It is still fresh in my mind, the gist of a Media Indonesia editorial opinion on the relations between then minister of state enterprises Laksamana Sukardi with one of the House of Representatives’ (DPR) commissions responsible for overseeing that ministry. Its conclusion was that: “It is understandable if the minister Laksamana Sukardi is reluctant to meet the summons from the commission, for its members’ questions on the performance of the ministry are always lack of substance.” Not one of the DPR’s members expressed any objection to the statement.
This phenomenon reflected the imbalanced relationship between the government and the DPR during the era of President Megawati Soe-karnoputri (2001-2004). As well as Megawati’s Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) being a dominant force in the parliament, for a certain political reasons, the Golkar Party, the second largest party, supported the government. This made the teeth of the DPR become dull.
However, DPR-government relations during the first term of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004-2009) was quite colorful and, to some extent, much more complicated.
Partly, this is because of the scenario that the DPR — having long been populated by seasoned politicians — was an old force, while the newly installed government was just a “rookie”.
Although Yudhoyono’s government was propped up by several coalition parties, it could not be denied that the pair of Yudhoyono-Kalla’s real and loyal parliamentary support was only 7 percent, solely derived from Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party. The first days of power of Yudhoyono’s government vis-a-vis the DPR were therefore quite fragile.
This feature became much more complicated, for the Golkar chairman, Akbar Tanjung, who had worked closely with Megawati during the second round of the 2004 presidential election, extended his cooperation with the PDI-P in the parliament. Denying the fact that some of its members had been recruited into Yudhoyono’s Cabinet, Golkar did not lessen its oppositional stance, together with the PDI-P, against the government.
It was not the end of the story, surely. But at this point, it could be said that the foundations of the dynamic and conflicting power relations between the DPR and the government during 2004-2009 had been built. It means that, in addition to its strong constitutional rights, the DPR was and is an autonomous political force separated and thus independent from the government authority. In this position, there was no guarantee that both of them would constantly share language and interests in carrying out their respective duties.
At the end of 2004, then vice president Jusuf Kalla was elected chairman of Golkar, replacing Akbar Tanjung. Theoretically, this was a tectonic shift in the fabric of parliamentary power for the benefit of government. The fall of Tanjung meant that Megawati’s PDI-P had lost its closest parliamentary ally.
Now, under the leadership of Kalla, as a major parliament force, together with the Democratic Party, the Golkar Party practically functioned as the bulwark of the government.
In fact, however, this shift precisely created a “morbid” feature of power in the presidential institution.
While President Yudhoyono remained supported by 7 percent of the parliamentary forces, by being the chairman of Golkar, vice president Kalla suddenly appeared as a more influential person within the presidential institution, in terms of DPR-government relations. This meant that Kalla’s leverage was overwhelmingly increased vis-a-vis Yudhoyono.
For this power changing transpired on the autonomous status of the DPR, in personal matters, Yudhoyono gained less than Kalla. While within the presidential institution, Yudhoyono had to face a continued bargain with Kalla, in parliament he found no significant increase in real support. The vagaries of Yudhoyono’s coalition parties offered less help. This happened, for example, when chief of state intelligence Samsir Siregar publicly voice his anger toward Cabinet members from the coalition parties due to the latter’s failure to tame the behavior of their parliament members in the case of the DPR’s inquiry in early 2009 against the government’s policy to reduce the fuel subsidy.
However, the Golkar-inclined parliament shifting of power also narrowed the PDI-P’s position. Without Golkar, the PDI-P suffered lack of political imagination. As a consequence, this party missed many opportunities to make use of national political issues. The Golkar Party, meanwhile, equipped with well-trained members experienced in parliamentary politics, had wider latitude to create political issues, in an attempt to drive Yudhoyono’s policies closer to the interests of their own camp. Twice, Cabinet reshuffles that occurred in the first and second year of Yudhoyono’s government, undeniably, ended with greater benefits for the Golkar Party.
Only through a focused look at this typical interplay of power relations, can we grasp the qualitative aspect of the DPR’s performance, upon which the positions of Yudhoyono and Kalla were influenced. While Kalla gained greater political benefits, due to having weak parliamentary support the political destiny of Yudhoyono was much more obscured.
As a consequence, though personally Yudhoyono was the more popular leader, his government’s stability rested on the ability of Kalla to tame the political passion of the Golkar Party in the parliament. This explains why Kalla looked more powerful in making national decisions, especially in the realm of the economy. His real support in the parliament had given a guarantee that those decisions would be politically accepted.
I think, this fact is more meaningful to be looked at than merely the DPR’s quantitative achievements that achieved only 58.5 percent of its legal products from its 284 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) during 2004-2009. By looking at the qualitative aspect of the DPR, it could be understood why Yudhoyono was so obsessed with amassing a greater political coalition in the post 2009 general election, although his Democratic Party won 20 percent of the votes. The past experience between his government and the parliament had been so fragile that it forced him to redress his government position vis-a-vis the parliament.
Today, the structure of power relations has radically changed. Kalla’s successor, Boediono, is a true technocrat and thus has no political power. As a president, Yudhoyono therefore does not have to share power in the presidential institution. However, the course of politics has increasingly shown its genuine disposition: an overwhelming power game calculation and radical reduction of technical and technocratic values. It is in this current political regime, a non-political party status of the vice president becomes less helpful politically – such as precisely being faced by Boediono today.
Unlike his predecessor Kalla, the absence of Vice President Boediono’s parliamentary support almost automatically makes him paralyzed to staunch the rise of recent political tides. Although having secured 20 percent of parliamentary forces and being boosted by the coalition parties, the government is overwhelmed by the very parliamentary pressures such as in the case of Bank Century. The government’s dilemma becomes darker as Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party forcibly succumbs to the demands for a parliamentary inquiry committee to investigate the motives behind the bailout of Bank Century.
All these developments offer a single lesson, that despite a much wider coalition being built by the government, its unification remains potentially weak, for the independence of the DPR is constitutionally guaranteed. The best Yudhoyono’s government can do is to create a well-equipped team with diplomatic virtues — as had been the case in the previous government term.
The writer is the director of the Institute for the Study and Advancement of Business Ethics (Lspeu Indonesia).
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