The quest for legitimacy

By Sidesh Kaul

JAKARTA (JP): While President B.J. Habibie was presenting his accountability speech and defending his 16-month rule inside the Indonesian legislature, the country was once again in the grip of a fresh wave of student-led protests. The government responded to these protests with a heavy hand and the state's Armed Forces were deployed to crush and mute the protests. A massive use of force reflects the ineffectiveness of coercion and the weakness of the government's legitimacy. It also sadly reflects how remote and isolated the ruling elite is from the masses.

Legitimacy is an important issue and obsession with any government merits a closer look, especially in the contemporary Indonesian context. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the social philosopher, laid the seeds of the debate on legitimacy when he wrote his famous work The Social Contract.

"The strongest man is never strong enough to maintain his mastery at all times unless he transforms his strength into right and obedience into duty," he wrote.

Legitimacy is the belief in the rightfulness of government, in its authority to issue commands so that these are not just obeyed out of fear or coercion, but are perceived as duty by the subjects.

At the core of the issue of legitimacy lies the belief of the subjects that the government is morally right and that they, as subjects, are duty bound to obey.

It is time for President Habibie and his "reform era" Cabinet, as well as Gen. Wiranto and the Armed Forces, to sit up and examine the basis of their power and realize that legitimacy can never flow from the barrel of a gun.

The powers that be must realize that in the absence of such convictions the relation between the ruler and the ruled will be one that is based on power and not on authority, and that the political legitimacy of the government will be contested. This contest will go on until there is an accommodation on either side; that is, either the ruler, the ruled or a new government replaces the old, or there is a birth of a new system of governance that is able to satisfy the belief systems of ordinary Indonesians.

At the heart of any form of political organization is the basic tenet that states that the right to rule is fundamental, and it is this founding principle that affects all political activities.

Sociologist Max Weber postulated that in a modern nation state the government endeavors to regulate the vital interests and actions of its citizens through a set of binding commands, rules and laws backed by force, and that the basis on which the legitimacy is claimed will determine and influence the structure of domination.

The interesting fallout of this postulation is the fact that the government will develop appropriate delivery mechanisms for their domination. Influencing the structure of domination is not the only facet that the quest for legitimacy influences -- it also determines the relationship framework between strategic groups, and between such groups and the public as they endeavor to control the use of state power.

In addition, the government's language of legitimacy often defines the boundaries of legitimate political activity that, in turn, polarizes resistance against the incumbent government.

Every government, even the most despotic, is under moral pressure to convert relations of power into relations of authority and to cultivate the perception that their power is exercised on moral grounds and for the benefit of the general good of the citizens.

This perception, and its perpetuation, is important for the governed because it eases the pain of inequality and subordination and justifies their obedience. If the quest for legitimacy is based solely on power, either economic or coercive, then such authority will be challenged through resistance, rebellion and revolution. In that case, the ruling elite will be consumed by their efforts at survival and will direct the bulk of the resources to hang onto power.

A government that hangs onto power and seeks its legitimacy on the basis of money politics or force cannot be effective or viable and will soon become a liability for the entire nation state. Let the Indonesian legislature be warned.

The quest for legitimacy is not confined to Indonesia alone. Laos and South Vietnam chronically opposed the legitimacy of their governments between 1954 and 1975. Cambodia's struggle to question legitimacy started in early 1970 and is not settled yet.

The moral authority of the Malaysian government came under fire after the race riots of 1969 and in present times after the recent economic crisis and the imprisonment of dismissed deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Attempts by former president Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines to hold onto office in the mid-1980s, despite his failure at fraudulent polls where he attempted to regain his domestic and international legitimacy, were derailed by protests from ordinary Filipinos who bravely took their battle to the streets.

The legitimacy of military-backed rulers of Myanmar came under heavy fire in 1985-1986 when stagflation, poverty, hunger and unemployment culminated in widespread political demonstrations against the military junta in 1988. This struggle continues until today.

In an interesting and unique development, the military in Myanmar launched a coup against itself and has since ruled the country in the name of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). The quest for legitimacy by the SLORC, driven this time by international pressure, forced them to hold elections in May 1990. The SLORC, to their utter disappointment, lost out to the opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).

In a determined bid to hold onto power, the SLORC has yet to transfer power to the NLD and continues to detain the leader of the opposition, Aung San Suu Kyi, to date. The legitimacy of the Chinese government was questioned in the wake of the student protests in June 1989 and the recent crackdown on believers of the Falun Gong sect.

For the last several decades, the New Order in Indonesia sought its legitimacy on the dual basis of political stability and strident economic growth while popular representation and aspirations were sacrificed at the altar of material gain. The political instability and the economic chaos that pervaded the country during Sukarno's brief flirtation with guided democracy, became the New Order's cherished obstacle to be surmounted in their quest for legitimacy.

The onset of the economic crisis in late 1997 blew off the protective cover that growth and wealth provided and destroyed the very basis of this legitimacy. With the fall from grace of the New Order, the caretaker government of President Habibie was faced with the difficult task of captaining a country that was beset with a plethora of problems on the economic, social and political fronts.

In the absence of the comfort that strong economic numbers and wealth provide, the weak and unpopular government under President Habibie sought its legitimacy on other fronts. While it is easy to pontificate on legitimacy with the benefit of hindsight, the debate on legitimacy is important and cannot be ignored as Indonesia prepares to experiment for a second time with democracy.

Habibie and most of the members of his "reform Cabinet" are very much a part of Soeharto's New Order and despite their frequent public statements of commitment to the cause of reform, they have failed miserably in convincing the public at large about their credibility or willingness to reform.

Habibie did his level best at maintaining a healthy distance from his mentor Soeharto and went to great lengths to project himself as a responsible patriot who only had the good of the nation at heart.

Early in his tenure, he released the first batch of political prisoners and despite his well-known inclination for promoting indigenous interests, was among one of the first public figures in Indonesia to lend a shoulder to the grieving Chinese community in the wake of the May riots.

While comforting the Chinese minority, he did away with the long practiced and hated racist identification system in a country that identified the Chinese as an identity that was separate from the indigenous community.

On many occasions Habibie made strong and bold statements about the due process of law and about how he would spare no efforts at bringing the guilty to the docks. Habibie even met with Joseph Estrada of the Philippines in an act of solidarity to plead for the release of the jailed proreform activist and former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, all in the name of reform and democracy.

The media was given a breath of fresh air as journalists enjoyed their newfound freedom. Elections were announced and a free and fair election was conducted. Habibie postured publicly about his dislike for corruption, collusion and nepotism, and vowed several times to put an end to this scourge.

The rupiah appeared to strengthen. The bank capitalization program, apart from a few hiccups, appeared to be well on its way. The international community applauded Habibie's brave stance on the East Timor independence issue.

Like a man possessed, he spoke about accountability, transparency, democracy and human rights. Was this a repentant man who, in the evening of his political career, wanted to correct the wrongs of the New Order with missionary and patriotic zeal? Or was this a sinister cover up for perpetuating the wrongs? Or were these merely the actions of a selfish man, supreme and confident in his ability and the weaknesses in the system at correcting the history books at whatever cost?

Only history can truly answer these questions and be in a position to judge the man and his government. When viewed under the legitimacy microscope, the perspective that unfolds is of a man who basically was in a hurry to garner as much legitimacy as possible, both domestically as well as internationally, in a brazen attempt to retain power.

The Bank Bali scandal, in essence, has unveiled and laid bare the facade that was being played out in the name of reform. Cornered by growing cries for transparency both at home and abroad, Habibie has chosen to obfuscate the issue by taking a bureaucratic approach that prevents the PricewaterhouseCoopers report on the scandal from being made public and the highly placed culprits being brought to justice.

To make matters worse, the courts fully acquitted former president Soeharto and his son Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra in separate charges of grafts, and that, too, just before the legislature was to convene to hear Habibie's accountability address and to select the next president. Habibie's quest for legitimacy has come to an end. The farce is over and it is time to move on.

The concern here is should this legislature decide to betray the aspirations of the people, then it would lay the ground for a crisis of mammoth proportions.

The writer is a commentator on economic and political affairs based in Jakarta.