Yudhoyono sees coups round every corner
By John McBeth
JAKARTA - Something strange has happened to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono since his sweeping victory in July's presidential elections, showing
a side of him that appears thin-skinned, self-centered and, more recently, even
paranoid.
It is not a flattering picture, underscored by his angry claims that he has
been the victim of lies and character assassination and one recent incident
when he stopped in mid-speech to castigate a member of the audience for resting
his head in his hands.
"His moods are very bad now," says one palace insider, noting
the way the president has adopted a more regal bearing, particularly in the way
he conducts cabinet meetings. "He takes everything so personally."
Much of Yudhoyono's mood swings can be explained by the pressure he has been
under over the Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK) and Bank Century scandals that
have given his new administration its worst possible start.
But a lot of it has been self-inflicted and raises troubling questions about
the quality of advice he has been getting. It has even led some critics to
wonder if the retired general is only a democrat when it suits him to be.
Certainly, he has been slow to realize how much civil society groups have grown
in the past decade and how effective they have become in galvanizing public
opinion on an issue as widely detested as corruption.
In the period leading up to recent Anti-Corruption Day demonstrations, the
president veered wildly into fantasy land with astonishing claims that they
were being used to bring him down.
Not even chief security minister, Djoko Suyanto, seemed to believe that. Yet on
the eve of the street rallies, the Detachment 88 counter-terrorism unit was
placed on high alert to guard against terrorists infiltrating the protestors.
It was only in a televised speech in the evening that the president seemed to
realize he had gone too far and sought to change direction by declaring a
"jihad" against corruption and pledging to form a special unit to reform the
judicial system.
In the end, the threatened people's power uprising, or whatever he thought it
would be, was an anti-climax, thanks to the rain, fears of traffic gridlock -
and perhaps even the president's speech itself.
Yudhoyono's change in character can be traced to a puzzling outdoor speech he
made on the day Islamic militants bombed the Ritz Carlton and JW Marriott
hotels in Jakarta, just a week after July's presidential elections.
Suddenly, the twin attacks were all about him. Standing in the palace grounds,
he dramatically produced a bullet-scarred picture of himself, which had been
used during target practice at a militant training camp - four years before as
it turned out.
Then he appeared to accuse his political opponents of perpetrating the blasts
before police investigators had even determined definitively that they were the
work of suicide bombers.
His anger may have been understandable, coming as it did when he was on an
emotional high after his resounding election victory. But it left an unpleasant
after-taste with many Indonesians.
Corruption troubles
The source of his other troubles goes back to late June, a week before the
election, when the jailing of his father-in-law, central banker Aulia Pohan,
for corruption, led him to openly question the powers of the KPK.
The outburst presaged a plot hatched by police and prosecutors to go after KPK
commissioners Bibit Rianto and Chandra Hamzah on clearly trumped-up charges of
bribery and abuse of power.
Yudhoyono proceeded to sit on his hands and shelter behind what he claimed were
legal restraints when it was obvious from the start that justice, more
important than anything in a democratic society, was being perverted.
The plot finally unraveled after the public airing of wire-tapped tapes before
the Constitutional Court revealed the full extent of the conspiracy and
collusion between police, prosecutors and corrupt businessmen.
But even then, the president seemed more alarmed about the fact that his name
was mentioned on several of the tapes, even if it was not all incriminating. In
other words, it was all about him again.
While the KPK controversy seems to have been laid to rest with Rianto's and
Hamzah's return to their positions, Yudhoyono can only let the Bank Century
bailout case run its course now that it is being investigated by a special
parliamentary committee, whose members and their motives are already embroiled
in controversy.
Even here, a president who demands absolute loyalty from his ministers has
shown little inclination to give some back, leaving embattled Vice President
Boediono and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati to the mercy of the
politicians
It would have taken little for him to declare his confidence in the two members
of his cabinet, whose integrity and character are considered by many to be
beyond reproach.
As it was, when the president flew off on a four-nation tour of Europe on
December 13, it was without his finance minister - the one person who should
have been with him on a trip of such importance.
While Yudhoyono may ultimately be able to use his ruling coalition's majority
in parliament to control the outcome of the inquiry, he has no way of managing
what is actually said during the hearings, which are expected to last at least
three months.
Despite all the strides made under his first administration in putting a dent
in endemic bureaucratic corruption, the president has seemed strangely
reluctant to break a few eggs.
In doing so, he has raised questions about the KPK's powers to wire-tap. "The
important thing in eradicating corruption is to prevent, not to entrap," he
told a national summit in October called to map out a government agenda for the
next five years.
Deterrence and the fear of punishment is the most potent weapon available to
anti-corruption fighters - and wire-taps, as long as they are properly
regulated internally, are the most crucial element of that.
Yet picking up on the president's reservations, Communications Minister Tifatul
Sembiring is now suggesting that the commission must obtain a court order
before it targets a suspect.
That may be all very well in Western countries with robust legal systems, but
in Indonesia it will almost certainly be turned into another way of making
money for corrupt elements in the judiciary and the brokers who feed off them.
The only reason corruption prospered in Indonesia in the first place was
because few if any transgressors went to jail. In the four years since they
have, with the KPK leading the charge, Indonesia's place on Transparency
International's corruption perceptions index has dropped from 137th to 111th.
But even today, the stream of public officials to be imprisoned on graft
charges seldom look ashamed at what they have done. Invariably, they are either
smiling in embarrassment at their misfortune - or are enraged that they have
been caught out.
John McBeth is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic
Review. He is currently a Jakarta-based columnist for the Straits Times of
Singapore.
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