Nothing Changes
Megawati Sukarnoputri began her presidency with promising signals three months ago. That's over. The ruling elite, resting on bureaucratic paralysis, has made sure that, according to one observer, "it's an oligarchy, not a democracy" By John McBeth/JAKARTA
SIX YEARS AGO, when she was already under pressure from President Suharto's New Order regime, opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri told a surprised interviewer that she didn't think Indonesia's political system was all that bad. It just needed to have "a little more light let in."
With that thought, Megawati revealed herself as a certified member of the Indonesian ruling elite, obviously disturbed about corruption and the lack of democratic freedoms, but clearly comfortable with order and stability and extremely cautious about changing things too quickly. Though Suharto did guide Indonesia to considerable economic growth, the final decade of his 32-year rule, which ended with his resignation in 1998, turned Indonesia into Asia's emblem of corruption and decadence, of government for the profit of a privileged few.
Three months into Megawati's presidency, there is something familiar going on. Look no further than the presidential palace. Anxious to place herself in a stable comfort zone, Megawati has yanked up the drawbridge her predecessors, B.J. Habibie and Abdurrahman Wahid, had lowered in the interests of openness. Gone are the presidential spokesmen. Rigid protocol and tight security have been restored, along with the authority of the State Secretariat--which administrates presidential affairs, and is now, along with the office of Vice-President Hamzah Haz, under the control of Cabinet Secretary Bambang Kesowo, a Harvard-educated super-bureaucrat and long-time Suharto retainer.
Then take a short drive downtown to the imposing tower that houses the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency, or Ibra, the body tasked with selling off assets acquired by the government in a massive bank bailout in 1998. There, closeted with 20 friends and associates, Ibra chief I Putu Gde Ary Suta has changed the locks on the doors of his 30th floor offices and converted a small adjoining meeting room into his own living quarters. For an agency charged with taking the state to the public, this reclusive behaviour doesn't bode well. Considering Putu's connections to the Suharto family, influential retired military officers and other entrenched political and corporate figures, the fact that he is there at all may be another illustration of why Indonesia can't shake off its past.
Of course, Megawati inherited a difficult task. Indonesia's democratization since 1998 has opened politics to new players and new power centres. But today, with the ruling elite trying to balance these elements without causing itself too much financial pain, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Corruption flourishes in new, inventive ways, there is no functioning structure to penalize wrongdoing, economic and legal reform is at a standstill and businessmen are still refusing to repay debts. Indeed, more than three years after Suharto's downfall, there is little fundamental difference in how Indonesia's 220 million people are being governed.
"All the people in power now come from the New Order," acknowledges Ibrahim Ambong, head of the parliamentary commission on political and foreign affairs. "We need to change that generation." But then, as an afterthought, he adds: "We also have to remember there were good things, such as stability, from the New Order." Stability is something Indonesians want after years of political turmoil and communal violence.
But stability--and the lack of reform--also benefits many people who made money under the New Order and still have tremendous influence. "Their game," says one senior finance official, "is not having to pay and not getting caught."
It all adds up to a familiar gloomy picture. Megawati began her term in office with great promise by appointing well-regarded economic ministers. But the so-called "dream team" is already showing signs of paralysis--thanks in large part to a lack of political will on the part of the president. Officials and other sources familiar with the team's workings say Coordinating Minister Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti and reform-minded State Enterprises Minister Laksamana Sukardi--the two men most people had pinned their faith on--have been running into the same sort of roadblocks their predecessors faced.
BUREAUCRATIC ROADBLOCKS State Secretary Kesowo and another veteran bureaucrat, Administrative Reform Minister Feisal Tamin, are both preventing the ministers from hiring professional staff, insisting that unless they are political appointees they must come from the civil service.
Members of Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle acknowledge that the president always needed a bureaucrat of Kesowo's calibre to act as a gatekeeper and provide the necessary administrative structure. But now they question his motives. Some of Megawati's closest aides complain that they are having difficulty getting access to the president.
"It's scary to know what's going on in the cabinet," says legislator Alvin Lie of the National Mandate Party. "It's not working as a team and there's no clear direction. Every department is taking its own direction." Lie says parliament, which has been largely uncritical so far, is giving Megawati until the end of the year to see whether she grows into the job, but he admits: "The enthusiasm we all had has died down." Indonesia will get nowhere without an economic recovery, says Lie. "Without it everything else we do is useless."
Friends and associates describe Kuntjoro-Jakti as unfocused, privately bemoaning his inability to get anything past parliament. Says one businessman who met him over dinner recently: "I got the impression he had already given up. It wasn't very encouraging."
Sukardi is made of sterner stuff. But after the rules were bent to put the former bank executive in charge of Ibra, as well as the country's troublesome state enterprises, he needs skilled deputies he can rely on to get the job done. While it was first thought that Sukardi might try to remove Ibra chief Putu, that doesn't appear to be an option at this point, given Megawati's reluctance to rock the boat and the strength of Putu's connections. "There's no point in him picking a fight if he doesn't need to," says one associate. "He's being cautious and he's trying to fight one battle at a time."
Sukardi's advisers say as many as 30% of the heads of the country's state enterprises will have to be replaced if the privatization programme is to get off the ground. And that's only after legislators are convinced that finding foreign strategic partners is not only vital for raising revenue, but also for the long-term health of the economy. With only two months to go to reach his budgetary target for the year, Sukardi still needs to raise 8.5 trillion rupiah ($840 million). Part of that is to come from the sale of Bank Central Asia and the rest from the privatization of Semen Gresik, the state-owned cement company, deals that have been stalled for months by a combination of politicians with vested business interests and parliamentary opposition.
Megawati's handling of the Indonesian reaction to United States air strikes against Afghanistan drew fire at home and abroad--her delayed reply annoyed Washington, and her delayed response to anti-U.S. protests at home put her offside with Muslim and political leaders. As a consequence she has had to use up political capital that otherwise should have gone towards pushing through long-awaited economic reforms.
Megawati has never had a reputation as a reformer, but even some of her closest aides are uncomfortable with her conservative approach to leadership--starting with what many consider her biggest blunder so far, the choice M.A. Rachman, a career bureaucrat, as attorney-general.
Sarwono Kusumaadmadja, a former cabinet minister under both Suharto and Wahid, is better placed than most to make a judgement: "It's the New Order without the leadership and without the vision."
At least in style. What has changed is the way power has become distributed between a diminished presidency, a newly empowered legislature and a military that for the moment is content to take a political back seat. After two years of living dangerously under Wahid, it was hardly going to be difficult to restore a much-needed measure of stability. But the undercurrents will be strong in the years ahead as the three power centres struggle to strike a balance and parties manoeuvre for the 2004 elections.
Megawati is unlikely to be under any real threat until then, largely because her removal would leave Hamzah Haz in the palace and push an already politically divisive Muslim coalition into an unlikely alliance with the former ruling Golkar party.
Indeed, Nasir Tamara, spokesman for the Muslim-orientated United Development Party, which Haz still heads, insists an informal agreement remains in place that effectively guarantees Megawati will remain unchallenged throughout the length of her term.
That raises the prospect of the country continuing to drift, four years after its plunge into economic crisis. Megawati's failure to seize the initiative has already turned the Afghanistan issue into a debilitating game of political football in which Haz and Golkar chief Akbar Tanjung have spent more time competing for the attention of Muslim voters than addressing urgent problems.
Says former Attorney-General Marzuki Darusman, himself a ranking Golkar figure: "The government is fast becoming immobilized because of inertia."
Ironically, however, while the Afghanistan issue has brought thousands out into the streets and left Megawati treading on eggshells, there is an almost complete lack of public pressure on the government over domestic economic issues. It is evidence, if any was needed, that the elite has little to worry about from traditional forces for change in society.
"It's an oligarchy, not a democracy," says Kusumaadmadja. "While the legal system is rotting, Indonesia has become a cesspool of graft. It's not a good time for anyone with decency to be in the government."
On the surface, Indonesia appears to have come a long way from Suharto's days. The military's role has been reduced. Parliament has swapped its rubber stamp for an axe, as seen in the impeachment of former President Wahid and the influence it now wields over legislation.
The press is one of the freest in the region. And government officials have to declare at least some of their assets. But reality suggests otherwise. The average soldier still doesn't understand the importance of having the support of the public. Legislators have discovered the financial rewards of power. Newspapers ignore responsible journalism.
And most alarmingly of all, judges and other corrupt officials simply have no shame--even under the harsh light of publicity. Corruption remains endemic because of a compromised legal system that has so far resisted any attempt at reform. Only one prominent figure, Suharto associate Bob Hasan, has gone to jail for corruption since the New Order regime crumbled. Then there's the almost laughable saga of Suharto's fugitive son, Tommy Suharto, who had his graft conviction quashed by the Supreme Court nearly a year after he skipped bail and went on the lam.
"Modern Indonesia is a crazy place," Kusumaadmadja sighs. "Incoherent, unprincipled and cynical."