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Lack of Resolve in Tackling Scandals Is Causing Democratic Party to Crumble
Yohanes Sulaiman & Phillip Turnbull | January 30, 2012
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| 'The Democrats' disorganized damage control may cost them more than the loss of public opinion' |
Last week, the Democratic Party convened an internal meeting, reportedly focusing on the impending indictment of party chairman Anas Urbaningrum and Sports Minister Andi Mallarangeng by antigraft investigators.
Both Anas and Andi have denied the claims of having benefited from state-funded projects or receiving illegal payments connected with the construction of the athletes’ village for the 2011 Southeast Asian Games.
However, in its usual dissembling manner, the party is sending mixed signals. Democratic lawmaker Max Sopacua said recent discussions at the president’s home with senior party members centered on the possibility of replacing Anas. In other reports, House of Representatives Speaker Marzuki Alie and party secretary general Ramadhan Pohan denied this.
Still, by convening the meeting, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his Democratic officials have finally acknowledged that they are in serious trouble because of allegations of corruption leveled at some it its politicians, including some already on trial, from the now-infamous Muhammad Nazaruddin.
According to the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), support for the party once the most popular in the country has plunged to 14 percent, significantly below the Golkar Party (18 percent) and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P, 19 percent). Such warnings of the collapse of the public’s support of the party have until now been denied and dismissed by Yudhoyono and his politicians.
Another issue in this fracas now being played out in public to the dismay of Yudhoyono’s administration is whether the Democratic Party, which won a second term of office in 2009 with a promise to clean up corruption, is really that clean. Have members of the party, including its highest members, either turned a blind eye or actively colluded in the bribery process, as alleged by Nazaruddin?
So far, both the Democratic Party and Yudhoyono have tried to bury the indictment. According to press reports, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is being hampered in efforts to issue arrest warrants for Anas and Andi from within both the Democratic Party and the KPK. The Tribun newspaper even broke the story that Abraham Samad, the head of the KPK, flew into a rage at having been prevented by his co-leaders, Busyro Muqoddas and Bambang Widjojanto, from indicting the Democratic Party pair. This indicates that the KPK has an interest in the two and thinks they have a case to answer.
At the same time, speculation is mounting that there is pressure on Anas to step aside, if not resign, at least while he is under a cloud.
Names are being mentioned as replacements for Anas if he is removed or steps aside; so far Andi, his rival for the position in 2010, is curiously absent from that list.
Common sense indicates that Anas should step aside because it would not only be reasonable, given the infighting surrounding his fate, but politically advantageous to Yudhoyono and his beleaguered party. Anas’s resignation or removal, preferably the former, would be a very public statement that the president and his party are serious about investigating corruption.
As Yudhoyono told anticorruption activists at a meeting at the State Palace last Wednesday, “I can say that no one can escape the law during my term. That is the outcome of my administration’s more aggressive anticorruption efforts.”
The president has acknowledged that his government must be seen to be doing what it promised to do. In this he is backed by Vice President Boediono, who recently spoke on the topic of corruption eradication, saying: “We cannot claim to be successful while the people do not feel the same way. We are successful if people feel satisfied.”
Growing public dissatisfaction with the fight against corruption, dubious political spin and reactive damage control by the Democrats could serve only to shoot them in the foot.
Yet it is difficult for Yudhoyono to reach a conclusion he wants. The stakes are high. If it turns out that Anas dispersed funds inappropriately in his bid for party chairman, it will also implicate those who were willing to receive these funds and vote for him.
The Nazaruddin scandal shows that hell hath no fury like a politician scorned. Political analyst Eep Saefulloh Fatah argued that Yudhoyono’s modus vivendi now was simply to find a safe harbor for his family; should the scandal blow up, it would drag his family down with it because it is widely believed to be a beneficiary of Anas’s largesse — not to mention the mortal damage to the brand of the Democratic Party, the party’s prospects in 2014 and Yudhoyono’s own legacy.
More disturbingly, some commentators have concluded that Yudhoyono, by wavering, has ceded control of his party to Anas.
The chairman was believed to have built a loyal bloc within the Democratic Party, leading to several regional branches voicing support for him, and there are even talks of impending massive demonstration in support of Anas in Jakarta.
It is the lack of resolve that is especially damaging the president and the ruling party because, left untended, the small fire has turned into an inferno.
The public is angry, and the president has acknowledged this. In the present display of the party’s disintegration we are seeing what happens when politicians ignore the elephant in the room and are sluggish to respond.
Slow in grasping what is happening. Slow in thinking it through. Slow in communicating with each other and the public. Slow to decide and slow to act. Slow in pulling people into line. Slow in speaking with a united voice.
Yudhoyono’s dithering and the party’s disorganized damage control may cost them more than the loss of public opinion. Ultimately, time and facts will catch up with them, if they haven’t already.
