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)