Presidential hopefuls’ checklist 2014

Presidential hopefuls’ checklist 2014 Ikrar Nusa Bhakti and Leng C Tan ;   Ikrar Nusa Bhakti is a political researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI); Leng C Tan is a freelance writer based in Yogyakarta

JAKARTA POST, 12 November 2012

Scholar Ian Bremmer wrote an op-ed article for the International Herald Tribune on Africa titled “The Power of the Pivot”. In it, he began with three sets of acronyms. They are BRICS, which has entered the global lexicon, but CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt and South Africa) plus MIST (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey) still have some way to go.  “These acronyms are the product of brilliant branding, but with all due respect to those who coined them, they tell us nothing about why these countries were chosen as the ones best built to last … Some will rise and others may fall.” The power of the pivot, in Bremmer’s latest book, Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World, is basically the power to flex in whatever direction one chooses in pursuance of one’s interests by pressing buttons from the widest range possible without much hindrance.  Hence, “pivot states are those with the flexibility to pivot among potential partners”. In other words, they have options galore. “Winners have choices”, he stated in what appears to be an obvious truism except that it somehow bears repetition here.  Countries like Indonesia are mentioned as a “classic pivot state because its trade ties are well-balanced among China, the United States and Singapore”, which made it to the list, too. Ditto Africa.  This is quite a mish-mash of coming together for such apparently divergent city-states, countries and continents. “There are countries and regions that will profit from their ability to pivot.” The best case in point is China benefiting from Africa’s pivotal ability. In a G-Zero world of winners and losers with every nation for itself, it has become imperative to get the right national leadership at the very top to lead the country into the winning slot and, more importantly, staying put there. This brings us to the subject of the Indonesian presidential elections in 2014 and who among the declared candidates can best ensure that Indonesia stays “pivotal”. But, such a statement makes the idealistic assumption of a united people out to defend their common good coalesced as the national interest, but the notion of common interest and public good is not something that the Indonesians are noted for, according to foreign observers. And the conglomerate powers contesting for the presidency are highly fractious themselves. So, does that reality render moot the question of who is the best candidate for the nation as a whole, putting partisan interests aside and voting for the national good?  There is a list of presidential wannabes. From the entitlement field, there is the patrician Megawati Soekarnoputri with a largely plebian following, still burnished by her father’s name. From the military field, there is the businessman-cum-general Prabowo Subianto. From the business field, we have the conglomerate presidential candidacies of Aburizal Bakrie and Jusuf Kalla who are both business-savvy people.  Like it or not, it is the businessmen who are the most adroit in sniffing out the best deals for their nation, be that in the political or trade arenas, since they are always so good in sniffing out what is best for themselves.  Is it too much of a blind leap in faith to think that in being so good at it, might they not also do the best by their nation as by themselves? And WikiLeaks, citing the leaked US diplomatic cables, already mentioned one of the names above as a businessman par excellence when it comes to wedding personal with national interest, under the rubric of economic nationalism. Hence, the following brief checklist is needed since Bremmer wrote that a country “will need more than strength to fully emerge … it will need resilience … that will depend on its ability to get a wide range of options for forging political and trade ties”. So, who among the business-sector presidential candidates have not only the strength but also the resilience to keep Indonesia pivotal? Might it not be that someone who suffered a temporary tumble in fortunes and yet still resiliently retained the No. 2 spot, according to a Tempo survey, as the most influential figure after the President; and the person “who knows every trick in the book”, as one Western columnist so daintily put it.  Or would it be that other someone who ironically is the only one with a “genuine understanding of how Western liberal democracies work, having spent most of his formative years in the West”, and who, rather resiliently, made a comeback from the political wilderness more than a decade ago to make a fresh case for self and nation.  Either man will be good for the nation, given their strong leadership qualities. So, it will come down to who can become the icon for change — a yearning of the Indonesian populace so clearly reflected in the recent Jakarta elections. Among the businessmen above, the one with the best track record in the areas of government, conflict resolution, global health leadership, human rights and national integration is Kalla. He is the only civilian candidate with the least baggage. The problem, however, is that to date no major party has proposed him as their candidate. If he is nominated as a presidential candidate and chosen by the electorate, he will be the first non-Javanese Indonesian president and he will make history. In a G-Zero world of winners and losers with every nation for itself, the opponent is outside the country, not inside. May the best man for the nation win in 2014. ●