[Gus Dur's controversial brother speaks frankly to The Straits Times.]

Q: Describe Gus Dur for us.

A: Gus Dur is a great solidarity-maker, but he's not the best administrator in town. His power came from various political centres, so he has to accommodate them in his policy-making.

There's a historical precedent for this, for example, Bung Karno (Indonesia's first President Sukarno) from 1945 to 1959. For 14 years, Bung Karno was very patient, balancing the extreme left and the extreme right. But finally he had had enough.

This is a presidential government. You have to let the President make his choices and give him time before you judge whether he can do it or not. How do you expect a blind man who's had two strokes to overcome Indonesia's problems in six months? If you do, you're crazy.

Q: Some politicians are now talking about letting Gus Dur choose his own ministers instead of insisting on party representation. Will that work for Gus Dur?

A: It will work. But he shouldn't choose opportunists. A lot of the people around him just want to get jobs. People are going round claiming that Gus Dur wanted this, or that he said that. People around Gus Dur have been undermining him.

Q: Does Gus Dur essentially have an "I have nothing to lose" attitude towards life and governance?

A: He's not like that. He still has some martyr syndrome. In wayang, it's called kumbokarno, from the Ramayana stories.

Have you realised that after 1492, when the Dutch fleet was defeated by the Portuguese fleet, the Indonesian world view turned inwards. People of the nusantara became landlocked in their minds. Gus Dur has been saying for the last 20 years, we must turn maritime. So one of the first things he did as President was to appoint a naval officer as Pangab (armed-forces chief). He has noble aspirations.

Hasn't it occurred to anyone that in his first six months, he visited the heads of state of four of the United Nations security council's permanent five members?

Q: It is always assumed that he wanted to cut off any support for an independent Aceh.

A: Yes. And look at the way he asked former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers to be the chairman of the reconciliation team in Maluku. Lubbers refused, but the gesture was there. You started the problem, you solve it. Holland planted the seeds of the problem in Maluku centuries ago.

Q: What's the key to understanding Gus Dur?

A: He's very complex. You have two sides of a personality here – a discursive side which likes to explore ideas and a practical, opportunistic politician. At one end, he's a noble thinker for his people.

People always misread him one way or the other; they don't normally see his opportunistic side. Take his proposal to revoke the MPR decree on communism. That was a shrewd political move.

At the next general election, some of the millions of voters, the descendants of the communist purge in the 60s, who voted for PDI-P, won't be voting for it again. He's trying to make the PKB (Nation Awakening Party) a strong pillar of democracy. Those descendants form a huge number.

Q: So, he is going for the presidency again in 2004?

A: No. He's got two or three people as proteges. He's preparing them for 2004. I can't say who they are. There has to be institution-building first.

Parliament now is like a bunch of children, fighting for the sake of fighting. There's an incongruence now between Parliament membership and ethno-religious differences. There are no cross-cutting loyalties.

Q: And this is necessary for a stable multi-party system?

A: Yes. And the MPs now are looking after themselves and their factions, not the people.

Q: A sort of tribalism?

A: Precisely, except the tribe is not clear-cut. It's strong personal and money ties. If you look at Java, it's divided into three groups – Mega's (Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri) , Gus Dur's and Amien Rais'. Then there are the 14 million Indonesian passport holders of Chinese descent. They'll throw their weight behind Gus Dur, not PDI-P any more because now the party is harassing Chinese.

Then there's the group of non-Javanese and non-Muslims. They can be divided between Mega and Gus Dur. Non-Javanese Muslims? They support Gus Dur and Amien Rais. TNI? They're all for Gus Dur.

Our representation at street level is incongruous with our parliamentary representation. If Parliament forces Gus Dur to step down, people will react in the streets. Why risk it?

Q: Do you think he should go for another term?

A : No. I was the first to object to his being President last year. It's too exhausting for him to go for another term. I told him he inherited a debt of 1,600 trillion rupiah (S$320 billion).

Q: When his doctors said he had a cold earlier in the year, did he actually have a third stroke?

A: No, it was the flu. His blood pressure and temperature went up and our physician brother Umar insisted he went to hospital and took preventive medication.

Q: Some observers say he's still behaving like the chairman of NU, rather than as a president and that's a source of some of the problems.

A: I agree, for security reasons. I don't like the way he allows people in and out of the palace. He always thinks nobody will kill him. But his car had three accidents, including the time when his wife became paralysed. The car tyres were not punctured by stones, but sniper bullets.

Q: Some think that he now relies only on a small and select group of people.

A: No. He doesn't even rely 100 per cent on me and I've been there in the streets for him for 20 years. He's very Javanese; he doesn't trust anyone 100 per cent.