Two stories about President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's activities should have made front-page headlines, but instead were buried inside or were simply ignored by the mainstream media. The first one was his plan to grant a presidential pardon to 500 people under the age of 18 serving time for crimes following his visit to a juvenile penitentiary near Jakarta. The second is his decision to revamp government social services, targeting them to better serve the poor, weak, disabled and elderly.
The media is partly to blame for missing out on these events, going instead for the sensational and scandalous. Indonesia is never short of controversies and the media is going for what sells to the public.
But this also reflects the failure of the President to take the initiatives and lead the nation through his agenda. SBY made an attempt last week to shift the nation's focus away from petty politics to dealing with more important and mundane social issues such as helping the poor, the marginalized, and children. Handled properly, these stories would have been a welcome change for a public weary of political scandals, including the story of the ongoing inquiry by the House of Representatives into the 2008 Bank Century bailout.
What are the spin doctors at the presidential palace doing? They should be helping SBY take charge of the national agenda and lead the nation. Since SBY began his second term in office in October, the nation's attention has been consumed mostly by stories of scandals and controversies, not so much by his activities.
These are sensational stories whose outcomes can't be controlled. Presently, the national agenda lacks focus and direction. The president's agenda is clear, but this is not being cascaded properly to the public. Either there is just no leadership on his part, or the president's spin doctors are napping.
Or as in the case of the Communication and Information Technology Ministry, supposedly one of the president's propaganda departments, it has been busy trying to figure out how to control content on the Internet. The draft regulation circulating in public last week prompted a massive public outcry, with critics claiming that it smacked of censorship. Sensing the damage to his own democratic credentials, the President publicly rebuked Minister Tifatul Sembiring. Tifatul has agreed to drop the plan altogether if it is viewed as contravening freedom of speech.
This is another one of many unnecessary controversies we are seeing in the recent past that consume much of our time and attention, which would have been better channeled toward more productive issues. This one was started by a government agency, which should be helping the President shape the national agenda, not undermining it.
It seems that this is the price the nation has to pay as it learns to practice democracy, and that rather than addressing the most important issues, we would much prefer to deal with popular political issues.
The Bank Century case epitomizes this. The House's special committee failed this week to find any connection between the bailout money and SBY's Democratic Party campaign coffers. Now the committee is writing its final report. With no evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of the people who issued the bailout, the matter is reduced to the question of whether the bailout decision was made with the right judgment.
This is a Rp 6.76 trillion question that would be the subject of behind-the-scene negotiations between SBY and the coalition partners in the government. If he plays his cards right, the President could seal a favorable conclusion and save Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Vice President Boediono, who was Bank Indonesia governor at the time of the 2008 bailout. A House report damning Sri Mulyani and Boediono for their decision would make it difficult for the two to stay in their current jobs because they would lose all political legitimacy.
Otherwise, this has been another ordinary week for Indonesia, with new allegations of corruption against the Foreign Ministry, questions about the unusual wealth of Hadi Purnomo, the chief of the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) who became "filthy rich" while he was chief of the tax office, and also allegations of sexual harassment against spiritual guru Anand Krishna by two former disciples.
Facebook is on trial this week with tales of young girls going missing after making acquaintances with people through the social networking site and another of a young woman who duped others of millions of rupiah by luring them to invest in her. It is good to hear Women's Empowerment and Children Protection Minister Linda Gumelar quickly stating that there was nothing wrong with Facebook, in spite of the negative publicity it has had this week. She preempted the conservative Council of Indonesian Ulemas which is bound to come up with a fatwa making Facebook haram. For once, the government has a head start on the ulemas.
That's the kind of leadership we wish to see more of in the government.
One wishes this was a more productive week for the nation.
As a nascent democracy, we have to accept that the nation will have to address all its immediate as well as long term challenges at the same time. Some of these issues may distract us from our long term perspective, but we can't suppress them and expect them to go away.
- Endy M. Bayuni
