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Soeharto ignores the inevitable

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Sydney Morning Herald - October 18, 1997

With Indonesia's President Soeharto nominated by his Golkar party this week for a seventh five-year term, his unopposed re-election by a largely hand-picked assembly seems certain, barring ill-health. But as Herald correspondent Louise Williams reports from Jakarta, many opinion leaders are looking for more openness in the tightly controlled New Order political system.

This week Indonesia's President Soeharto was formally nominated for a seventh five-year term beginning next March. Precedents point to the 76-year-old leader being re-elected unopposed by a largely handpicked national assembly.

But few believe it will be business as usual.

Soeharto must eventually leave the scene and democratic change must come. The pressures in Indonesian society are too great to maintain the status quo, according to a range of prominent Indonesians representing the armed forces, mainstream politics and the opposition.

The most crucial question is how change will be ushered in and what will be the obstacles along the way.

Many hold genuine fears of chaos and communal violence if radical change is pushed, and argue that democratisation must be slow and incremental over a decade or more. Others say the status quo must be challenged openly, now, because the longer change is delayed the greater the danger of explosive social tensions in the future.

Will the same political elite be willing or able to accommodate rising demands for justice and democratisation and take its reign into the post-Soeharto era? Or will the end of the Soeharto rule mean an undignified scramble to get on the last gravy train - a last-minute rush to shore up personal interests before the opportunity is lost? Will the demands for change be channelled into a coherent pro-democracy mass movement, or destructive, random violence?

And then, who will pay the price for the excesses of the past 30 years?

There is a tired old joke that is trotted out each time Indonesia's five-yearly presidential elections come around and the same candidate is put forward to be elected unopposed.

This year, ahead of next year's election, the joke goes like this: "President Soeharto will give up power in 98. No, not next year. When he is 98."

Amien Rais, head of the 28-million strong Islamic Muhammadiyah, believes change must begin now: "What I am trying to say is, "please do not underestimate the anger and the power of the people', and I really hope that those who hold power now are wise enough to read the developments with clear glasses, so they have a clear understanding of their own society. "The aspirations for change are now very, very high, it cannot be contained any longer."

Change is already occurring. More people are willing to confront old taboos and rail against corruption, inefficiency, pollution, low wages, and even the accumulated fortune of the family of Soeharto, Indonesia's modern-day king.

The biggest challenge, though, is how change can be managed.

Soeharto is more than a president, he is a father figure of significant authority. His own success in staying in power, in balancing those who might oppose him off against each other and in co-opting or crushing his enemies has left Indonesia without an obvious understudy and with a political culture based on personality.

"For me a political system based on accountability to the people, that allows participation and is transparent is the ideal," says Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a political analyst and the co-author ofa study on Indonesia's future. "I am not so pessimistic, I do believe that in the medium term, say 15 years, we can achieve that, though the process will not be as smooth as we would like," Ms Anwar said.

"You are probably going to see the power-holders trying to maintain the status quo because nobody wants to give up power voluntarily. They won't want to give way to the demands of the workers, or the farmers or students and will try to maintain as much control as possible."

Anwar says she expects more protests and sporadic riots in the short term but her longer-term optimism stems from the inevitable realisation that must come from both sides. She believes that the political elite must eventually concede they can no longer monopolise power when the people are willing to challenge them, even in the face of a formidable security apparatus, and the people themselves will realise that riots and economic chaos only bring more suffering. Indonesians are reluctant to publicly discuss the specific changes needed, because doing so directly criticises the present system of the Soeharto Government and, as such, can be interpreted as the crime of sedition.

But, Anwar said, Indonesia's 1945 Constitution was basically sound, and could accommodate democratic changes.

"I consider democracy to be a universal concept. In terms of substance I would not see any major differences between the desirable democratic system in Indonesia and a Western democracy," she said, rejecting the notion that the direct contests of parliamentary democracy were unsuitable for "Asian" cultures.

Issues that must be dealt with, she said, were limits on the number of political parties, laws which allowed the Government to revoke press licences, limits on trade unions and the right to protest and strike, and the dominant power of the President.

Many academics and activists also single out subversion laws, which allow detention without trial for up to a year. The laws were originally intended, they argue, to protect the State from armed uprisings. Now they are being used to gag government critics. But perhaps most crucial is the discussion of a future limit on the number of terms a president can serve. The present Constitution does not set any limit on how long one leader can serve. Many believe the post-Soeharto era must include a two-term limit. Recently, one of the President's own Cabinet members has spoken up in favour of a 10-year limit. Marzuki Darusman, a Human Rights Commissioner and former MP for the ruling Golkar party, believes the Constitution is sound, but says the current political structure is not.

The three-party political system must be widened to accommodate new groups, he said. The legal system was in place, but it needed to be seen as an independent arbiter, not a submissive political tool of the regime.

A future system, he said, must allow the powerful armed forces a political role, because of their historical position in the Soeharto Government.

"We should not force the marginalisation of the armed forces for the sake of democratic ideals - that will be an important challenge for intellectuals. We need to co-opt the armed forces into the system, not allow them to roam around outside the system." Adi Sasono, general-secretary of the Indonesian Council of Muslim Intellectuals, says that individual human rights must be recognised in new legislation, that the wealth gap must be narrowed through affirmative action programs for the poor and that environmental laws must be strengthened to prevent short-term exploitation of the natural resources destroying the future.

The Parliament, too, must dare to fulfil its function. Theoretically, the President is answerable to the Parliament, but the reality of power means the Parliament has never originated new legislation and serves to rubber stamp the decisions of the Soeharto regime.

But Goenawan Mohamad, the former editor of the banned Tempo magazine, said he did not believe the political elite were willing or able to accommodate meaningful change. "The tragic thing about Indonesia is that nobody has an agenda for the future, including the pro-democracy groups. On the one hand you have this decaying regime and on the other you have no alternative, no vision of ways of solving our problems.

"I don't work on political models, my theory works on pragmatic steps, every single mistake should be addressed and you can't do that with a government that can't be voted out of power."

Abdurrachman Wahid, the charismatic leader of Indonesia's biggest Muslim organisation, says that he too fears for the future, especially the next 10 years.

Wahid is one of the founding members of the Forum for Democracy and a long-time critic of the Soeharto Government, but believes the times are too perilous for agitation. "One of the most important things is to be realistic," he said. "We cannot idealise one thing for Indonesia and hope that it will materialise out of a vacuum. That is impossible. What we have to do is to progress incrementally towards democracy, and we have to be ready to carry out the process in stages."

Wahid believes Indonesia is facing very bleak economic prospects for the next decade which will place a burden on the political situation and heighten the risks that political competition could degenerate into violent conflicts.

"We cannot hope for an improving situation democracy-wise. I think the next 10 years will be fraught with all kinds of problems and conflicts which could easily end up in wide-scale riots which will be channelled into religious and ethnic conflicts.

"That is why, in my thinking, the insistence of my activist friends that we have to pressure the Government more could end in catastrophe."

And he warns: "If the Government responds with repression then the protest will spread, people are aware of the great burden they are carrying, every day there are hundreds of work stoppages and people are taking things into their own hands. The elite will have to take into account that using more repression will create more opposition." Emmy Hafild, executive director of the WALHI group, a coalition of environmental and grassroots organisations, says business cannot continue as usual.

"We need a strong civil society and we demand the Government be ready for it," she said. "We need new ideas, new concepts and new leaders. Sudden change in Indonesia is not unprecedented. We are seeing a build-up of the need for change, not only from the middle class but from the lower classes. It may take five years or more but I am afraid of more violence if there is no change."

But, says General Rudini, head of the Indonesian Centre for Strategic Studies, change should be practical, not political. A system was in place, so make it work and make it fair. If the Government provided free schools, then stop teachers from charging for places; if the police took bribes, then discipline them.

General Yunus Yosfiah, head of social political affairs for the armed forces, was the only person interviewed who saw problems in terms of "clandestine forces", rather than genuine and widespread social problems. "The basic meaning of democracy in the West and democracy in Indonesia is quite different. We believe in national consensus, not confrontation," he said.

"Yes, there are a lot of problems in this country - discipline, morality, the impact of globalisation and industrialisation.

"But I believe the main reason for the increase in riots is the clandestine movement - they want to change the system to a Western-style system, or even communism," he said.

But his predecessor, General Syarwan, was less sure. "If we hold on too hard to the security approach then the people will push harder," he said.

"We must open, but if we open too fast there is a risk that some parts of society are not ready to use that democratic openness and things can get out of control."

Romo Mangun, a Catholic priest and social worker, says: "There is a kind of psychology in Indonesia of an eternal emergency, and everybody is afraid of Balkanisation. Thirty years of brainwashing has taught all the people, even the smartest and most scientific, that we need a strong authoritarian government, otherwise we will have anarchy. I can understand that feeling because we are a nation of 200 million people. That fear is perhaps the biggest obstacle to democracy." Others believe pride is an obstacle to change.

"The next 10 years will be tough on us all," said Romo Mudji Sutrisno, another Catholic priest. "We have to have the courage to admit that our face is now covered with scratches, and have the humility to look at ourselves and straighten ourselves up. But I am very pessimistic about the future."

But some do believe the current regime can yield to pressure in a way which will determine its survival.

"Soeharto can make mistakes, but he can yield in a sophisticated way. It is a fallacy that there can be no change under Soeharto," Wahid says.

"Soeharto is a smart politician, he knows well when to start change without risking political instability," Islamic Muhammadiyah's Rais says.

"President Soeharto has always been much more powerful than Marcos [the deposed former president of the Philippines] and much more successful, people don't feel that same kind of resentment," says Anwar, arguing that a dramatic people's power revolution is unlikely.

Many analysts argue that the determination of the elite to maintain power for their own personal economic gain is a major barrier to change.

That is possible, says Marzuki Darusman. There are two scenarios: either Soeharto is stubbornly staying on to protect his family's substantial business interests, or the people around him who have gained so much are pushing him to stay on.

"At some point the nation will have to come to terms with its past, how to address the excesses, the chronic problems of governance, the human rights transgressions, the inequalities and regional disparities. These problems cast a very long shadow over current policies," he said.

But, he said, retribution would be subtle; there would be no South Korean-style corruption trials.

"The next government will have to look into the past as a way of legitimising itself, to contrast itself, and will have to go into investigations of past practices identified with the First Family."

Wahid says: "There will be scapegoats. Regardless of whether we point them out, people will have to go. We have to do it. We have to educate people that wrong is wrong and right is right, but not in a confrontationist way that will endanger our own existence." Rais says: "It is useless to expect change from within. I completely disagree that Indonesia has to have a bigger-than-life father figure and that only Soeharto can maintain the balance. He will not live forever, and then what will happen? We will face chaos. "It is wiser for us to start now, to start building a clean government - eliminating corruption, protecting our natural and human resources. If we let Soeharto take a seventh term we are only putting the danger away for the time being and it will become a greater danger in the future.

"I think, though, that power is sweet: once you taste it you don't want to abandon it. Now the situation has reached a difficult position. You have power, money and influence, but it is like riding a tiger. You can't get off, because it might bite back."

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