Berikut ini saya kirimkan tanggapan R. William Liddle
mengenai tulisan-tulisan yang telah tersebar di
berbagai milis.
Salam,
Tangkisan Letug
"R. William Liddle"
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To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Pendapat Bill Liddle
BDG Kusumo, T. Letug, dll (harap disampaikan kpd milis
anda),
Saya tidak berpendapat bahwa Megawati gagal. Kutipan
lengkapnya adalah "Presiden Megawati gagal, setidaknya
bila kita memakai pemilu legislatif yang baru sebagai
ukuran." Maksud saya, dukungan PDI-P anjlok pada
tahun 2004, ketimbang 1999, yg berarti bahwa Mega
telah dinyatakan gagal oleh para pemilih. Ttg SBY,
konteksnya adalah bahwa ketika saya mengamati pemilu
legislatif di salah satu desa di Yogya, saya mencium
suatu fenomena yang baru--dukungan bagi SBY sbg calon
presiden. Berita itu saya bawa ke Jkt, di mana para
politisi kelas berat semua berpendapat bahwa sebaiknya
SBY menjadi calon wakil presiden saja. Di salah satu
ceramah di Habibie Center, saya bilang, sesuai
semangat demokrasi, alangkah baiknya bila SBY diberi
kesempatan untuk menjadi calon pres dan bukan hanya
wakil pres, supaya masyarakat pemilih pada gilirannya
diberi kesempatan untuk memilih antara SBY dan calon
lain.
Pendapat saya yang sebenarnya ttg Mega diterbitkan di
JP tgl 6 Okt 2003 sbb:
Megawati's presidency: A contrarian perspective
Opinion and Editorial - October 06, 2003
R. William Liddle, Professor of Political Science, The
Ohio State University, Ohio, U.S.A.
President Megawati Soekarnoputri, in office just over
two years, has not won universal praise for her
leadership skills. The pampered oldest child of
national founding father Sukarno, she is said to have
little interest in either government or politics.
At cabinet meetings, according to insiders, she
listens passively to ministers' reports, allows little
discussion, and adjourns for lunch as quickly as
possible.
She rarely appears in public, even during crises like
the terrorist bombings in Bali and Jakarta. In
response to polls showing her declining popularity and
the possibility of defeat in next year's presidential
elections, she assures her advisers that changes in
campaign strategy are unnecessary.
Despite her weaknesses, which are legion by all
accounts, Megawati deserves a higher grade for her
presidential performance. In three critical policy
areas -- the economy, center-region relations, and
relations with the United States -- she has done
better than her recent predecessors.
Most important, she is the first president of
Indonesia's fledgling democracy to behave like a
normal democratic politician. As such, she is steering
her country away from the instability and
unpredictability of the post-Soeharto transition and
toward a consolidated presidential-style democracy.
In economic policy, she appointed two widely-respected
senior officials, Coordinating Minister for the
Economy Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti and Finance Minister
Boediono, and has by and large allowed them to make
key decisions.
In recent months, Ministers Dorodjatun and Boediono
skilfully finessed the politically controversial
transition to independence from the conditionality of
the International Monetary Fund imposed on the
government since 1998.
These achievements compare favorably with those of her
immediate predecessor, Abdurrahman Wahid (1999-2001),
whose protectionist economics minister was constantly
at war with the IMF and World Bank.
Both institutions had earlier frozen relations with
Abdurrahman's predecessor, B. J. Habibie (1998-1999),
who was involved in a massive banking scandal.
Relations between the central and local governments
are a continuing problem in a developing country as
large and diverse as Indonesia. The pendulum has
arguably swung too far from the extreme centralism of
Soeharto's authoritarian New Order (1966-1998) toward
autonomous districts and municipalities incapable of
coping with the new responsibilities handed to them by
Habibie-era laws.
Megawati's minister of home affairs is attempting to
construct a new balance that will maintain local
autonomy but also preserve the common legal and
administrative foundation crucial for restoring
economic growth.
In two provinces, Aceh in the far northwest and and
Papua in the far southeast, dissidents are demanding
independence. Unlike president Habibie, who was
startled by the regions' demands, and president
Abdurrahman, whose policies were indecisive and
contradictory, Megawati has reaffirmed and acted upon
the commitment to national unity shared by her father
and President Suharto.
She has sent troops to Aceh and moved forward with
plans to divide Papua into several provinces, despite
a special autonomy law that appears to guarantee
Papua's integrity as a single province. Both moves are
popular with the Indonesian political public, and may
in fact be necessary steps to keep the nation-state
from disintegrating.
In foreign policy, Megawati has walked a fine line
between sensitivity to the demands of the world's only
superpower and domestic pressure to stand up to
Leviathan. She is dependent on the U.S. for
investment, markets, and much else, but she is also
vulnerable to criticism from popular nationalist and
religious groups who oppose many aspects of American
foreign policy.
Indeed, Megawati is herself a true-believing
nationalist. Since the Bali bombing in October 2002,
her wake-up call, security cooperation with the Bush
Administration has much improved.
Megawati's greatest contribution to her country,
however, may be in her very normalcy as a working
politician in a functioning democracy. More than 40
years ago, her father, in alliance with the army,
destroyed Indonesia's first democracy. Sukarno was
overthrown by Maj. Gen. Soeharto, who ruled as a
dictator for more than 30 years.
Habibie's tenure was brief. As Soeharto's vice
president, he had no initial legitimacy and was unable
to develop any in time for the 1999 presidential
election. Abdurrahman, Indonesia's first
democratically elected president, threw away his
legitimacy in a series of erratic policy and personnel
decisions.
Megawati, by contrast, has been a model of democratic
sense. She may not have moved to reform the judicial
sector, arguably Indonesia's most pressing 21st
century need if it is to become a modern nation.
Moreover, army leaders, with her blessing, have begun
to reassert a political role for themselves, stalling
if not reversing the post-Soeharto trend toward
civilian supremacy, another necessary pillar of a
modern nation.
Megawati's accomplishment has been more fundamental:
To create a democratically-elected government that can
actually govern the country, formulate and implement
policies and respond to domestic and international
events.
Her initial strategy was to put together a rainbow
coalition of cabinet ministers (plus the
vice-president) inclusive of nearly all major
political groups in the legislature, including Muslim
and secular forces. She has since been determined to
maintain her coalition intact. As a result, ministers
have been able to develop policies and programs and
other players have learned what to expect from her
government.
Not least important, her presidency has been secure
from challenge by the leaders of disaffected parties.
Finally, Megawati has successfully (so far)
administered the constitutional transition to a
presidential democracy in which, for the first time in
Indonesian history, the president and vice-president
will be directly elected by the voters in 2004.
Megawati did not lead the process of amending the
constitution. She appears to have opposed key reforms
as they were being debated in the People's
Consultative Assembly. But she has never questioned
the Assembly's right to amend the constitution or her
responsibility to implement its decisions.
Such a commitment is basic, to be expected of any
president in a democracy, but highly unusual in her
country's history. If she stays the course, she will
have contributed significantly to the consolidation of
Indonesian democracy.
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