Megawati’s swinging mood to shackle Jokowi’s nomination

Megawati’s swinging mood to shackle Jokowi’s nomination Rendi A Witular  ;   A Managing Editor at The Jakarta Post

JAKARTA POST,  28 Januari 2014

                                                                                                                        

                                                                                         

                                                      

The seasonal floods engulfing many parts of the capital may be the last thing bogging down Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, 52, in his veiled attempt to secure the presidential nomination ticket from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). The more pressing matter on his side is probably the unpredictable mood of PDI-P supreme leader Megawati Soekarnoputri, 67, who believes her crusade to reinject the nation’s leadership with the Sukarno bloodline is a worthy fight.  While Jokowi has never publicly declared his aspirations for the top job, there have been numerous — and public — instances of his laying on the charm and proving his allegiance to Megawati to earn her blessing, while at the same time attempting to nip any resentment against him in the bud. Probably out of frustration, Jokowi went to the extent of kissing Megawati’s hand during the party’s 41st anniversary celebration on Jan. 10. The act was his first ever public display of obsequiousness. But the jury is out on whether such fawning is sufficient to win Megawati over, especially after she reaffirmed her previous pledge of withholding the naming of the party’s presidential candidate until the April legislative election.  Even when faced with the obvious Jokowi-fever reflected in the results of numerous surveys, suggesting the party grab the bull by the horns and announce Jokowi’s nomination, she continues to avoid the topic of the party’s preferential candidate.  Megawati’s decision to defy the call has fueled speculation about her desire to take a third shot at contesting the presidential race.  She only served as president for three years, between 2001 and 2004, lost in 2004 and again in the 2009 election against President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.  “If you try to gauge what’s inside Megawati’s mind, you should position yourself as a housewife, a very sensitive one,” said one of Megawati’s confidants.  “There’s also this ego that she wants to show the world that she is a smart, popular and highly capable leader. Those party elites that look down on her only […] provoke her to run for the presidency.” Her longing for the grandeur of the president seat, flush with its VVIP facilities and services, has also posed as a variable in her decision making. However, Megawati’s bitter experience regarding loyalty may have consumed her so much that it will contribute immensely to her decision making.  Her refusal to amend ties with Yudhoyono is a blatant example of how she was deeply hurt by an act of disloyalty.  In 2001, Yudhoyono, then Megawati’s coordinating political, legal and security affairs minister, assured her he would not run in the presidential election: He went on to contest and snatch the presidential seat from her in the 2004 election with the backing of his self-formed Democratic Party. Bali governor Made Mangku Pastika and former Central Java governor Bibit Waluyo, to name a few, are recent additions to Megawati’s list of disloyal followers. Both jumped ship to the Democratic Party in their bid to secure second gubernatorial terms.  Loyalty is undeniably everything for Megawati, and that, according to her buddies, seems to be lacking from Jokowi, who was not a PDI-P cadre until he was elected mayor for Surakarta, Central Java, in 2005.  Although Jokowi has boasted of his profound adhering to the teachings of Sukarno since he was a university student, the PDI-P was apparently his fourth preference.  He first approached the Islam-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), then the National Mandate Party (PAN) and then the Democratic Party.  An incident that seems to perturb Megawati is a report on how Jokowi did not notify or seek permission from his Surakarta deputy mayor, FX Hadi “Rudy” Rudyatmo, when he decided to run as a Jakarta gubernatorial candidate in 2012.  Rudy, a senior PDI-P politician and among Megawati’s confidants, is Jokowi’s political teacher and patron.  Failure to file notification or seek permission, known in Javanese as kulonuwun, is considered a big sin in Javanese culture, indicating disloyalty.  Megawati probably fears that Jokowi’s potential disloyalty may harm the political future — and presidential potential — of her son  Prananda Prabowo, who is in his 40s. Prananda, a businessman, is known to be media-shy and was not blessed with a silver tongue, unlike his half sister Puan Maharani who is far more sociable and has much more experience in managing the party.  Given the gloomy outlook for Jokowi’s nomination, noise from the House of Representatives is revealing several scenarios prepared by Megawati for the party’s presidency nomination.  Among the conjecture is that should PDI-P get more than 20 percent of the legislative vote, Megawati will have the confidence to run for the presidency with Jokowi as her running mate. If she wins, she would only serve one term and allow Jokowi to run with Prananda for the 2019 election. A larger share of the vote for the PDI-P will also open the chances for the nomination of Jokowi as president in 2014 with Prananda, who has a penchant for the Javanese spiritual teachings known as Kejawen, as his running mate. There is also speculation that Megawati will run with former vice president Jusuf Kalla, who would come not only with political funding but also the prospect of a coalition with the Golkar Party, of which Kalla used to be chairman. Another idea making the rounds — and the preferable scenario, but one that would need Megawati to bow to public demand — is that Jokowi will be the presidential candidate with Kalla as his running mate.  The nomination for the ideal pair may not come very easily as Megawati’s doubts of Jokowi has also been fueled by certain party elements, who fear that if Jokowi became the president, as those vying for “their” slice of project fees will find their paths obstructed. Recalcitrant cadres have already voiced concerns over the way Jokowi runs Jakarta as he refuses to comply with such demands. ●

SBY, Prabowo and the election threshold saga Rendi A Witular   ;   A Managing Editor at The Jakarta Post

JAKARTA POST,  31 Desember 2013

                           

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and presidential hopeful Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo, the chief patron of the Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party, may appear on affable terms but they will never be friends.  Their recent meeting at the State Palace may at some point prove that Yudhoyono is embracing Prabowo and vice versa, but behind the scenes things may be different.  According to a member of Yudhoyono’s inner-circle, the President holds no grudges against other presidential hopefuls, including his archrival and former president Megawati Soekarnoputri, who he defeated in the 2004 and 2009 elections. But when it comes to Prabowo, the mood, according to the Cabinet member, is utterly different.  “He [Yudhoyono] seems happy with the possible presidential nomination of figures outside his Democratic Party [PD], such as [Jakarta Governor] Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, [Golkar Party chairman] Aburizal Bakrie and even Megawati,” said the official.  “His only concern, or I may say fear, is Prabowo. I don’t know whether it’s related to their past, but Yudhoyono told me Prabowo was unfit to rule and described him as ‘unstable’ and ‘unpredictable’.”  Yudhoyono could know Prabowo well as they were in the same Army cadet class in the early 1970s. Their relations during military service were cordial but not close, with Prabowo mostly engaged on the battlefields of Indonesia’s separatist conflicts, while Yudhoyono spent most of his career either as an instructor, speechwriter or military thinker.  Since Yudhoyono assumed power in 2004, Prabowo rarely publicly threw mud at his classmate and has never been in staunch opposition to Yudhoyono. Although the President may be aware of the risks should Prabowo become president in 2014, he has never attempted to halt Prabowo’s ambitions. This is probably because Yudhoyono has expected Prabowo do not have the slightest chance of being nominated president.  The Presidential Election Law requires all political parties to obtain a minimum 25 percent of the popular vote or 20 percent of seats in the House of Representatives to be entitled to nominate a presidential candidate. Pollsters have forecast that Prabowo’s five-year-old party, Gerindra, which secured 4.5 percent of the vote in 2009, is unlikely to garner more than 10 percent in 2014. Gerindra’s chances of forging a coalition to meet the threshold are likely to be slim.  Yudhoyono’s PD, which is widely forecast by pollsters to secure less than 10 percent in 2014, will surely attempt to nominate its own candidate who must obviously have a close link to the First Family. But there are discussions within the PD that if its vote turns out to be smaller than that of Golkar, Yudhoyono will opt to throw his support behind Golkar on the condition his brother-in-law, former Army Chief of Staff General (ret.) Pramono Edhie Wibowo, is ensured a role as Aburizal’s running mate.  Golkar, which seems to have no chance of backing away from nominating Aburizal, is predicted to secure between 12 and 15 percent of the vote. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) will definitely nominate either Jokowi or Megawati based on the optimism it will win the election by garnering between 18 and 20 percent of the vote. While the prospect of joining the “big three” is slim, Gerindra may turn to the smaller parties, but that will prove difficult.  The United Development Party (PPP), forecast to be the largest Muslim-based party in 2014 with more than 5 percent of the vote, will have reservations about giving its support to Prabowo given the irreconcilable personal bitterness of PPP chairman Suryadharma Ali toward Prabowo. The other remaining Muslim-based parties such as the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the National Awakening Party (PKB), estimated by pollsters of each gaining less than 4 percent, are deemed too loyal to Yudhoyono. Only the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) will have the chance to join forces with Gerindra, but the Muslim-based party is unlikely to get more than 5 percent of the vote, according to pollsters.  This will leave Gerindra short of meeting the threshold.  New parties such as the National Democrat Party (Nasdem), which tends to lean toward the PDI-P, and the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI), are forecast to book less than 2 percent.  While the calculation seems to keep Prabowo at bay, the landscape unexpectedly changed last month after speculation that the graft-ridden Constitutional Court would scrap the threshold.  The court is expected to deliver its verdict soon after a request filed by political communications expert Effendi Ghazali. Support for the revocation received a boost after the Crescent Star Party (PBB) chief patron Yusril Ihza Mahendra logged a similar request only weeks after the election of Hamdan Zoelva as the court’s new chief justice. Hamdan is former PBB lawmaker and a former employee of Yusril.  Many believe the court will use the verdict to retaliate against Yudhoyono’s move to reform it after the KPK arrested the court’s then chief justice Akil Mochtar in October for allegedly accepting kickbacks. Should the threshold be scrapped, Prabowo will undoubtedly be the prime beneficiary.  His chance of winning the presidency will be even bigger if Megawati finally refuses to nominate Jokowi, whom pollsters believe is the only figure capable of fighting Prabowo in the race for the presidency.  Yudhoyono’s separate meetings with Prabowo and Yusril on Christmas Eve suggest, to some extent, fear in the President’s camp over Prabowo’s prospects. While all refuse to disclose the real reason behind the meetings, it is difficult to rebuff claims that the meetings had nothing to do with the upcoming verdict of the Constitutional Court.  ●

The Baron, the Bakries and the shattered dream

The Baron, the Bakries and the shattered dream Rendi A Witular ;  A Staff Writer at The Jakarta Post

JAKARTA POST, 22 Oktober 2012

At an event in Jakarta in December 2010, Nathaniel Rothschild was full of confidence and admiration with regard to the Bakrie family, whose business empire had once enjoyed privileges from the Soeharto regime to help counter the domination of tycoons of Chinese descent. Rothschild seemed at the time to have weighed the risks well in venturing forth with the Bakries in an ambitious plan to create the world’s biggest coal company. The jewel in the Bakries’ crown, PT Bumi Resources, the world’s largest thermal coal exporter for power plants, was pledged as initial underlying assets to lure international financing. Rothschild, a scion of the centuries-old banking dynasty that once helped bankroll Britain’s war against Napoleonic France, was also fully aware of the risks entailed in the venture. Banks had mostly shied away from the family’s empire due to its over-leveraged assets and debts, as well as tax irregularities of around US$700 million in several PT Bumi units. In an interview with The Jakarta Post at the time, Rothschild said that Bumi Plc, the planned joint venture company with the Bakries, “would be large enough to take the risk”. “So the reason why banks have not been willing to lend is simply because the leverage of both the country and the groups’ standpoints have been probably at the higher end of what the credit committee of banks, local or international, has been willing to expect,” he said. The future fifth Baron Rothschild also pledged to help the Bakrie Group to de-leverage over time to reduce the debt and free up capital for more expansion by listing Bumi in London to access international financing. “If you have an optimistic view of thermal coal prices, as I certainly do, this whole business will be debt-free by 2014. We’ll be in a net cash position by 2014.” He also heaped praise on the Bakries, particularly the three brothers — Aburizal, Nirwan and Indra. “If you know them [the family], or you get to actually talk to people who have done business with them, in my experience the view of the Bakries is universally good,” he added. Rothschild’s daring venture with the Bakries surprised many analysts and business people. And eventually, the skeptics won the bet in the troubles that ensued. The goodwill seemed to have evaporated when Rothschild in November last year made public a letter to Bumi chief executive officer Ari Hudaya, calling for a radical clean up in PT Bumi. He sought a timetable for the repatriation of “funds deposited with connected parties”. That incident was followed by further Rothschild outbursts about a string of other financial irregularities at PT Bumi, culminating in his decision to resign from the Bumi board on Tuesday, vowing to fight “from outside the tent”. With Bumi confronted by over-leveraged financing and the decline in international coal prices, as demand slows due to global economic uncertainties, the timing of the feud could not have been worse. The events caused the company’s value to plunge by 88 percent. However, as the feud ensued, Rothschild seems to have overlooked the Bakries’ past form in sailing through a series of crises and their influence in the nation’s political arena. The Bakries are a politically wired family, with its patriarch Aburizal chairing the Golkar Party, once the political machine that helped Soeharto cling to power for three decades but now Indonesia’s second-largest party. It was Aburizal and his cronies who financed Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s rise to power in 2004, with Yudhoyono apparently repaying the favor by absolving the Bakrie family from official blame for the 2006 mudflow disaster that displaced more than 3,000 people in Sidoarjo, East Java. The Yudhoyono administration is also alleged to have intervened to have the Jakarta stock exchange suspended during the height of the global financial crisis in late 2008. The suspension provided a lifeline to the shares of Bakrie-affiliated companies, which were plummeting at that time. The ousting of reform-minded finance minister Sri Mulyani from the Cabinet in 2010 may also be linked with the family. This may also go some way to explain the Indonesian capital market authorities’ recent decision to remain on the fence over Rothschild’s requests for an investigation into irregularities in PT Bumi. For the Bakries, the intensified feud with Rothschild, 41, may seem petty compared to the troubles the family has already been through. They know better than any other Indonesian businesses just what a real crisis feels like. The family survived the impact of the late 1997 Asian financial crisis relatively unscathed, thanks to liquidity support from the central bank. On the heels of the financial meltdown in the United States in late 2008, the family was bogged down with $1.2 billion debt problem, but managed to survive through a sophisticated settlement in which basically the debts remain and subject to restructuring by third parties, but without the family having to relinquish their control over Bumi Resources. There have also been numerous allegations of tax irregularities in the family-linked companies, but no investigation by the authorities has been launched thus far. Apart from the family’s history of crisis management, Rothschild also seems to have underestimated the ingenuity of the Bakries. Nirwan, the third child of Achmad Bakrie, the founder of the Bakrie Group, was already known as a “master of financial engineering” during the 1990s, while Rothschild was probably still on a learning curve in the financial sector. Nirwan’s credentials in this field, according to many financial analysts, remain unmatched until this day. He is also known as a high-profile risk taker while running the business, prompting analysts to dub him “the man with 1,000 ways out”. Nirwan, 61, has been in the driving seat of the family’s business empire since 2005 after Aburizal, his older brother, joined the Cabinet under Yudhoyono in 2004. It was Nirwan’s allure that attracted Rothschild to forge the Bumi venture after JPMorgan’s executive Ian Hannam hooked them up in 2010. In less than two months after the meeting with Nirwan, Rothschild could not resist the temptation for a deal. “He [Hannam] approached me in October [2010], with the great idea of introducing me to Nirwan, and he outlined the strategy too. I thought it made sense, and I definitely wanted to meet, and that was how we got together. A classic example of good investment banking,” said Rothschild in an interview with the Post in December 2010. But with the likelihood that the feud will get messier, Rothschild has probably learned some hard lessons from his “hasty” decision. He might also want to rethink the definition of “a classic example of good investment banking”. ●

Prabowo already dressed up, but won’t make it to the party

Prabowo already dressed up, but won’t make it to the party Rendi A Witular  ;  A Staff Writer at The Jakarta Post

JAKARTA POST, 02 Oktober 2012

As an avid polo player, Prabowo Subianto, the former son-in-law of Soeharto, fully grasps the idea that one must look good when playing the sport of kings.

However, the retired special-forces general must also know that a snazzy uniform is not enough to guarantee victory. One must also tame one’s horse, outmaneuver opponents and score goals.

In the past couple of days, Prabowo has been confronted by a daunting challenge to secure a horse that he can use ride into the 2014 presidential election.

Prabowo has certainly presented his best face to the public in recent days, as evidenced by his growing popularity among younger voters. Most pollsters have placed him atop their list of presidential hopefuls.

He has tried hard to overhaul his international profile by attending several prestigious events overseas to help people forget the allegations of human rights violations that surround the general for his actions during riots that saw the fall of the New Order in 1998.

All those image-boosting efforts, however, will be for naught unless Prabowo secures the support of the big parties that he needs to nominate him as a presidential candidate.

Top officials at the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), whose coattails Prabowo hopes to ride on, have recently sent clear signals that they would not forge a coalition in 2014 with his party, the Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra).

Prabowo desperately needs the the PDI-P, his long-time ally, to form a coalition with Gerindra if he hopes to run for president in 2014. The law requires that coalitions or parties garner at least 20 percent of the vote in the general election to nominate a presidential candidate, something that Gerindra has failed to do on its own.

Further, several surveys have painted bleak prospects for Gerindra, tipping the party to receive less than 5 percent of the vote in 2014, despite Prabowo’s skyrocketing popularity.

The PDI-P, the Golkar Party and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party are expected to be dominant; each tipped to secure more than 10 percent of the vote.

The PDI-P is unlikely to nominate Prabowo, as speculation has it that PDI-P chairwoman and former president Megawati Soekarnoputri is inching closer to a decision to run for the nation’s top job in 2014. Megawati has also been placed at the top of the list of presidential hopefuls, according to pollsters.

Sources at the PDI-P and Golkar who declined to be named have said there is currently momentum building for Megawati to run on a ticket with former vice president Jusuf Kalla. Kalla, according to party sources, has been maneuvering to annul an earlier decision to name chairman Aburizal Bakrie as Golkar’s candidate in 2014 and bring the party into a coalition with the PDI-P.

Aburizal and his family are currently in financial woes from mounting debts that are plaguing their business empire. It will be difficult for him to grease the party’s machine and provide sufficient capital to run for president.

The handicap will likely be exploited by Kalla to steer Golkar’s elite away from Aburizal and toward the PDI-P, which has also been preparing other members to step in if Megawati decides not to run.

Megawati ran unsuccessful campaigns for the presidency in 2004 and 2009 elections.

The PDI-P’s maneuverings are making it more difficult for Prabowo’s potential presidential bid. His only hope for forming a coalition with enough support to meet the electoral threshold is the Democratic Party, which until now has yet to name a candidate.

But that may also be complicated for Prabowo, as Yudhoyono has often said that the party’s future presidential candidates will come from its younger generation of supporters.

Yudhoyono may also worry that Prabowo’s track record may undermine his glittering international reputation for advocating the high standard of human rights principles.

There is also a question of how much Yudhoyono trusts Prabowo, given the notorious temperament of the President’s former military colleague.

Prabowo’s military pal, Lt. Gen. (ret.) Muchdi PR, even left Gerindra in 2011 over what sources said was a dispute triggered by Prabowo’s authoritarian management style. Muchdi, also a retired special-forces general, was acquitted of wrongdoing in the trial of the 2004 murder of human rights activist Munir.

A year after Muchdi’s resignation, an internal rift rocked Gerindra. The party’s founding member and deputy chairperson Halida Hatta, daughter of the country’s first vice president, Mohammad Hatta, tendered her resignation.

Left with a weaker party, Prabowo must confront the irony of a campaign that promotes egalitarianism and poverty alleviation when he himself travels in private jets and plays polo using dozens of imported horses.

Should the general’s luxurious lifestyle be more widely publicized, voters who have not forgotten his dark record in 1998 may well be turned off. No matter how hard Prabowo tries to create a distinctive image for himself as a man of the people, his bid for the palace rests with leaders if three political parties. ●

SBY’s legacy: An ever more corrupt police force

SBY’s legacy: An ever more corrupt police force Rendi A Witular ; A Staff Writer at The Jakarta Post

JAKARTA POST, 27 September 2012

For most police generals, reservations about public outcry over their blatant display of excessive wealth, which is suspiciously derived from illicit sources, are no longer sufficiently ingrained to detract from a shameful way of living.

A police general, for example, has a luxurious house in a posh section of the Bintaro housing compound in South Jakarta, while another high-ranking officer has a passion for collecting Harley Davidson motorcycles. A police general closely linked with the counterterrorism agency even has an apartment unit at the Ritz Carlton in the Sudirman Central Business District, South Jakarta. 

Former National Police traffic chief Insp. Gen. Djoko Susilo, a suspect in a graft case handled by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), owns several luxurious houses in Jakarta and Yogyakarta. 

And how much exactly do they earn as police generals to be able to afford these kinds of luxuries? They earn less than Rp 20 million (US$2,100) a month. Logically, with such a salary, it could take more than 15 years of saving for one of the generals to be able to afford his Bintaro mansion, at his current rank and position. The generals have always claimed that businesses run by their family members support their lavish lifestyles, or to have received a windfall inherited from their rich parents or in-laws. These claims have often degraded public rationale and intelligence.

Integrity and transparency have increasingly become rare ideals within the police force, more than a decade after policymakers decided to expand their law enforcement mandate – a decision that aimed to end 35 years of military domination of security affairs.

Stories of a pervasive culture of kickbacks emanate from the earliest stages of recruitment and permeate the entire process until an officer receives his or her posting. The classic tales of extortion and kickbacks in dealing with the police have not slightly abated. The force is literally a haven for the practice of corruption.

Hundreds of seminars on graft within the police force have been organized, countless amounts of foreign aid for capacity building and reform have also been accepted and spent, and blueprints and research papers on reform have been completed. However, no concrete efforts have been nailed down to start an overhaul of the police force.

A recent effort by the KPK to kick-start the reform process by taking down Djoko and several high-ranking officers in the graft case involving the procurement of driving simulators, has been stiffly opposed by the police chief himself.

Amid an all-out fight by the KPK to root out corruptors, Djoko and his officers went against the tide last year by allegedly inflating the purchase price of the simulators by fivefold to the tune of more than Rp 198 billion (US$20.8 million) – an amount equal to the construction cost of around 2,000 police posts.

Many analysts have said this method of corruption is unsophisticated and that the police may have been overly confident that they would remain untouchable. But amid all these scandals, what has President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono done to end corruption within the police force? Aside from the repetition of empty promises, very little. 

If the President is committed to reform, there is no other acceptable token of seriousness other than to summon the courage required to revise Law No. 2/2002 on National Police by inserting a set of articles to establish an independent and rigorous supervision institution with the authority to discharge or to demote errant police officers. The absence of such external supervision, amid the police’s overwhelming authority, is the root of all evil plaguing the force.

Unlike in developed democracies, violations committed by a police officer here are dealt internally without any independent institution to verify the process or to conduct an independently investigation. Due to the strong esprit de corps, the police have regularly protected their own, particularly the top brass, despite gross violations.

The National Police Commission (Kompolnas), which is supposed to function as an independent watchdog, has been legislatively restricted by the police law to merely serve an advisory role. Without the slightest authority to summon a recalcitrant police officer, Kompolnas is basically a toothless institution.

The independence of the Kompolnas has also been undermined with the recent selection of its new members, who mostly have personal ties with police generals.

If so moved, the House of Representatives could actually initiate a revision to the police law without having to wait for Yudhoyono. However, as many top legislators have allegedly conspired with recalcitrant generals to ensure their dirty laundry remains hidden from public view in exchange for maintaining the current corrupt establishment, there is little hope that they will initiate any changes, or throw their supports behind the KPK in its fight against the police force.

Given such complexity, all hope for change remains on Yudhoyono, who still has around two years left in office. Will he have the courage and determination to reform the police and leave behind a legacy, albeit a last-minute one, as an antigraft hero? It is easy to imagine otherwise.

There seems to be a more sinister reason behind Yudhoyono’s refusal to rock the boat. Speculation is rife that the President’s inner circle may have a few skeletons that would be best kept in the police’s closet.

Whatever the reason to forestall the process of reform, Yudhoyono is likely to leave behind a legacy of nurturing an ever more corrupt police force, unless he immediately shifts stances and boosts the KPK’s efforts to root out graft in the force. ●