Gary LaMoshi, Denpasar – Last week, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri marked her second anniversary in her father's old job. This week, she failed to mark another anniversary, a failure that reveals the reticent Megawati's vision for her administration. For Indonesia's poor and for foreign investors, it's not a pretty picture.
Sunday, July 27, was the seventh anniversary an assault on the Jakarta headquarters of Megawati's Democratic Party of Indonesia (PDI) by thugs from a rival faction backed by the Suharto regime. Violence spread, resulting in at least five deaths and 150 injured on what came to be known as Black Saturday.
The attack thrust Megawati into the spotlight as the focus of discontent with the Suharto regime. Without Black Saturday, it's unlikely that Megawati would have followed in the footsteps of her father Sukarno into the big office in Merdeka Palace. In a fiery speech calling for justice on the second anniversary of the attack, Megawati declared, "That day will forever be part of the nation's history."
Living history
However, it's Megawati's memory of Black Saturday anniversaries that's now history. Since becoming president, she's ignored ceremonies commemorating the attack and its victims. Efforts to bring to justice the people responsible for the attacks remain stalled, despite numerous investigations presenting evidence of military involvement.
Human-rights investigators repeatedly pointed the finger at the Jakarta military commander, General Sutiyoso, who also presided over the 1997 shootings of university students and anti-Chinese riots that led to the downfall of Suharto. Rather than a jail term, Sutiyoso is now serving his second term as Jakarta's provincial governor. He's extremely unpopular, widely perceived as corrupt and incompetent.
Amid deteriorating quality of life in the capital, from rising crime to gridlock, floods in 2001 that left the city and his administration paralyzed seemed to doom Sutiyoso's re-election hopes. But Megawati paddled to his rescue, endorsing his re-election over objections from many PDI faithful. She lamely explained that she wanted a military veteran as governor to maintain order, ignoring Sutiyoso's record of failure on that score as both general and governor. More believable explanations centered on political horse-trading for Megawati's own 2004 election bid and a graft partnership with her husband, Taufik Kiemas. Whatever the reality, the symbolism was both strong and revealing.
Back to the future
Although Megawati came to prominence as the leader of the Indonesian reform movement, she got there as a beneficiary of circumstances rather than any commitment to sweeping change. It's worth remembering that Megawati first became the leader of PDI when it was one of the three official political parties under Suharto, providing a nominal rival to his designated, guaranteed governing party Golkar. Two years into Megawati's presidency, it's easy to see she's no agent of change.
Her predecessor, Abdurrahman Wahid, came from outside the Suharto-era political fold, and he had a genuine interest in reform. Ineffectual and isolated, Wahid nonetheless threatened to rock the boat. The political establishment that stayed behind when Suharto left got rid of him and put its money on Megawati, who'd proved to be a solid bet.
As president, Megawati has spread the spoils through a large cabinet encompassing most establishment factions, let the military have its way without meaningful reform or punishment for past sins, and allowed the Suharto-era tycoons to re-emerge without forfeiting any ill-gotten gains.
Fighting corruption has given way to the old belief that political position grants license to act with impunity. The Speaker of the House, Akbar Tanjung, is free on appeal of his corruption conviction and has the inside track for Golkar's presidential nomination. PDI and Golkar discussed an alliance for the 2004 election; a cynic might see running a convicted thief as the next closest thing but there's no evidence that voters will hold that against a candidate. Political office is still seen as a license to self-enrichment; in the past, voters have chosen the party they thought most likely to let them wet their own beaks.
These are the good old days
Stalled reform has ugly implications for Indonesians beyond the power elite and foreign investors. Economic policy has focused on macro reforms – cutting interest rates, reducing the fiscal deficit, strengthening the rupiah – rather than finding jobs for tens of millions of unemployed and opening up the economy. The primary beneficiaries have been entrenched interests, who've been able to get more dollars for the rupiah they make and move offshore.
It's easy to blame the International Monetary Fund bailout program's reform preferences for those policies. This week the government announced its intention to leave the IMF program at the end of the year. Rather than allow Megawati's regime to do more to help the poor – although it's safe to assume there will be plenty of handouts ahead of the election – exiting the program will remove impetus for the government to make any reforms at all. And there's still plenty of room for reform.
The fiasco over PT Kaltim Prima Coal that's driving away international giants BP and Rio Tinto is just the latest example of how regulations discriminate against foreign investors and government leads the grab for teats on the milch cow. Under Megawati, the center has weakened, paving the way for more corrupt hands reaching from more directions.
Megawati's rule means that Indonesian courts are still auction houses where justice goes to the highest bidder, where the rich get richer, the military is unchallenged and accountable in its fiefs, and investors enter at their own risk. Don't worry if you forgot to send Megawati a card for her anniversary, because this style of rule has been going on in Indonesia for much longer than two years. The names may change, but the outcomes don't.
Sadly for the victims of Black Saturday, it's not Suharto or the brass hats that killed the reforms they died for. It's their champion, Megawati Sukarnoputri.