What next?

What next?

President Abdurrahman Wahid was not far off the mark in
concluding that his censure by the legislature, and the preceding
investigation of corruption allegations against him, was nothing
more than an attempt to oust him. It was never a real attempt to
call him to account, if indeed he had erred as alleged by his
critics. Responding to the memorandum of censure, the President
told the House on Wednesday that it had no real case against him,
and warned that the House would be violating the Constitution if
it went ahead with its campaign to impeach him.

The memorandum was issued on Feb. 1 on the basis of the
House's investigation of the Buloggate and Bruneigate scandals,
both of which implicated the President and his close aides. When
the House's investigation started in August, it was already clear
then that the objective of this exercise went beyond the House
simply exercising its constitutional duty of providing checks and
balances in respect of the presidency.

By then, relations between the President and the majority of
factions in the House had soured greatly. The two scandals
provided a window of opportunity for the President's critics to
attack him and, as it is clear by now, to remove him from office.
It mattered little whether the President was involved in the two
scandals or otherwise. The slightest suggestion of his role in
the scandals, as found by the House's investigating committee,
was enough to form the basis for the issuing of the memorandum in
February.

The fact that many legislators in the House had rejected the
President's response before it was even delivered on Wednesday
underscored their real motives. Whatever response the President
gave, the majority of the House would still want to proceed, with
even more vigor, along the road leading to his impeachment.

While recognizing the maneuvers as an attempt to oust him, the
President seemed to have missed -- or chose to ignore -- the real
message that the memorandum had sent to him: That he no longer
has the support of the majority in the House. Eight of the 10
factions in the House endorsed the memorandum, even if the
document was wrought with many weaknesses as the President
pointed out in his response on Wednesday. That shows how little
support there is left for him in the legislature.

President Abdurrahman is not entirely blameless for the
current state of affairs. He, more than anybody else, contributed
to the tension and the eventual stand off with the legislature.
He antagonized the House so frequently, almost from the day he
took up office, that he undermined the national consensus that
led to his election in October 1999. He became overconfident for
a man whose own National Awakening Party (PKB) only won 11
percent of the total vote in the 1999 election.

Admittedly, the President faced a daunting task of overseeing
Indonesia's transition from a repressed to an open society, and
of supervising the restoration of the economy after its worst
recession in decades. But that should have been all the more
reason to secure the support of the majority in the House, rather
than to pick new quarrels. His penchant for controversy did not
help. Instead, it only eroded his political support.

The power struggle is far from over. The President has given
his response and the House will have to decide on its reply in
the coming days or weeks. A second memorandum is a possible
scenario if the House is consistent with its campaign to try to
impeach the President.

There will obviously be a heated debate on the fine points of
the President's response. And no doubt there will be street
demonstrations for and against the President in the coming days
to add to the pressure. Once again, the country will be plunged
into another period of uncertainty as the power struggle
continues.

While there is a small chance that the President may win the
battle, he will not likely win the war. The memorandum of censure
contained so many weaknesses that there is a possibility for him
to beat his opponents, or that some legislators may back down
from the campaign to impeach him. But that does not negate the
fact that he has lost a lot of the support and goodwill he had in
the legislature, something that he himself readily admitted on
Wednesday. Even if he survives the process, he will no longer be
able to count on the support of the majority of the House
factions. That being the case, his administration is likely to
become even more ineffective than it is today.