Strong and honest opposition needed

Honesty and politics are like water and oil; they don't mix well. Yet modern man cannot live without them. The post election period hopefully will also mean the dawning of a new era in political tradition where the government will be as strong as the opposition even though an eventual coalition will comprise all the main political parties.

This nation more than ever needs national stability, however, not in the style of the former New Order under Soeharto when political stability implied that the government and members of the legislature were singing the same tune with the judiciary joining in the chorus while the people were deprived of democratic and basic human rights, until they woke up through the student reform movement. It seems utopian to demand such things from Indonesians who have just turned democrats and when profit seeking has replaced public service with corrupt mentality lingering in every corner. Already it appears that what matters most is the presidency and not the welfare of the common people.

Looming largely over all political bickering and speculations is the need to change the electoral system in that the president from now on be elected directly by the people and not by the People's Consultative Assembly, where appointed members may allow for political foul play such as vote-buying and perhaps coercion.

Any new government will inevitably have to deal with the national debt burden that may become a social wrath in the long run and hamper the drawing up of a balanced and healthy state budget. If everybody is to be arrested and imprisoned on charges of corruption, big or small, open or covert, there would not be many free citizens left, I am afraid, except farmers and those living under the poverty line.

A weak and dishonest opposition, or whatever critics are called here, will hardly exercise control over the new executive branch and will develop into the old habit and contagious disease of collusion.

It is high time politicians competed in bringing prosperity to the people and not just in grabbing seats.

GANDHI SUKARDI

Jakarta