Indonesia: Up for grabs

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

It was no mean feat for Indonesia to go full blast for democracy with direct elections for its president for the first time in early July. It followed on a history of half a century of demagoguery, and then chaos with the collapse of the 32-year-long Soeharto military dictatorship in 1998. Selecting a new leader is a crucial test for the worldÕs fourth largest population, rushing toward 250 million at a rate near the biological maximum. An archipelago of more than 17,000 islands stretching across one-sixth of the world, there were 582,000 polling stations for more than 85 million voters. They ran the gamut from onetime headhunting tribals in New Guinea to peasants in one of the oldest hydraulic societies in Java and to the young, rich yuppies in the bloated capital of Jakarta with its more than 8 million.

Unfortunately, there was no clear cut winner in a slate of seven principle candidates. Now comes a dangerous three-month period of horsetrading among personalities, parties, religious groups, regional groupings, and commercial interests. A run-off between the two leading candidates for installation of a president in September for October 20 installation is still difficult to predict.

When the electoral law was drawn up last year, few believed President Megawati Sukarnoputri would not be reelected. But she had to face two former generals ø one, who had only recently left her cabinet, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, will be her opposition in the run off. Three candidates from parties courting the Islamic faithful in what is nominally the largest Islamic country did poorly. With Islamicist terrorists allied to Middle East movements active, the rest of the world heaved a sigh of relief secularists won 80% of the vote in the first round.

U.S. and IndonesiaÕs neighbors complain Megawati has not taken decisive action against the terrorist network operating in the country. That is despite the bombing of a bar in Bali that cost more than 200 lives and an attack on one of the capitalÕs leading hotels. There is concern the terrorists have been able to exploit the failures of past governments which is feeding an Islamic revival among the young. And there is fear the election hiatus could fester and produce the same kind of violence the country experienced with the end of past regimes.

But assuming that the horsetrading leading up to the runoff between Megawati and the General takes place peacefully, the new president has almost unlimited problems on his political plate. The instability since Indonesia was the principle victim of the 1997-98 East Asia Financial Crisis has taken a terrible toll of the economy. More than half the population still lives on less than two dollars a day. Services are among the worst in the region. Two-thirds of the young, between 15 and 24, are jobless. Indonesia's maternal mortality rate is twice the Philippines next door, among the worst in the world. Millions of Indonesian children get no schooling.

The economy grew at 4.5% last year, a rate making no dent in the growing unemployment and vast underemployment. Decentralization, undertaken in an effort to diffuse the growing separatism in the resource-rich outer islands against Java which has one of the highest population densities in the world, is an added disaster. It has only added to the confusion and ineptitude ø and rampant corruption ø of a bureaucracy. Aceh, the north tip of Sumatra which has been in revolt since the 1950s, is now under martial law with some 40,000 troops unable to staunch the bloodletting of terror and counterterrorism. A similar situation threatens in Indonesian New Guinea. As a result investment ø both foreign and domestic ø has not been forthcoming. Even IndonesiaÕs oil and gas industry, one of the countryÕs most important assets, is in such disarray it is not meeting its OPEC quota.

Megawati, on the strength of her fatherÕs reputation as one of the countryÕs founders despite his demagoguery, restored some normality. But the price has been virtually no initiatives to solve basic problems. Only on the issue of national unity and her opposition to Achenese calls for independence has she taken a decisive stand. That is in the tradition of her father who laid claim to the totality of the former Netherlands East Indies whatever its vast differences in ethnicity, race and religion.

The vast turnout, the enthusiasm for the elections -- even if a carnival atmosphere of bribery with small free fits to an impoverished electorate -- could be a basis for motivating what has always been a largely passive people. But whether it is Megawati or the General, the country may have only a narrow window to rescue itself from becoming a failed state. That kind of catastrophe would impinge, quickly, on its neighbors, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Australia.