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The week in review : Get ready for the fallout

Indonesia’s noisy democracy went up several decibels last weekend when the nation was engulfed in a debate about the government’s plan to increase the price of subsidized fuel by 33 percent

The Jakarta Post
Sun, April 8, 2012

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The week in review : Get ready for the fallout

I

ndonesia’s noisy democracy went up several decibels last weekend when the nation was engulfed in a debate about the government’s plan to increase the price of subsidized fuel by 33 percent. The street protests, led by students and workers, in several cities were overwhelming and turned violent, and even opposition parties and two members of the coalition government joined the chorus. When the matter was put to the vote in the House of Representatives, the government suffered an embarrassing defeat.

Mob power, rather than “people power” prevailed. But in the morning after, comes the political fallout. Everyone, absolutely everyone, must pay the price. There are no real winners but there are sure many losers.

The biggest losers will obviously be the people, whose interests the protesters and political parties claimed to represent when they rejected the increase in fuel prices. The government will have to fork out a much larger sum of money to cover the energy subsidy program, which by current calculations will take up as much as 15 percent of total spending in 2012. That’s throwing good taxpayers’ money after bad.

The curse of oil is still haunting Indonesia long after it stopped being self-sufficient and is increasingly depending on imports. At Rp 4,500 (50 US cents) a liter, the price of Premium gasoline in Indonesia still counts as among the cheapest in the world. Yet, almost all our elected leaders are advocating cheap oil. No one is advocating that the subsidy money would be put to better use on education, healthcare and poverty alleviation.

Sure enough, the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono tried, but not convincingly enough. This is because as late as mid-February, his Cabinet was still denying the need to raise fuel prices.

Not surprisingly, the government lost the debate both in the House and in the streets. Not a single politician genuinely came out in favor of raising fuel prices, even when the moral imperatives for it are so strong.

Students and workers have done a great job in discrediting themselves through their protests, many of which turned violent. The acid attacks on police officers and journalists covering the protests only made matters worse. It’s hard for the public to believe that they will genuinely represent the interests of the people next time they take to the streets. Pity the police officers who were torn between protecting the people’s right to express their opinion and ensuring peace and order. They are counting the bruises and the loss of police stations and vehicles set on fire by the protesters.

The House is another big loser. Some of the street protests were spontaneous because students and workers simply did not believe the elected politicians were effective in representing their interests. Some of the protesters were mobilized by the opposition parties. They were right in thinking that they could achieve through the use of the mob rule what they could not achieve through an open debate in the House. This is Indonesia after all. A decent, civilized and democratic debate on policy matters is almost unheard of here. The 560 members of the House have practically lost their right to represent the people who put them there in 2009.

The fuel price debate also showed how dysfunctional the coalition government has become. When two of the six parties in the coalition jumped ship at the most critical juncture, it became glaringly obvious that there is something wrong with the arrangement, or perhaps at the way the coalition is being led. Or both.

President Yudhoyono has to deal with the biggest fallout: The defeat both in the House and in the domain of public opinion undermines his credibility and integrity to lead. His ability to govern the nation effectively has been put in doubt. He needs to recover from this episode quickly, lest he comes to be seen by his people as a lame-duck president for the remaining two years of his term.

Just how low can this government sink?

Deputy Law and Human Rights Minister Denny Indrayana has now been told by his immediate superior, Minister Amir Syamsuddin, to stop making unannounced visits to penitentiaries after reports surfaced that he had slapped a prison guard when he made an impromptu visit to a prison in Riau.

The slapping incident aside, Denny and his team did come out with evidence of inmates and guards collaborating in running a massive drug ring from the inside. But that’s not the story that has been picked up. The slapping, whether true or not, is the big story. The prison guards are revolting, and have the support and encouragement of Director General of Correctional Facilities Sihabudin, who should be working for Denny and Amir.

The members of the House of Representative’s Commission III on legal affairs have joined in the chorus in demanding the dismissal of Denny. A controversial figure since his Cabinet appointment in October, Denny has discovered many irregularities through many of his impromptu visits. He once even caught Commission III members cutting deals with corruption suspects in jail. It appears that they are getting the revenge they had been waiting for.

The departure of Denny, if it comes to that, would be another major setback for the government’s reform agenda, the main reason Yudhoyono was reelected in 2009. The bureaucrats, the politicians and the big drug syndicates will be celebrating.

— Endy Bayuni

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