A presidential accession

INDONESIA'S DEMOCRATIC CREDENTIALS are being reinterpreted yet again in the emotion-charged context of a unanimous impeachment of the President, Mr. Abdurrahman Wahid, by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR). The quick ascension of the charismatic Vice-President, Ms. Megawati Sukarnoputri, as the country's new executive leader should satisfy the international community that Indonesia is trying to pace its steps in its hour of a unique constitutional crisis. Ms. Megawati's flair for populist gestures as also a quiet style will now be measured against Mr. Wahid's flamboyant habits of weaving a web of statesmanly vision which was swept aside by his own erratic policies and personalised rule. On trial now is an evolving notion of the rule of law which epitomises a `constitutional' system that the Indonesians have been struggling to give themselves since the fall of an autocratic leader, Gen. Suharto, in 1998. Outwardly, it has been a manifest power struggle in the past few months between a beleaguered Mr. Wahid and the MPR. The `end-game' was hastened by the cavalier fashion in which Mr. Wahid tried to decree a `civil emergency' in a transparent bid to prevent the MPR from impeaching him. The MPR's hands were strengthened by the opinion of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court against such an emergency at this juncture. Moreover, Indonesia's military forces, once the ally of a `paternalistic' but authoritarian ruler like Gen. Suharto, refused to serve as a pawn in Mr. Wahid's hands, although his democratic election as the President in 1999 could hardly be doubted.

The latest national trauma only underlines the need to keep Indonesia on course for a stable role as the world's third largest democracy (after India and the United States). Mr. Wahid is known for political wit and his secular credo within the arena of the world's biggest Muslim-majority state is also widely acknowledged. Yet, it was ironic that he flaunted his final presidential `order' regarding a still-born emergency as the weapon of a ``jehad'' or holy Islamic crusade to save Indonesia in his concomitant role as an erudite religious cleric.

Ms. Megawati's party had won the most seats but not an absolute majority during the parliamentary elections of 1999 that heralded a democratic renewal. In the electoral-college-style presidential poll which followed those parliamentary elections, Ms. Megawati lost to Mr. Wahid in a transparent process. Yet, his subsequent record of ineffective and erratic rule turned out to be the rallying cry of his political opponents, inclusive of Ms. Megawati who until recently played second fiddle to a visually impaired Mr. Wahid or appeared to do so in regard to the political and administrative matters of state. It was only a few months ago that the MPR first sought to impeach Mr. Wahid on grounds of corruption, but the Assembly began shifting its inquisitional focus towards his alleged inefficiency in the context of a ruling by the Attorney General exonerating him of any direct involvement in graft. In a sense, the peculiarities of the `constitutional' process adopted to judge Mr. Wahid must be seen as tell-tale evidence of Indonesia's meandering march towards a normative system of non-ideological democracy within the rubric of an executive presidency. Also, many among the anti- Wahid activists on the political-constitutional front were variously associated with the Suharto period. So, with Indonesia's territorial integrity and multi-ethnic fabric too being under immense strain now, sagacity is the only normative political mantra.

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