Endy M. Bayuni, Jakarta – First there was the hearing. Then came the investigation. Next thing we know, in less than a year, President Abdurrahman Wahid was impeached and forced out of office by the House of Representatives in July 2001.
While it is premature to suggest that Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will meet the same fate, the motion to launch an investigation into the government's rice import policy exposes the shaky position of the current President when it comes to dealing with the House.
The coalition government of at least seven political parties is turning out to be nothing but a house of cards, with the junior partners now taking an active part in pushing for the motion that would undermine the credibility and position of the President.
The House will hold a plenary hearing Tuesday to determine whether there are grounds to launch an investigation into possible impropriety in the way that the government has decided to import rice, the nation's staple food. Ironically, the hearing comes after strong lobbying by some of the political parties in the coalition, like the National Mandate Party (PAN), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the United Development Party (PPP).
They join the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) of former president Megawati Soekarnoputri, which has led the opposition forces in the House since she lost the election to Susilo in October 2004. These parties joined hands in a plenary hearing Tuesday last week to force a vote calling the House to hear the motion by some members to exercise their right to investigate the government, known by its Indonesian term as hak angket.
The vote to get a plenary hearing went their way 207-167. For once, Golkar, the largest but not the dominant party in the House, and the Democratic Party (PD), found themselves at the wrong end of the vote as their coalition partners abandoned them.
At the hearing this Tuesday, each party will air its position on the issue of rice imports before voting on whether or not to go ahead with the investigation. If last week's vote was any indication, the government is likely to lose this motion once again.
The government decided early this month to import rice, saying that national stocks were dangerously low and needed to be replenished before the rice harvest season begins in February. Critics dispute the claim of low stock and said the decision to import rice was motivated by profit by politically connected traders at the expense of rice farmers.
Successive administrations since the 1950s have had to thread carefully between protecting the interests of rural farmers and urban consumers. Concerns about food security has also meant providing incentives to farmers, but when it comes to setting prices, the government has tended to side with consumers and has allowed imports from time to time to bring prices down.
However, when the House holds the plenary meeting Tuesday, it is not so much the fate of rice farmers or consumers that are at stake as the future of the coalition government, and possibly the future of President Susilo himself.
His position indeed has been shaky from the beginning. Despite his landslide victory with 62 percent of the vote in September 2004, the President's own PD controls only 55 of the 550 seats in the House. Golkar, which is chaired by Vice President Jusuf Kalla, controls another 128 seats, bringing their total to 183, well short of a controlling majority.
This is why the President had to bring in several other parties, including PAN, PKS, PPP, PKB and the Crescent Star Party (PBB), into his coalition after he came to office. In return for their support, he has had to allocate them seats in the United Indonesia Cabinet. In the past 15 months, the government coalition has had enough of a majority in the House and its members were united enough to ensure passage of some policies and legislation, including two very unpopular fuel price hikes. The President, however, is now learning that the adage "in politics there are no permanent friends, only permanent interests" extends to his coalition government.
On Saturday, he summoned 11 members of the Cabinet, who represent the political parties in the coalition, to his private residence in Cikeas just outside Jakarta, at which he gave a pep talk about the need for their continuous support for the government.
The absence of Jusuf Kalla, who is on an overseas trip, has meant that the President has been virtually alone in dealing with this crisis. Kalla, a far more seasoned politician than the former Army general, had been the one who worked the phone in the past to ensure support from coalition members. One lesson from the Gus Dur impeachment episode in 2001 is that once the motion began in the House, and once the investigation started, it took on a life of its own and became almost unstoppable. Time will tell whether this will also be the case this time around.
What is certain is that the President faces his hardest test yet with the motion in the House this week, and he has to face this virtually alone, without his coalition partners and without Jusuf Kalla at his side. Whether or not he survives this test will ultimately depend to a large extent on his political skill and statesmanship.
[The writer is chief editor of The Jakarta Post.]