Soeharto will retain power in 1998: Gus Dur
Soeharto will retain power in 1998: Gus Dur
YOGYAKARTA (JP): Abdurrahman Wahid, a shrewd political analyst well-known for his controversial views, predicts that President Soeharto will retain power in 1998.
Although debates are raging about the presidential succession, Gus Dur -- as Abdurrahman Wahid is better known -- said he is skeptical that the People's Consultative Assembly will elect a new president in 1998.
"Personally, I doubt that there will be a succession, because general elections are only two years away and Soeharto still doesn't seem to have any competitor," he said during a seminar on politics.
Gus Dur, who chairs the 30-million member Nahdlatul Ulama Moslem organization, said everyone has the right to talk and theorize about the future president, "but real politics in the country is unpredictable."
President Soeharto, 73, is presently in his sixth five-year term in office.
Gus Dur said that Indonesia has no clear mechanism on presidential succession and the only guideline is the 1945 Constitution.
"If you only want to talk about replacing a president who is indisposed or dead, that is already settled in the Article 7 of the Constitution," he said.
However, he said, implementation of the article is open to different interpretations and Indonesia has no experience in openly discussing, let alone implementing, the issue.
The article states that the presidential term of office is five years and he or she "can be re-elected". It does not specify, for example, how many times the president can be reappointed.
He cited that former United States president John F. Kennedy was replaced by Vice President Lyndon Johnson shortly after Kennedy died.
"Should we automatically replace the president in this way, or should we opt for some other mechanism?" asked the leader of Forum Democracy.
The issue of succession was brought up again earlier this week when Chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council Sudomo said President Soeharto wanted the future president and vice president to be civilians.
Responding to questions on the reduction of House members from the Armed Forces (ABRI) faction, Gus Dur said that it was difficult to predict the political implications of the decrease in representation.
He argued that discussing the number of ABRI's representatives in the legislative body is less urgent than discussing how to make the political system more transparent.
"The major task now," he added, "is how to smoothly manage the democratization process and how to balance the executive, legislative and judicial powers."
Gus Dur considered the executive branch of the bureaucracy more dominant than the legislative, which affects the checks-and- balances mechanism.
Within the political elite, there is fear that a balance between the three powers would lead to "liberalism" and then on to political chaos.
"I think this fear must be dispelled through discussion forums," Gus Dur said. "Its a pity, though, that these very forums are often restricted by the government."
On a separate occasion, Gen. (ret) Soemitro, a former chief of the powerful internal security agency, questioned a proposal by Gen. (ret) Abdul Haris Nasution that the government require all able citizens to participate in military training.
Nasution helped conceptualize the military's dual function in both defense and politics. He argues that military training would help stop the debate over the military's dominant role in politics. (har/rid/pwn)