Economic and legal experts said Sunday the public would judge the performance of the government over the next five years through its ability to get to the bottom of the Bank Century case.
The government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice President Boediono will end its first 100 days in office at the end of January.
University of Indonesia political expert Boni Hargens said Yudhoyono would likely fail to deliver on his 100-day programs because he had been focused only on guarding his reputation rather than making real bureaucratic reform.
“The government’s 100-day programs sound great,” Boni said at a press conference in Jakarta.
“However, the ministers’ capacity has actually been falling behind this seemingly powerful agenda.”
He added the government had never accounted for a “situational difficulty” hampering its entire set of programs.
He named the Rp 6.76 trillion (US$716 million) bailout of Century as the main difficulty, implicating as it did those close to the President.
Boediono and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, both highly regarded reform icons, were the individuals most responsible for deciding to bail out the ailing bank.
Yudhoyono has also rejected widespread calls to suspend the two for the duration of a House of Representatives’ inquiry into the bailout.
Senior Golkar Party politician Zainal Bintang said at the same press conference that the Democratic Party-led coalition’s stranglehold on the House, had impeded the inquiry into the bailout.
He failed to point out Golkar was part of the coalition.
“Many people on the inquiry committee have links to Yudhoyono. He even attended the wedding reception of the committee chairman, Idrus Marham,” he said, again failing to point out Idrus was a Golkar stalwart.
The committee has indicated it will wrap up its inquiry by the end of March.
Margarito Kamis, a former special adviser to the state secretary, said the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) should follow up on recommendations proposed by the House after the inquiry.
“We hope the KPK provides a fair resolution in the case,” he said.
“As we all know, Yudhoyono was the one who picked the commission’s interim chairman, Tumpak Hatorangan.
“Directly or otherwise, Yudhoyono holds sway over Tumpak.”
Margarito added the much-lauded antigraft commission was not serious about combating corruption.
Tumpak was appointed the KPK interim chairman after then chief Antasari Azhar was indicted with murdering state pharmaceutical company executive Nasruddin Zulkarnaen.
Zainal said the government’s inability to get to the truth in the Century case had undermined its welfare-improvement programs.
“The government has been single-minded in the Century investigation; it’s focused less on programs to improve public welfare,” he told The Jakarta Post.
“I predict the number of poor people will increase.”
Former finance minister Rizal Ramli told the Post the international community would judge Yudhoyono’s performance based on his ability to resolve the Century case.
“His image will be tarnished if he fails,” he said, adding 2010 would be a testing year for the government.
Boni called on Yudhoyono to reshuffle his Cabinet to get the most out of it, and remove ministers found wanting in doing their jobs. (nia)
