Threats to reform

The miserable failure of the government in preparing the people for the increases in fuel and utility prices, and in creating a social and political environment conducive to these painful measures, could affect its ability to make the additional reforms that are badly needed to repair the economy.

No matter how the government manages to placate the nationwide protests against the utility price hikes, its decision-making procedures to resolve the economic crisis will only become more complex.

Yet, more challenging is that the political environment for making tough policies will become ever more demanding, as the House of Representatives appears no longer be satisfied with simply taking legislative initiatives and drawing up general directives on how the government should run. From this point forth, the House would likely insist on delving into the nitty- gritty of each and every executive action.

Such a situation has actually been expected in a democratic and decentralized Indonesia. Gone are the days when policies could simply be decreed and implemented under the sole command of the president. Making decisions and policies should now be based on a national political consensus. This is what democracy is all about.

Policy-making that is based on a national political consensus is deemed to be a better process, as it lends transparency and national ownership to important, if painful, measures. National ownership makes policies much more palatable to the general public as they do not smack of intervention from, let alone directives by, foreign governments or institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.

The problem, though, is that the country is still in the midst of a multi-dimensional crisis which has now lasted five consecutive years. A crisis in whatever sector requires quick, firm decisions.

There is, for example, utmost urgency in making decisions on asset recovery, corporate restructuring, legal and civil service reforms and privatization, because these are crucial for sustaining recovery and securing fiscal sustainability.

The large number of House members who have joined the protests against the price hikes, which had actually been exhaustively debated and finally approved by the House within the law on 2003 State Budget, reflects either their complete ignorance of the implications of the policies, or their frustrations that perhaps they had been misled by the government.

This could drive the legislative assembly into overzealous control of the government's executive branch to the point of blurring their division of labor and stifling reforms, to the detriment of economic recovery.

The decision-making procedures for the price hikes have, in fact, fulfilled the democratic process, taking into account the shortcomings inherent within the learning process being experienced by an emerging democracy like Indonesia.

The economic rationale for such tough measures has also been very clear. That the debates between the government and the House on the price hikes did not go into technical details is simply normal, as the implementation of the increases should be the responsibility of the government. Tying too many details and specific figures to particular economic measures amid the rapidly changing conditions could lead to executive inertness.

It is the government that should primarily be blamed for the public's furor over the price hikes. The government is utterly ignorant of the basic fact that a policy can never be introduced in a vacuum, and that a proper sense of justice is key to a successful introduction of such painful measures as price hikes in basic needs.

The government also seems exceedingly naive in not realizing that within a democracy, policies, notably those that demand sacrifices from the general public, cannot simply be decreed but must be "sold" through effective communications and adequate preconditioning.

The government, in coping with the raucous rallies against the price hikes, should zero in on correcting those grave mistakes that have turned into a national controversy what had democratically been agreed upon as measures necessary to improve the economy.

On the other hand, however, the management of the economic crisis would be debilitated if the uproar over the price hikes prompts the House to politicize any economic policies proposed by the government.

The House would also be grossly misguided if it harasses the government with excessive demands for minute technical details on its policy measures, intervening in every executive action or transaction.

Such overzealous control, while failing to establish good governance, could instead slow the pace of reform.