Andi Mallarangeng trips – but count on him making a comeback

Andi Mallarangeng trips – but count on him making a comeback Sabam Siagian and Endy Bayuni ;   Senior Editors of The Jakarta Post and Former Editors-In-Chief of The Newspaper

JAKARTA POST, 14 Desember 2012

The bushy moustache failed to conceal the look of dejection on the face of former youth and sports minister Andi Alfian Mallarangeng, so graphically displayed last week by an Antara news agency photo. Months of fighting a losing battle had taken a lot of the optimism and vibrancy that Andi had conveyed in all his previous public appearances since he emerged as one of Indonesia’s young and promising political figures more than 14 years ago. When Andi announced his resignation from the Cabinet on Dec. 7, he effectively placed his political career on hold. Whether this is a permanent or temporary setback, much depends on how he now handles the corruption allegations leveled against him in the coming months. At 49 years old, he still has a lot going for him. This much was also clear from the mixed public reaction to his departure from the Cabinet and also from the Democratic Party. There was no chorus of boos that had accompanied officials making similar exits in the past. In fact, most people were left pondering a question: Whatever had happened to the young, vibrant, intelligent, articulate (some would throw in sympathetic and affable) politician who made such a big public impression more than a decade ago? His political rivals, including some in the Cabinet and the Democratic Party, may be gleefully rejoicing at his elimination from the 2014 presidential race. Many who had worked with him, or had come to know him, would attest to his demeanor and sincerity, even when he clearly had strong ambitions for power. Close friends and supporters still could not believe or accept that he had committed the crime as accused by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). It would be premature to write his political obituary. In fact, his decision to resign was more intended to save the party, as he rightly said in his announcement: “I don’t want to become a burden to the party.” The Democratic Party, which emerged as the largest party in 2009 after only its second participation in a general election, has seen its popularity plunge in the past year following a series of corruption scandals revolving around its former treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin. Most surveys today put the party third behind the Golkar Party and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). It is dropping further and at this rate will be lucky to make it into the top five in 2014. Nazaruddin has already been convicted for using his party position to secure lucrative contracts and siphoning off commissions back to the party’s coffers, sometimes through intermediaries in the party. Convicted, he has been determined to making sure he does not go down alone. He has mentioned other party members as accomplices, including Andi, who was named a suspect by the KPK on Dec. 6. Andi is equally determined to prove his innocence and will fight to clean his name in court. It remains unclear whether his actions alone will be enough to save the party’s fortunes. The party’s chairman, Anas Urbaningrum, also named by Nazaruddin, has doggedly resisted calls from party members to resign. We can only speculate why the political career of Andi, one of Yudhoyono’s most promising princelings, should have reached such a tragic end. With a doctorate in political philosophy from Northern Illinois University, Andi, from the Bugis ethnic group, was culturally ill-equipped to deal with the intricate complexities of pseudo-Javanese court politics at Yudhoyono’s family compound in Cikeas, east of Jakarta. His naivety was exposed when he and Anas locked horns in 2010 for the chairmanship of the Democratic Party. Andi may have spent time in Yogyakarta as an undergraduate student, but he was outsmarted by Anas, who was more nimble in dealing with Javanese dynastic politics. Anas won the contest simply because he had the support of “mother superior”, Yudhoyono’s mother-in-law, who clearly held the real power in the family dynasty. As part of the deal, Anas accepted the appointment of Edhie “Ibas” Baskoro Yudhoyono, the President’s son, as secretary-general.  He used this relationship effectively: When his name first came up in Nazaruddin’s corruption investigations, he traveled the country to meet with the party’s rank and file with Ibas at his side. For the time being, Anas has acquired political immunity. Andi had at one time been considered a serious presidential prospect among an up-and-coming generation of politicians that would rise up through Indonesia’s more open and democratic political system that he helped create. He joined various teams set up to rebuild Indonesia’s political institutions in the early years after the end of the Soeharto regime in 1998.  Aspects of the current political system, such as a more open and transparent electoral system and the decentralization of administration were among the work that he personally contributed to. He was also a popular political commentator in the early years of Reform before he joined Yudhoyono in 2004 to become his spokesman. Whenever the going was rough for the President, Andi would appear on television to make himself the public punching bag and deflect criticism from his boss. He knew how to take punches and still kept his wide smile. After helping Yudhoyono win the election again in 2009, he was rewarded with a Cabinet post, which on reflection, may have been a trap that led to his downfall. The Cabinet post was in a second-class ministry with inadequate professional staff, certainly not equipped to handle mammoth projects such as the Hambalang sports complex, worth over Rp 1 trillion (US$103.8 million). Was it Andi’s brilliant idea to develop such a huge project with two purposes rolled into one, namely that he would be known as the pioneering sports minister who spearheaded Indonesia’s quantum leap as a globally prominent achiever in sports while simultaneously contributing to the party’s coffers? In the end, the Hambalang project was too big and too tempting for too many greedy officials, and the wheeling and dealing around the project may have slipped out of Andi’s control. The rise and fall of Andi is such a vivid case of Yudhoyono’s failure as party and national leader to groom a stable of educated young men and women with adequate political schooling to help develop a vision for this vast archipelagic nation to follow in the 21st century. Will Andi ever make a comeback? The Bugis people know he remains one of their favorite sons, even if he once turned his back on them. In 2009, when he was campaigning for Yudhoyono’s reelection, he was asked why he was not supporting then vice president Jusuf Kalla, a fellow Bugis who was challenging the incumbent. “The time was not ripe for a Bugis president,” was his blunt reply that invited a storm of criticism, mostly from his own people.  Ironically, it may be Kalla who brings Andi back from the political wilderness, especially if the former can progress his own campaign to stage a political comeback in the 2014 race. ●