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?