Succession still unsure: U.S. expert
Succession still unsure: U.S. expert
JAKARTA (JP): A prominent expert on Indonesia doubts there will be a change in national leadership in 1998.
R. William Liddle, a professor of political science at Ohio State University in the United States, said on Tuesday that President Soeharto, already one of the world's longest serving leaders, was likely to run for a seventh term as president.
"There are signs of this," Liddle said during a break at a conference on Islam in Southeast Asia, where he presented the results of his study on Islamic political aspirations in Indonesia.
In his paper, entitled Islam and Politics in Later New Order Indonesia, he explored a number of conditions which he believes signifies the President's intention to stay at the nation's helm in order to maintain political stability.
Liddle said Soeharto had appointed loyal officers in the powerful armed forces and the ruling Golkar faction to enable him to remain in office.
"Even though it is still not known if he wants to be re- elected, if he does, it would be easy for him," Liddle said.
The 1,000-seat People's Consultative Assembly will meet in 1998 to elect a new national president. Public discussion about succession has become, at times, intensified and is usually marked by conflicting views.
Political observer Amien Rais spearheads the group who want more discussion about succession in order to familiarize the public, which has only had one other leader in 50 years of independence, with the idea. Opposed to them are people who liken such discussion as an attempt to hassle Soeharto to step down.
The controversy was recently rekindled when Sudomo, chairman of the presidential Supreme Advisory Council, said that Soeharto wants a civilian to be vice president.
Liddle said that Armed Forces Commander General Feisal Tanjung, army chief General Raden Hartono, Golkar chairman Harmoko and Research and Technology Minister Jusuf Habibie would ensure a smooth Golkar campaign during the 1997 general election and Soeharto's re-election in 1998.
During the conference, Liddle explored the political role of the rising Islamic middle class and whether they see the existing political avenues as adequate.
Liddle believes that the perceived amicability between Moslems and the power holders, which emerged less than a decade ago, doesn't necessarily mean that Moslems have central social and political roles.
Instead, he sees policies which appear to favor Moslems, such as the abolition of the state-run lottery SDSB and the establishment of the now powerful Indonesian Association of Moslem Intellectuals (ICMI), as actually serving the power holders' wish to maintain the status quo.
Liddle acknowledged that "the rising moderate Islamic middle class" outside the bureaucratic elite had at first been enthusiastic about the establishment of ICMI which was to give voice to their political aspirations.
"By 1995, this enthusiasm appears to have waned with the awareness that ICMI is tightly controlled at the top by members of the state bureaucratic elite, and the realization that there is little room at lower levels for initiative in organizational decision making," he said.
"There can be little doubt that ICMI is now an inside-the- state political bureaucratic faction like many others that have existed in the New Order over the past thirty years," he stated.
Liddle doesn't believe that ICMI has sufficient representation for Moslems' perceived growing roles in society.
"What makes ICMI important today is neither its religious coloration, which is relevant but secondary, nor its links with society, which are at this point minimal," he said.
"Rather, it is its centrality in (the) plan to maintain control over the political system through the 1997 elections and the 1998 convening of the MPR."
Liddle's opinion was rebutted by several participants in the conference, including Dewi Fortuna Anwar of the CIDES, a think- tank of ICMI, and Robert Hefner, another U.S. political scientist.
Liddle has stated his belief several times that Indonesian politics will remain static and that no change is imminent in the pattern of relationships between Indonesian political institutions in the next one or two decades.
He states that the Armed Forces will remain the dominant political force, while other groups, including the Moslem community, will remain on the sidelines.
Liddle argues that today's seemingly stronger Islamic middle class is not the result of growing Moslem power. It is instead "the true product of the New Order government, which has relentlessly promoted economic development and personal piety and steadfastly opposed the political mobilization of religious groups in society." (swe)