The fragile democracies of RP and RI

The fragile democracies of RP and RI

By Joel Pinaroc

MANILA: The Indonesian legislature overwhelmingly voted this week to begin impeachment proceedings against President Abdurrahman Wahid. It agreed to convene the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), Indonesia's highest legislative body, in August to decide whether to remove Abdurrahman from office. It is the MPR that elects Indonesia's president.

Abdurrahman is being impeached after running Indonesia and reducing it to shambles for only 19 months. The MPR session is a referendum on Abdurrahman's leadership. Abdurrahman is required to render a report on his administration, on the basis of which the assembly will decide whether to remove or retain him.

Unlike the impeachment trial of then President Joseph Estrada in the Senate last December, the Indonesian impeachment proceedings are not a long-winded process bound by judicial procedures.

Whatever the differences in the process, Abdurrahman, like Estrada, is a democratically elected president, and faces removal from office before the end of his term. In both cases, impeachment action sprang from essentially similar causes: involvement in corruption scandals, erratic leadership and incompetence.

The Indonesian legislature (DPR) voted for impeachment even though the solicitor general had cleared Abdurrahman of two financial scandals. The first involved the siphoning of US$4 million from the state food agency, and the other involved alleged misuse of a $2-million donation from the Sultan of Brunei.

The solicitor general found no evidence that Abdurrahman personally benefited from the transactions. But this did not prevent Abdurrahman's opponents from getting DPR to vote for initiating impeachment action. They are holding him responsible for the chaotic state of affairs in Indonesia.

Abdurrahman has few options left to avoid removal from office. Indonesia is in turmoil. It is wracked by ethnic and separatist conflicts. Economic reform has stagnated. The DPR is fractured by political infighting. Abdurrahman is politically isolated. On the day parliament voted to begin impeachment proceedings, Abdurrahman's backers tried to storm parliament.

The President is a Muslim cleric with a large constituency in East Java where mobs have attacked churches and public places to protest moves to impeach him in Jakarta.

Unless a compromise formula is found within the next two months to break the political gridlock, the assembly is poised to dismiss Abdurrahman and transfer power to his rival, Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri.

That Estrada was replaced by a woman vice president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and that Abdurrahman is likely to be replaced by Megawati, is pure coincidence. Political dynamics in the Philippines and Indonesia are different, although both crises mark trials of their democracies.

Megawati's party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) holds the most number of seats in the DPR. Abdurrahman's party has only 10 percent of the seats. Despite this, he won the presidency against Megawati by cobbling together a majority alliance with other parties. But this time, Abdurrahman, who is partly blind, has lost the support of his allies in DPR mainly after having a running battle with them and at one time calling them "a bunch of kindergartens."

Abdurrahman who, like Estrada, has insisted that he is innocent of the charges and that attempts to remove him are unconstitutional, has tried to stave off impeachment by threatening to declare a state of emergency. Such a declaration would allow him to disband the DPR and call for snap elections. He abandoned the plan after military leaders, his own security minister and some members of his Cabinet told him that they would not support it and that it would spark widespread violence.

The impasse has tempted the military to take a front-line role as powerbrokers after the generals had taken the backseat following the resignation of President Suharto two years ago. Although the Indonesian army has a long record of political intervention, its pivotal role in withdrawing support from Abdurrahman illustrates the point that when democratic institutions are fragile, military intervention is crucial to the life and death of governments, regardless of whether presidents are democratically elected.

Essentially, the Philippine people power crisis and the Indonesian crisis are about changing leaders either through elaborate impeachment trial or a simpler referendum by the MPR. Both underline the instability of the older Philippine democracy and the younger Indonesian democracy.

Their institutional foundations remain fragile.

Philippines Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network