Indonesia's democratic pangs

A NEW MOMENT of truth beckons a restive Indonesia in its emotive quest for constitutional democracy. As a vast archipelago-state already shattered economically in recent years, Indonesia now faces an unprecedented test in its nervous experiments with democratic rule of law. The Indonesian optimists tend to believe that a critical mass of political resurgence is almost imperceptibly taking shape, while the prophets of gloom point to a spiralling crisis in basic governance itself. For those hoping for a scheme of order that might follow the incremental chaos of the present moment, a glimmer can be seen in the latest decision by the agenda-managers of the People's Consultative Assembly to discuss the impeachment of the beleaguered President, Mr. Abdurrahman Wahid, on August 1. This constitutional activism has been triggered by the collective will of the House of Representatives. The House has recommended an impeachment hearing in the context of the President's defiance in the face of two censure motions that had been adopted concerning his alleged complicity of some kind or other in two separate cases of suspected corrupt deals. Given the inadequacy of Indonesia's evolution as a resurgent democracy, the present political puzzle in Jakarta cannot be easily explained with conceptual precision or an exactitude of terminology. The law-makers are, on the whole, engaged in a power struggle with a visually impaired Mr. Wahid. Having proven himself inept at preserving the aura of being a champion of democracy, Mr. Wahid is not only fighting an essentially unequal battle for primary survival in office but also threatening to inflict a mortal blow to the country's fragile democracy itself. This marks a poignant irony as his election as President in 1999 signalled the first democratic event of its kind for over 40 years in a country which had in fact begun its post-colonial era with conspicuous aspirations of political pluralism.

Mr. Wahid's style as a paternalistic guru of Indonesia's democratic renaissance has often put him on a collision course with the legislators. Some of them see themselves as the potential architects of a new democratic order. The point of reference for this tussle is the political verdict of the people in 1999, and not surprisingly, Ms. Megawati Sukarnoputri has so far succeeded in casting herself as the leader deprived of her legitimate popular mandate to govern Indonesia. Having agreed to serve as Mr. Wahid's deputy following her defeat in the presidential poll of 1999, Ms. Megawati will now succeed him if he is finally voted out of office. As the Vice-President, she has until very recently played by the rule-book and abided by the President's political policies and directives. By doing so, Ms. Megawati has certainly enhanced her political stock, although she remains ill at ease in toeing the line of a person who had outsmarted her without actually stealing the presidential election from her.

Indonesia's titanic struggle for a sense of direction, let alone a democratic order or an economic revival, is of considerable importance to the larger international community in the present context of changing power equations. As a populous country, which now is at risk of losing the battle for democracy, Indonesia has often been shaped in the past by its military forces. The peculiarities of its political evolution, punctuated by Sukarno's energetic but erratic rule and by Gen. Suharto's authoritarianism, account for this. It is, therefore, a matter of some importance at this stage that the military leaders are generally believed to have refused to collaborate with Mr. Wahid in his uncharacteristic effort to try and consolidate his hold on power. They may have actually advised him against proclaiming an emergency with martial law as its core. The current mood of the military establishment, which has yet to recover fully from its own shocks of recent years, cannot yet be taken as the defining reality.

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Section  : Opinion
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