What's wrong with the reform process?

What's wrong with the reform process?

What should we expect from the Annual Session of the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR)? Political analyst J. Soedjati
Djiwandono shares his views.

JAKARTA (JP): At the end of the Yogyakarta meeting on Aug. 1,
the President stated that he and the other national leaders at
the gathering had agreed that the August meeting would just be an
Annual Session of the MPR, without attempts to unseat him.

Yet, many politicians seem to continue their ambivalence on
the question. While conceding the nature and primary function of
the MPR Annual Session, they have continued to keep the option
open by adding, "if ... etc." to their statements.

Constitutionally, being the supreme governing body of the
Indonesian political system, fully exercising the sovereignty of
the people, if the MPR should not be happy with the President's
"progress report" at the August meeting, the House of
Representatives (DPR) could agree on a memorandum requesting the
MPR to convene a special session, in which the President may be
forced out of office.

Indeed, the nation is paying the price for a lack of direction
in the current process of reform. The politicians continue to
talk glibly about reform seemingly without a clear idea of what
reform really means, why we need reform, and what to do about it.

Blaming Soeharto for everything that has gone wrong, MPR
members seem obsessed with weakening the presidency and at the
same time empowering the legislative bodies, i.e. their own
positions, as the top priority of reform. They fail to understand
that the 1945 Constitution provides for the very system that has
created the likes of Soeharto, Dr. Jekyll-turned-Mr. Hyde, the
main root of the nation's current crisis.

Thus many politicians now appear intent on pushing the
President into a corner, really after him for the kill, as it
were. It is unfair, however, to put all the blame on the
President for a lack of success in dealing with all the urgent
problems faced by the nation within less than a year.

Karl Marx thought that socialism or "the classless society"
that he dreamed of would be built upon the ruins of capitalism.
But President Abdurrahman Wahid has to build a new Indonesia not
upon, but through the use of much of the debris of Soeharto's New
Order. These are intellectual and political midgets of his
creation through indoctrination, manipulation, intimidation,
terror, by stick and carrot and by Pavlovian conditioning, who
continue to speak his language and double-talk and follow his way
of thinking.

Given the limited success in weakening the presidency and in
empowering themselves in the legislative bodies, what is there in
the political system to control them? At present the politicians
seem absolutely free to say or do anything and get away with it.

It is nonsense to call this kind of relationship between the
President and the DPR or MPR one of checks and balances.

In a parliamentary system, the parliament is able to topple
the prime minister by a vote of no confidence. But the prime
minister may challenge the parliament by dissolving it and
calling for a fresh election to test the confidence of the
people.

That does not apply to the presidential system in Indonesia,
especially in the absence of a mechanism for judicial review in
the event of legal or constitutional debate between the executive
and the legislative branches of government.

At best the result would be a deadlock, with the President
getting the upper hand in the face of the DPR. That is what
happened on July 20 last, when he confronted the DPR on the right
of interpellation. In the face of the MPR, however, particularly
given the possible attempts at impeachment following its current
Annual Session, the position would be the opposite.

Indeed, President Sukarno was impeached successfully by the
provisional MPR at the request of the equally provisional and
equally unelected DPR, which from the onset of the New Order had
both been manipulated through the revamping of their membership
at Soeharto's will. By contrast, now MPR consists mostly of
democratically elected party members, among which supporters of
Abdurrahman command a large majority.

Still, the situation will not be that simple this time around.
For one thing, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and
Golkar, like the previous case of the United Development Party,
are dissatisfied with the dismissal of their members from the
Cabinet for reasons the party could not accept.

This prompted the recent interpellation by the House -- an
indication that many politicians are more concerned with their
own personal and sectarian interests than the interests of the
nation. The question of their own survival seems paramount.

Thus, for another, the possibility of money politics playing a
role remains real. They probably could not care less if a change
of government at this stage would be too costly for the nation,
and that impeachment of the President is likely to trigger a
serious social conflict, if not a civil war.

It seems unlikely, therefore, that the President would
confront an MPR special session by resorting again to virtual
pettifoggery by questioning the constitutionality of attempts at
impeachment, arguing that the current Annual Session is not one
in which he is to give his accountability report. He is to do
that at the end of his term. He may well use that argument, but
before rather during the session, which I doubt, on the basis of
that very argument, whether he would feel bound to attend at all.

The nation is also paying the price for upholding the 1945
Constitution. Members of the MPR have appeared to make serious
efforts at amending, but not changing, the Constitution. Even
that is limited to certain, not necessarily the right, clauses.
But not the preamble! That would be a cardinal sin! And not the
unitary republic. That would be unforgivable!

The 1945 Constitution is one of ambivalence and ambiguity,
subject to conflicting interpretations, right from the preamble.
This has resulted in contradictory laws or laws contrary to the
Constitution. At the very least, it may result in endless legal
and constitutional wrangling with no institution vested with the
power for judicial review, not even the Supreme Court.

Without a complete change of the Constitution, on the pretext
that "the people are not ready", that they do not want to "betray
our founding fathers", or some other senseless argument, we are
likely to get another form of dictatorship -- whoever may happen
to be president.