What should a Vice President do?
By Akmal Djamaran
JAKARTA (JP): A daily newspaper once regarded as a staunch supporter of Megawati Soekarnoputri and her nationalist party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), recently published an article with a cartoon entitled Megawati Cuma Ngekor (Megawati only tails after the President). Both the cartoon and the article could be considered as a kind of taxpayers evaluation on the vice president's job performance. Although the evaluation was part of press freedom, the way the cartoonist caricatured Megawati was not in accordance with Indonesian standards.
Rakyat Merdeka, the daily in which it appeared, apologized for the cartoon following protests from the public. However, both it and the article highlighted a problem regarding the role of the vice president.
The 1945 Constitution is silent on vice presidential duties, stating only that the VP will assist the president. So, different presidents assign different duties to the vice president. President Abdurrahman Wahid, or Gus Dur as he is popularly known, has stated that Megawati, among other things, would handle efforts to seek solutions to the problems in Irian, Maluku, and Riau provinces, while he would deal with Aceh. Everyone knows that this is a very difficult task, even for the president.
The disclosure of vice presidential duties in this way indicates that Gus Dur wants Megawati to take on a bigger role in the government, not just as a "spare tire". Gus Dur and Megawati have even been dubbed as dwitunggal, the spirit of two in one, like their predecessors Sukarno and Hatta. But despite pressure from many social and political groups that Megawati act quickly on Ambon, the Vice President has been very slow to act. She did eventually go to Ambon, but accompanying the President.
When Gus Dur announced the Vice Presidents's duties, he did it with hope and good intentions. But the public, especially Megawati's rivals, were too quick to evaluate the things that she had not done. Given the nature of politics, even if Megawati had done a very good job, her rivals would still say she had failed. It is understandable, therefore, that Megawati has been very cautious in executing her duties. No vice president next in line to become president would ruin his or her chances by acting carelessly.
Perhaps it would be better if vice presidential duties were not made public. Let the president take responsibility for the whole business of government. Even if the vice president fails, he or she cannot be fired, but this does not mean that the vice president should do nothing.
We in Indonesia are very familiar with political terminology from the United States, such as "checks and balances", "term limits" and "judicial review". So why not learn something from the U.S. vice presidency? It is true to say that most U.S. vice presidents are not highly respected by the people or even by the president. The vice presidency, someone said, was God's way of punishing bad campaigners. Another said that the vice president was a professional mourner.
But certain U.S. presidents have tried to improve the role of the vice president, without specifically mentioning his or her duties. A 1993 article in The International Herald Tribune said how important vice president Al Gore was for President Clinton. It recounted that Al Gore was in Texas campaigning for Senator Bob Krueger. Gore made a stop at a preschool where his aides waited impatiently for a very important facsimile from the White House. It was a speech to be given by Clinton the next day that the president wanted the vice president to review.
The article did not say what Gore added to or deleted from the speech, so the public could not evaluate Gore's role as Clinton's adviser. Anyhow, all credit and blame belonged to the boss. Al Gore cannot be blamed for his advice because Clinton may have altered the draft himself or may have entirely forgotten about it.
Nevertheless, President Clinton informed the U.S. public and the world that his vice president is an important man. This helps create a positive image for Al Gore if he becomes president, either in the case of Clinton's removal from office -- remember "Monicagate" and the impeachment -- or if he wins the presidential election in November 2000.
There are many ways to create the impression that a vice president is doing a good job, without exposing him or her to public criticism. President Jimmy Carter told everyone at the White House that they had two bosses, himself and his vice president Walter Mondale. Paul C. Light writes in his 1984 book, Vice-Presidential Power that Mondale had an open invitation to every Cabinet meeting and access to the president's daily briefing. In Cabinet meetings, Carter was also respectful toward his vice president and asked his advice on important issues.
Mondale enjoyed his role as an adviser to President Carter and used the vice presidency as his training ground: He contested Ronald Reagan in the 1984 presidential race.
Light wrote that George Bush also played an advisory role when he was vice president under Reagan, after which he was elected president after Reagan's second term. This advisory role helps U.S. vice presidents make their term in office a training ground, something which was true for Mondale, Bush and Gore.
Light writes that an adviser must be ready to advise and must therefore have capable staff. He or she would need time to digest information, time to talk with the president, time to sculpt arguments, time to build advisory networks and time to answer policy questions.
Megawati, perhaps, cannot expect Gus Dur to support her as a future president, because Gus Dur himself may want a second term, and they come from different political strongholds. If this is true, Megawati cannot expect Gus Dur to assign her duties for training purposes. But, at least, we could amend the 1945 Constitution, to the effect that both the presidential and vice presidential candidate must belong to the same political party.
With the President and the Vice President coming from different parties -- Megawati from the PDI Perjuangan and Gus Dur being the founder of the National Awakening Party (PKB) -- we are now very close to a situation that Americans wanted to avoid with the 25th Amendment. The amendment was proposed to eliminate the possibility of a double vacancy in the office of president and vice president, which could led the U.S. speaker of the house -- who might be from an opposition party -- to become president.
With the amendment, in the case of the office of the vice president becoming vacant, the president nominates someone to replace the vice president, and the House and the Senate vote on the nominee. Political science expert Richard M. Pious wrote, "Had the amendment not been in effect the Democratic house speaker would have been in line to succeed the presidency during the Watergate crisis".
At that time of crisis, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew were U.S. president and vice president. While Nixon was still in office, Agnew resigned on charges of tax evasion and accepting bribes while he was a Baltimore county executive and a governor of Maryland. Nixon nominated Gerald Ford, a fellow Republican and House minority leader, as vice president. Ford later succeeded Nixon when the latter resigned after the House Judiciary Committee recommended articles of impeachment. The 25th Amendment was, indeed, a good piece of anticipation.
In our current situation, Megawati would become president if the office was vacant. But a possible political problem might arise because she belongs to a different party, and because she lost the presidential election at the People's Consultative Assembly. If Gus Dur and Megawati were from the same party and if they ran as a ticket, Assembly members who chose them would be fully aware that they also chose a vice president who would become president when the office was vacant.
The writer is a graduate from the University of Indonesia's School of Law. As a journalist, he attended a 1991 summer school at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, U.S.