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.