The President Needs to Update His Reading Materials

SBY's jumbled speech against "communism", "capitalism", and "neoliberalism" on the 60th National Cooperative Day in Nusa Dua, Bali, has not gone entirely unnoticed. Ape said it's a pointless speech. In his fourth dispatch for us, MT writes that SBY has grown to be an ineffective president, and his incoherent speech merely reflects the administration's incoherent policies. - Manager

The President Needs to Update His Reading Materials
by MT

Whenever leaders fail they resort to either fascism or populism. More than two years after he was directly elected president, with an unprecedented level of popularity, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono finally registered the worst in his job approval rate. He also has grown to become ineffective President, with all his directives getting lost in the redundant bureaucracy. Case in point, his handling of Lapindo mudflow (also more than two years after the infrastructure summit, investors are running away from numerous toll roads project).

Last year, I went with him in a visit to Singapore and Malaysia during which he met with prominent business circle and offered scores of projects, but to this day I never heard them expressed interests. The palace asked me to join the President for a trip to South Korea next week, but I am taking a leave already). It is therefore predictable, that his administration resorted to jingoistic terms when dealing with calls for separatism.

In only less than a month, Yudhoyono administration had to deal with what could be considered as efforts on seccesionism; the South Maluku Republic (RMS) flag-waving incident in Ambon, the display of Morning Star flag during a dance performance at the Papuan Tribal Council Congress and the decision by former Free Aceh Movement big wigs to use the symbol of the former rebel group as logo for a new local party. Senior ministers in his cabinet said something about refusing to tolerate separatism and will resort to severe measures to crush it. The separatism issue, however, is a hard sell. Beyond sporadic protests from Muslim student-based organization, we saw no serious and organized responds for the so-termed separatism campaign.

But the most glaring example of Yudhoyono’s incompetence is his ill-advised decision to resort to populism. It is difficult to believe that in the early 21st century, a country leader made a head-scratching call for a rollback to bygone ideals.

The first was his decision with a smack of populism was to disband the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) earlier this year. And last week we learned that the government decided to hike the foreign debt.

Last week, he said something about taking a middle ground between communism and market-based capitalism. Market-based economy, he said, has proved incapable of bringing social justice and equality to the people, and instead fosters greater disparity between rich and poor."Meanwhile, communism, in which the government fully controls the economy, has failed to reach the goal it believes it can achieve," he said. And to ensure equal distribution of wealth, Yudhoyono pledged to boost the roles of the government! But was it not the reason why this country has problems eradicating corruption? The rhetoric, however, was less an indication of his believe to olden days ideals than the incoherence of his government policies. And if his series of stately speech was of any indication, it is obvious that he had problems looking at problems and how to devise policies to address them.

Earlier last week, when he opened the exhibition of tourism-related products, he said the need for Indonesia to jump from capital-intensive economy to creative industry-based one. (I thought we needed first to make a leap from land-based economy to technology-intensive first). In the speech, he also makes a reference to futurist Alvin Toffler (again this is early 21st century and yet he quotes a book conceived like twenty years ago).

But it also dawn in my mind that aside from his haphazard efforts to remain relevant but choosing big, empty slogans, it seems that he needs to read his reading materials.

Who Loses in Amien-SBY Feud?

Mudslinging. Brouhaha. Handbags. Love story? Cheap comedy? Whatever you want to call it, the spectacle we were treated with last week is dissected by MT in his third dispatch for us. - Manager

Who Loses in Amien-SBY Feud?

by MT

We all know how it ends. After more than two weeks of a high-profile mudslinging, the ending could not be more baffling. It took only less than 15 minutes for one presidential candidate (who later won the top position) to subdue another, less fortunate, presidential candidate (who came third in the race) and all came to an abrupt end. After all, Amien Rais is not known as a consistent politician. The most glaring example of his being a flip-flop is when he backed down from leading a massive rally at the Merdeka square on the eve of Soeharto’s resignation. It was Lt. Gen. Prabowo Subijanto, who threatened another Tiananmen, if Amien pressed ahead.

Now another general managed to outdo him. Amien’s supporters will definitely say in unison that his capitulating to Yudhoyono was for the sake of the political stability. But, what could have inspired Amien to say that a ploy was in the work to unseat Yudhoyono by taking advantage of his feud with Yudhoyono. (Later when the dust finally settled we know that Yudhoyono took the prospect of another drawn-out mudslinging seriously. Andi Mallarangeng told us again yesterday, echoing Amien that the prospect of third party taking advantages from Yudhoyono-Amien feud to create instability is serious).

Until Friday last week, when Yudhoyono made his carefully-staged speech to counter Amien’s allegation (at the State palace under the majestic Banyan tree with the afternoon sun on the backdrop—I like the setting, as if it was a stately function and to conceal the brewing tension) Amien was still gaining the upper hand. If he pressed ahead and came up with evidence, he could put the President into trouble. (Whether or not Wolfowitz offered money to him and Yudhoyono at least two people, he said it was Bambang Sudibyo and Christianto Wibisono could serve as witnesses). The fact that Yudhoyono offered to have a meeting and proposed a truce is proof that if Amein went further he could put him in dire strait.

The likelihood of an impeachment on Yudhoyono may be small, but the first brick has been laid by Amien on the road to it. What Yudhoyono offered in the meeting is anybody’s guess (later I got this yet-to-be-confirmed information and will likely be difficult to confirm that a huge financial deal was involved and a certain minister help arranged it), but all the commotion, in spite of the ending, has worked in favor of Amien. He is now back in the political limelight and it was a telling evidence that Yudhoyono’s plan (not always of his own making) does not always succeed as he wished. It may have worked on Yusril –and a plot against men around Megawati is in the work—but it failed on Amien. And it is also a good thing that in spite of his executive power, the President is just one of players in Jakarta politics, one who has to haggle and bargain his way to survival. Negotiation, however uninspired, is the order of the day.

See also Aco's three-part post about a game played by hypothetical but eerily similar characters. - Manager

Tale of Two Presidents

In his first dispatch from Istana Negara/Cikeas, MT writes about the somewhat comical behind the scene reactions of (now former) cabinet members during the highly anticipated non-event otherwise known as the cabinet reshuffling. In his second post as a guest blogger for the Cafe, MT writes about some similarities between SBY and Soeharto (they just keep coming, don't they) which include SBY's ability to make people cringe, instead of laugh, with his jokes. - Manager

Tale of Two Presidents
by MT

Days before former president Soeharto resigned -I think its around November 1997- Cornell’s Ben Anderson gave a not-so-famous interview about Soeharto’s intention to resign (in high Javanese language as Lengser Keprabon, Madheg Pandhito for whatever that means). Anderson talked at length about the hypocrisy of Soeharto and how alluded much to Javanese olden day epic (Babad) to justify his action. But that I don’t want to talk about.

In one part Anderson spoke about his coldness (he could order the killing of thousands of people, borrowing Capote’s words in cold blood), in spite of (or may be because) his being Javanese. Anderson said that when Soeharto resorts to cruelness it is not something from his nature, but something that has been calculated, it is part of his strategy. He is an extremely cautious, suspecting and never acts spontaneously. One demeanor that rings true to me more
than ever watching Soeharto’s pictures and news footage was that when he tried to be friendly and warm, we barely feels the warmth he exudes. And if he is being warm and friendly, Anderson said that we have to be very cautious about what he hid behind the smile. (well, he is indeed a Javanese par excellence that way).

Much has been said that Yudhoyono have the potential to follow Soeharto’s footprints. Hey, he’s a Javanese, an army general (albeit U.S. educated and holds Ph.D in economics), married also to a Javanese woman, and much as stoic as Soeharto. And the most worrying sign that is however difficult to corroborate is Yudhoyono’s dalliance with Javanese mysticism (very Soeharto-like indeed). The most famous being his fixation with figure nine. The combination of his date of birth is nine so he does almost anything based on that number (well, not always) but the most famous example is that he broke several big news when the date strikes nine. One other thing that could show his Javanese mind set is his penchant for looking for guidance from the other side. In several occasion he made a visit to both his father’s and father in law (the famous general Sarwo Edhi Wibowo) ’s tomb before making important announcement. Well, of course there is nothing wrong about visiting your parent’s grave, but it’s the timing.

But if you think that this country is at risk of being led by another cruel and humorless general, think again. However dour he might be, Yudhoyono is at the very least an amiable person to go by. In fact, he likes jokes too, however dry. OK, he might be pale in comparison with Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid in this joke affairs. In out-of-palace functions, Yudhoyono frequently tells us jokes.

The day when he was about to break the news that a cabinet shake-up would take place in the early May – in the now famous durian plantation in Bogor – he cracked a joke about nutmeg and durian. He told us that during a visit to East Nusa Tenggara he inspected a nutmeg plantation when he stumbled upon a pile of that spice. And as he inspected the pile, he told us, one of fresh nutmeg fruit fell upon his head and he said “this is not fair, a fruit this useful only has a tiny size” and he strolled ahead.

Later in durian field, he discovered a pile of durian skin and while he observed it, a durian fell close to him. To us he said, “God the merciful, if only nutmeg is as big as durian then I would be dead when it fell upon me,” he said to a confused laughter among the audience. It’s not a funny joke (I read this joke in some obscure jokes book before and we all know that durian doesn’t grow in East NusaTenggara) but at least he tried.