12 - 18 April 2001
Issue No.529
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 12 - 18 April 2001 Issue No.529 |
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Counting the days
Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid is insolent in the face of adversity, but his country is disintegrating around him. Nyier Abdou follows the path to impeachment
At 6.07am on Saturday, an earthquake measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale rumbled through the Indonesian town of Bengkulu, on the island of Sumatra. Like it's 5.5-magnitude predecessor on 1 April, it caused no damage or casualties. The archipelago is prone to earthquakes and residents of Sumatra are probably tucking away fears that the big one is coming.
Indonesia's Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri (right) chats with army chief
(photo: AFP)
The tense expectancy is redolent of the leadership crisis targeting Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, whose erratic and unpopular rule has made enemies of former allies. On 1 February, the lower house of parliament (DPR) voted overwhelmingly in favour of censuring the president for his alleged participation in two financial scandals, setting the ball rolling towards possible impeachment proceedings. It is widely believed a second censure is coming at the end of the month -- a move that could be the death knell for Wahid's presidency.
Wahid could end up having the dubious honour of being the country's first democratically elected president, as well as the first legislatively removed one. While most legal experts have concluded the evidence tying the president to the misuse of over $6 million worth of funds is feeble, it is widely believed that Wahid's opponents have seized the opportunity to engineer the ousting of the president -- an argument unabashedly presented by Wahid himself in the course of his official response to the censure, delivered before the parliament on 28 March. The speech, read by Justice Minister Baharudin Lopa, was contemptuous in tone and marked by a conspicuous lack of contrition -- considered by most political analysts to be the president's only chance. But grovelling is not Wahid's forte and the resounding message of the response was that a mutinous parliament had subverted the constitution for the sake of the opposition's political agenda. The 61-year-old Muslim cleric even went as far as to warn of God's wrath, so it is not surprising that an incensed parliament was unsatisfied with his brief and vague admission to "inappropriate behaviour".
Wahid's National Awakening Party holds only 10 per cent of parliament seats, but it was Wahid's respected status as the leader of the powerful Islamic group Nahdlatul Ulama that allowed him to out-manoeuvre the popular favourite, Megawati Sukarnoputri, in the 1999 presidential election. Megawati, daughter of Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, reluctantly accepted the number-two spot and an eruption of protest was tamed by the appointment. But Gus Dur, as Wahid is also known, was bequeathed an unenviable mandate: to piece together a nation riven by secessionist movements, rebuild a shattered and corrupt economy and lay the past to rest. His critics claim he has failed on all counts, but it seems that his greatest crime has been a lack of charisma.
Wahid has seen no end to backlash against his capricious denouncement of parliament as a bunch of kindergarteners, but the last 17 months have shown that if anyone is the spoiled child, it is he. He is described as irascible when challenged, stubborn in his decision-making and whimsical in his appointments and dismissals. While most parliamentarians, including head of the former ruling party Golkar and DPR chairman, Akbar Tanjung, and speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), Amien Rais, are ready to throw their weight behind Vice-President Megawati and her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), there is little to indicate that she can handle the political upheavals and hated IMF-recommended programmes better than Gus Dur.
Tanjung made waves following Wahid's appearance in parliament by again putting forward a proposal to transfer most governing power to Megawati. The compromise would mean changing the constitution to strip the presidency of its considerable power and leave Wahid in an essentially formal, but impoverished role. Though Megawati has always had her eye on the presidency, she is loath to sully her image by wresting it from Wahid without a strong constitutional basis, and taking over now would mean inheriting a possibly insuperable mountain of woes. She has not yet come out against Wahid.
The laws regulating impeachment proceedings are intricate and intentionally drawn out. After an initial censure, a second censure cannot be issued before three months, and the DPR will meet on 30 April to debate Wahid's response. If it decides to censure Wahid once more -- as most MPs and analysts believe it will -- the president will have another month to respond. If parliament is still adamant, a special session of the MPR, parliament's upper house, will be called. It would not be until August before an impeachment trial would get under way, and the uncertainty of the months in between could see any number of disasters, from economic collapse to mass protest by the 40,000-strong Nahdlatul Ulama, who revere Wahid as practically infallible.
The country has been fraying at the edges for some time and as the government is paralysed by the question of who is in charge, any semblance of order is quickly coming undone. On the island of Borneo, where more than 400 ethnic Madurese migrants were slaughtered by native Dayaks in February in the province of Kalimantan, Dayak tribes again threatened violence this week and virtually all Madurese from Borneo have become refugees. In Aceh province, where the struggle of the separatist Free Aceh Movement has claimed more than 6,000 lives over the last quarter century, a grenade thrown near a natural gas extraction unit owned by Exxon Mobil on Saturday led to a massive fire and extensive damage -- yet another blow to the image of the country in the eyes of foreign investors. As the vortex of unrest continues to swirl around Wahid, one is left wondering if, in this case, a little soul-searching and repentance might not go quite a long way.
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