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South China Morning Post, Monday, October 29, 2001
INDONESIA
'Doorstop' Megawati proves sceptics correct 100 days on
VAUDINE ENGLAND in Jakarta
[Photo: Megawati Sukarnoputri: frustration ]
The honeymoon is over for President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Just over 100 days into her rule, frustration, impatience and boredom are the overwhelming reactions to what many observers consider an underwhelming performance by Indonesia's fourth president in as many years.
Analysts say anyone who had high expectations of the woman whose childhood was spent in the palace of her father Sukarno's founding presidency have only themselves to blame.
"We knew she would calm things down, that she would talk less, would inject new formality into government and in many ways herald a return to Suharto-era restrictions. So now that all that has come to pass, I guess we shouldn't complain," a senior western diplomat said.
Opinions were confirmed when Ms Megawati appointed an unimpressive cipher as attorney-general.
Muhamad Abdul Rachman is in charge of perhaps the most important portfolio - legal reform and the punishment of corruption - but brings no personal or political strength to office.
His tenure has so far seen the annulment of the 18-month sentence given to Suharto's son, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra for corruption. Activists foresee no progress on other countless corruption scams unless there is personal political mileage to be gained.
"Why can't this Government see the direct linkage between the rule of law and economic recovery? We keep telling them, no one will bring money here unless and until Indonesians demonstrate a sense of probity and commitment to law. But Megawati's missed this point from the start," a senior World Bank executive said.
Ms Megawati returned from the Apec leaders' conference in Shanghai having learned one thing - that Indonesia has a bad image abroad.
Her response was to castigate the Foreign Ministry.
Almost every attempt to galvanise economic progress, which demands the sale of indebted assets held by the Government, is stopped or stalled.
Ms Megawati on Friday buried Mexican efforts to buy a cement plant in Padang, South Sumatra.
Although it offered a chance for Jakarta to inject US$500 million (HK$3.9 billion) into government coffers, Ms Megawati succumbed to pressure from the mafia in Padang who use nationalism to disguise greed.
Opposition to reform of an old-guard administration stymied previous president Abdurrahman Wahid's initiatives, and is doing the same to Ms Megawati.
"I know of good ministers, good men, who can't even get hold of data about their own departments from their own staff, because the staff don't want to relinquish that power or to let go of the systems they have for extracting squeeze," said a foreign consultant who works with several government departments.
Long-standing friction between the armed forces and police - a high-stakes turf war over anything from the drug trade to law enforcement - damages policy implementation from the separatist war in Aceh to the religious war in the Maluku Islands.
Ms Megawati did order a clampdown on radical fringe groups threatening foreigners and demonstrating outside the US Embassy when military strikes began on Afghanistan.
But the two-week delay lost the country billions of dollars in projected tourism, investment and support.
State reform specialists note that Indonesian leaders seem to lack a sense of crisis. They would rather enjoy the pomp and ceremony that personal wealth provides than act on promises of reform.
Another analyst said there was no notion of radical change in Indonesia.
"Everyone was implicated in Suharto's rule, and that previous system of his is therefore not wholly discredited," he said.
"And the real reformers, outside government, have a self-destructive cynicism which holds them back. They have trouble believing change could ever really happen.
"Megawati's just a doorstop."
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