Who should the civil service answer to?

Who should the civil service answer to?

Analysts have often pointed out the lack of cogency in public
statements made by certain politicians and bureaucrats. Political
scientist J. Soedjati Djiwandono of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies examines the most recent example.

JAKARTA (JP): I am speaking of simple logic and common sense.
Many among the political elite in present-day Indonesian society
seem to have little interest in any degree of cogency in what
they have to say.

"The current administration is one of Golkar," said Indonesian
Civil Servants Corps (Korpri) Chairman Suryatna Subrata recently.
"Therefore, the corps members will automatically (have to)
support and be loyal to the Golkar-dominated government. It is
one of the consequences of being a government employee."

He said the law guarantees that Korpri members can vote for
any political grouping, but "they would have to solicit their
superiors' blessing before they could channel their aspirations
through political groupings other than Golkar".

He added that the policy of "monoloyalty" for civil servants
was flexible and not permanent, depending on which party was
ruling the country, and that if Golkar was no longer in power the
policy could be reevaluated. "For the time being...loyalty toward
the Golkar-dominated government is needed for the sake of
sustainable development."

Minister of Home Affairs Yogie S. Memet agreed, saying that
the six million corps members did not have any choice but to vote
for Golkar. "Legally, Korpri members are free to vote for any of
the three political organizations," he said. "However, they are
also bound to the statutes of Korpri and the results of its
congress which say that members must channel their political
aspirations through Golkar."

The simple implication of such remarks seems to have been
missed. The statutes of Korpri, the decisions of its congress,
and worse, the blessing of superior civil servants, are above the
state law, and by definition, against the constitution.

The remarks also indicate a lack of understanding of the
significance of a general election and the position of the civil
service. It is beyond doubt that civil servants are to be loyal
to the government in power.

But the general election is a democratic mechanism by which
the political parties are put to the test by the people in order
to determine which party will govern the country for a certain
period of time.

And for the ruling party, it is to test whether or not it
still enjoys that popular confidence.

The civil servants are part of the people. They share the
right to make that determination, namely, to vote. The general
election is also to show whether or not the government they have
served so far still deserves their continued loyalty.

But once a party is elected to power, they will give their
loyalty to it, for that is the choice of the people. Under the
circumstances, this may not be a likely scenario, but logically
it is at least not inconceivable.

This is probably what is meant by the remark that the
"monoloyalty" of civil servants is "not permanent" and is
"flexible". It should not mean that civil servants should change
their party membership or that they should resign or be dismissed
and replaced by members of the winning party in the event of a
change of guard. It would otherwise create instability and
discontinuity, if not chaos.

Governments come and go, but the civil service is there to
stay and ensure the continued running of government
administration. This is what is meant by "sustainable
development", which surely is not a monopoly of Golkar. And civil
servants are to be recruited not on the basis of party loyalty
but through an examination by a Civil or Public Service
Commission appointed preferably by the legislative, not by the
executive branch. This idea may sound "western", but western
ideas should not always be condemned.

One wonders who deserves to be clobbered, not for attempting
to unseat the government by unconstitutional means, but for
maintaining power by violating the law, and thus the
constitution.

In our political system, who is to make the judgment and pass
the sentence? In other words, who is to do the clobbering, by
constitutional means, of course?