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Nasrep, Tommy and the Smiling General
Yohanes Sulaiman & Phillip Turnbull | February 09, 2012Hoping to bypass the government’s verification process for new political parties, the National Republic Party last week decided to merge with the struggling Ummah Conscience Party, which participated in the 2009 elections and can run again in 2014. As a result, the new party, led by Hutomo “Tommy” Mandala Putra, the son of Indonesia’s former presidential strongman Suharto, can now throw its hat in the ring, too.
The National Republic Party, known as Nasrep, has indicated that it will base its platform on the policies espoused by Suharto, who was ousted by popular dissent in 1998 and died in 2008. By doing this, Tommy hopes to tap into the popular discontent of people who are fed up with the scandals under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the self-enriching House of Representatives. Many wish to return to what they perceive as the more stable times of Suharto.
So is Tommy asking us to believe that the best way forward is a few steps back?
For 32 years, Suharto ruled Indonesia by sheer force, and his achievements were staggering. He pushed Indonesia ahead economically, especially by developing energy resources and mining, and he can be credited with laying the foundations for unprecedented economic growth today. One can only wonder what would have happened had he also recognized that economic growth must be accompanied by political reforms.
During Suharto’s reign, Indonesia experienced relative peace among its highly diverse religious, cultural and ethnic groups. Backed by the military, Suharto ruled from a centralized stronghold with little real diffused authority in the provinces. Corruption, cronyism and nepotism of course existed but were not widely dispersed.
However, Indonesia under Suharto experienced a not-so-benign patrimonial tyranny that kept the country reasonably stable only because of the overly docile nature of the average Indonesian. Whatever benefits Suharto brought, the price in terms of human rights abuses and a reign of terror was simply too high.
Suharto’s reputation will be forever tarnished by charges that he looked after his family more than the interests of the country. The problem is that this mentality continues to persist today in some circles. Like Suharto, many politicians still stand in the way of political reform, while a tyranny of money politics spreads corruption into practically every aspect of public life..
But times have also changed, and people are not as docile as they were under Suharto’s hard-handed reign. While there is little threat that the country will disintegrate with seceding provinces, despite the problems in Papua, there is another possibility: Indonesia could face disintegration in the sense that its people, once united by tolerance, may fall apart. The present situation contains the seeds of potential social and political upheaval on a massive scale. Suharto kept things in check, but governments since have not been able to do so.
Look at the closure of the GKI Yasmin church in Bogor. In a recent meeting between Yudhoyono and religious leaders from Papua, when the president promised to solve the problems in the province, the Rev. Socratez Sofyan Yoman asked: “How can you solve the problems in Papua, which is located thousands of kilometers [from Jakarta], while there is a very urgent matter that also requires your attention just 15 kilometers from here — the GKI Yasmin case?”
Yudhoyono has said he does not have the power to do anything about the Bogor situation, which he has left for regional authorities. Suharto would have smiled at this response — and done something.
At the same time, like some politicians today, Suharto was tragically adverse to political change, and this proved to be his undoing. He did not prepare to move on and let someone else have a go. Perhaps he thought, as no doubt many of his subjects did, that no one wanted him to go. It was a rude shock when he found out in 1998 that he had been wrong.
Nothing was in place to replace the dictator, whose downfall led to chaos, mayhem and murder, and the damage remains today. Years of living under Suharto has left the political class largely infantile and unable to shoulder responsibility, leading the late President Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid to complain that Indonesian politicians behaved like kindergarteners.
So what will Tommy do? Will he learn from his father’s mistakes? Will he make a strong leader? Will his Nasrep Party understand what few do, that the first duty of a politician is to take a form of responsibility that outweighs family ties, personal monetary gain and popularity?
Tommy’s track record to date does not indicate that he fully understands this role. Ten years ago, he was jailed for ordering the murder of a Supreme Court judge who had convicted him of fraud in 2000. That fraud conviction was overturned and he was freed after serving four years, but since leaving prison, what has he done for the country?
There is no doubt that as Tommy’s party seeks the limelight, we can expect more nostalgia for the “good” old days of the New Order. But should that translate into a desire for a return to Suharto’s style of government? It’s one thing to idealize the past, but what if we conveniently forget that Suharto was responsible for serious crimes against humanity and plundering Indonesia’s wealth?
At the time of Suharto’s death, Yudhoyono spoke of the former dictator as a national hero, asking delegates at an international conference on corruption to acknowledge his passing with a minute of silence. The ironic act indicates that perhaps the nation is not yet able to deal with the Suharto experience.
With the rise of Tommy’s party, maybe it is time for Indonesia to definitively decide whether Suharto’s regime was good for Indonesia. Suharto to some extent achieved a tolerant, diversified Indonesia, but at the end of the day, he did not make the country a better place. On the contrary, his legacy has provided a pattern for today’s political shortcomings. Tommy’s party needs to recognize this if it is to contribute to a better Indonesia.
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trueblue
1:02pm Feb 9,
2012
Yohanes/Turnbull
Gents, you ask a very relevant question with a proposition that for Indonesia to move forward, it needs to take a few steps back. A simple glance in the political rear vision mirror indicates that Indonesia needs to put the indicators on and have them blinking right. Any further centre lane, or heaven forbid left lane politics is old news. The experimenting politics to date have given a credible 6.5%GDP, but the spread of wealth and employment, and minimum wages leave a country with an imbalance. May I suggest that NRP, by virtue of consolidation of political parties is a step in the right direction of reducing the the number of parties, and therefore enabling the concepts of government, opposition, coalitions, to be more identifiable to the voter. I have posted in previous weeks the concepts of strong leadership, and examples to debate. As a non voter this is not an endorsement of the NRP, but a plea to get it right at the next election. My wife thinks when she votes
Yohanes-Sulaiman
8:45am Feb 10,
2012
@Trueblue: Thank you for your comments.
I actually agree with more consolidation of Indonesian political parties. First of all, it will reduce confusion on the ballot boxes, second, most of the extremists' parties, including the porn-obsessed party (you know who) would keep losing their share of votes, as the political parties become more and more consolidated. This current system actually rewards the extremist parties for their extremism as even a small number of votes allow them to retain their seats. Should they have to integrate to a much larger parties, they have to be more moderate to attract votes all over the place.
Still, I doubt if NRP's acquisition is a trend toward responsible party system. Rather it is simply bypassing the party-stress test and take the shortcut to the election, which kinda indicates what kind of party they'd be should they get elected.
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