Xenophobia, a dangerous road

The public accusation that foreigners have been meddling in the presidential election, which was widely reported in the Indonesian-language media on Friday, is not substantiated by facts, but has still sparked controversy because it was made by a senior Cabinet official, and specifically targeted Americans from the U.S.

Under normal circumstances, such a wild accusation would not have been worth entertaining. But since it has fanned a debate, and unfortunately swayed public opinion, then we feel that we cannot let such xenophobic remarks pass without tendering our two cents.

Hard as he may have tried, Kwik Kian Gie, the State Minister for National Development Planning, failed to present a coherent argument to support his claim of foreign interference in the July 5 presidential election, at least in the way that his argument was presented in Kompas daily's main headline story. Unfortunately, his retraction or denial (we are not sure which) through Antara sounded even less convincing so Kompas, the country's largest daily newspaper, decided not run the story on Saturday.

Kwik claimed that the issue of foreign meddling came up during a Cabinet meeting led by President Megawati Soekarnoputri on Thursday. He said there was a general concern among Cabinet members about the strong role that foreigners played in swaying public opinion in the aftermath of July 5 presidential election.

He singled out William Liddle, an American scholar who has dedicated most of his academic life to the study of Indonesia, and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a U.S.-based organization which has been involved in helping transform Indonesia into a more democratic society.

Liddle's interest in Indonesia is clear from the tons of work he has done, including the number of Indonesians who have studied with him. NDI, until this year's election, had kept a low profile, but it has been active for the past six years in running a host of programs to promote democracy in this country. Kwik, or the Cabinet members, could not have picked worse examples in making their accusation. Going by their work, Liddle and NDI are well meaning in their intentions to help this country.

What, in the eyes of Kwik, was their sin? This gets even more ridiculous.

Liddle commented publicly about the outcome of the July 5 presidential election, which, going by the National Election Commission's official count with over 70 percent of the votes counted, will mean Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Megawati will be in the runoff on September 20. Liddle is one of many local and foreign political analysts who appeared in the media giving their assessment of the election, including an attempt to explain why Susilo, the former security chief minister, had bested his own former boss. Because Liddle had studied about Indonesia extensively, naturally his opinions were widely sought and heard. It has nothing to do with his American citizenship.

NDI's "sin" was the publication of its "Quick Count" projections about 10 hours after the polls closed on July 5. NDI put Susilo ahead with 34 percent against Megawati's 25 percent. The survey was actually conducted by the Institute of Research, Education and Information of Social and Economic Affairs (LP3ES), a respected Indonesian research group which received technical support from the NDI to conduct the survey. So, it should really be attributed to LP3ES. The official count is still proceeding, but its provisional figures closely resemble the ones given by the Quick Count. It was not absolutely precise as Kwik would have us believe, but it was close enough for the likes of Kwik to allege that the National Elections Commission was on the NDI's payroll.

Presumably, the Cabinet ministers discussed the outcome of the election, in which Megawati was running a distant second to Susilo. But rather than searching for honest explanations, they opted for quick answers: blame it on outsiders. They could not have been more wrong in their claim about foreign intervention by targeting Liddle and NDI. Even if Liddle did have clout among the public (a gross exaggeration that Liddle would be the first to admit), his comments were made after the election, and would therefore have no bearing on who people voted for on Monday morning. Ditto for NDI. Its ability to project so accurately only confirms their projection skills.

Kwik and the Cabinet are grossly mistaken to blame Megawati's loss in the first round on foreigners, but that is how Friday's headlines in many local papers would have been read by the public and by her supporters.

Such accusations are not only ridiculous, but dangerous at a time like this when anti-U.S. sentiment is already high because of the opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq. Coming less than two months after the expulsion of Sidney Jones -- another American scholar -- who was expelled for "meddling in our domestic political affairs", we detect a disturbing xenophobic tendency within this administration.

Megawati and her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI- P) would do well to learn from the mistakes made by her father, Indonesia's first president Sukarno. One fatal error Sukarno made was to fan anti-Western sentiment among Indonesians to the extreme, to a point that eventually cost the country its international standing. Sukarno paid the price dearly but, worse, the entire nation also suffered as a result of his error.