by making himself chairman of the "Dewan
Pembina" (a kind of "Council of Advisers") of Golkar.

So it is no wonder that "national unity" has since been
changed to "unity and uniformity" (persatuan dan kesatuan), a
term still parroted by the present generation of politicians.
Nowadays, a new mechanism of decision-making is one that is done
"without voting."

The current generation of politicians also knows the
weaknesses of the 1945 Constitution and may want to exploit them
by making its core values remain ambivalent but sacrosanct, not
subject to change, so as to benefit every group depending on
their guiles, but they continue to be split among themselves.
None has leadership over a strong group such as the military or
the Golkar. They started reforming the constitution, but in a
devious way.

The common people can easily see the difference. No strong
leadership. As a general, Soeharto had a lot more "flying hours"
than the current leader.

Under Soeharto there was a high degree of peace and stability.
That explains in part why foreign policy was not in disarray as
it has been in the reform era. Security was more assured. People
were not afraid to go at night as they are now, when people tend
to take law in their own hands. The gap between the rich and the
poor was not as wide as it is now.

Unemployment is getting worse. Corruption? One writer put it
in this paper earlier this week on the fight against corruption,
"lots of talk, little action". Are we getting better, worse, or
just staying where we are, like a dog chasing after its own tail?

The writer is a political analyst.