The failure of 'reformasi', and the 'little New Orders'

By Prapti Widinugraheni

SINGAPORE (JP): Indonesia is unlikely to recover from its barrage of multi-crises in the near future, but will just manage to muddle through with political, economic and social damage- control measures for the next five to 10 years, one academic predicts.

Vedi Hadiz from the National University of Singapore's sociology department, said Indonesia had missed the only window of opportunity that would have allowed for total reform, being the period between May and November 1998.

"In history, such opportunities knock only once. We missed it and now it's too late. The 'comma' that reformasi has fallen into came long before Gus Dur's time," he said.

In November 1998, six months after Soeharto's resignation, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) agreed to "gradual reform" instead of meeting the demands of student protesters who wanted a total and radical restructuring of the system.

As a result, Vedi said, the system did not change radically enough to drive out practices of Soeharto-style vested interests, patronage and largess, which have been inherited by, and now characterize President Abdurrahman Wahid's government.

"Solid leadership can only come about when Indonesia's social powers can disconnect completely from such practices," he said.

This could not be easy, Indonesia had seen 32 years of a system that had no mechanism for properly electing a leader of the people's choice. Soeharto was also an expert at maintaining his power.

"Soeharto never thought about how to transfer power through institutional means, which explains why Habibie had hardly any authority over state institutions, including the military and even his own party, Golkar," Vedi said.

The same situation was passed on to the present government. "We can see now that every state instrument, such as state-owned companies, provincial governments and regency-level authorities, has some kind of resistance against the central government.

"Within each state entity is a group that wants to control the state instrument for its own advantage. They do this, as they always have, through patronage, largess and repression.

"They are 'little New Orders' and they are a structural inheritance from Soeharto's New Order," he said. Vedi predicted that anyone in power in the near future would operate in the same manner as Soeharto, meaning there would continue to be corruption, collusion, nepotism, no accountability and no rule of law.

"Things will be the same, only the actors will be different. Right now, I believe that anyone who is a genuine reformer would have no political vehicle," he said. To have political influence in Indonesia, a person requires resources, and presently the only way to have access to resources is by resorting to corruption, collusion or nepotism.

But Vedi said he did not believe that "worst case" scenarios, including anarchy and total disintegration, are likely to happen. Except for Aceh and West Papua, he said, the elites in every region would be happy enough if they had autonomy and more control over their resources. Independence would only give them new issues to deal with, such as defense.

"The anarchy which we see now is a part of the elite's repositioning strategy which simply manipulates people's anxiety. Once the elite have no interest to defend, anarchy will subside," he said.

The writer is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore.