H

ave no fear Mr. President-elect, it is all just politics as usual.

If politics is '€” in the words of famed 19th century German statesman Otto von Bismarck '€” the art of the possible, the attainable, the art of the next best, then the realm of positive possibilities for the next government remains untapped.

The commotion and perceived '€œdefeats'€ within the legislature over the past fortnight by the pro-Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo coalition in the House of Representatives is no harbinger of a hung or ineffective government. It serves as a battle plan delineating trenches and identifying strengths, and thereby weaknesses, of the opposition.

The incoming administration must embrace its fate as a minority presidency.

Successful minority governments '€” be it a presidential or parliamentary system '€” are more common than failed or impeached ones.

In fact, we should not be surprised that Indonesia'€™s seventh president will be a minority president supported by a smaller coalition in the House. Minority governments are a consequence of proportional representation systems, as is the case in Indonesia.

Throughout the world minority governments have often proven themselves no less stable or effective in governance.

About a quarter of all governments in Western Europe since 1945 have lacked majority support in parliament.

Latin America since the late 1970s has seen roughly half of its governments successfully rule with the backing of a minority legislature.

Famous US presidents such as Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton served effective dual terms with a House of Representatives dominated by the opposition party.

By bracing himself as a minority president, Jokowi can calculate the possible and exercise pragmatism in distinguishing between desires and realities while balancing aspirations and resources.

There are many innovative tools of persuasion available to the executive even though the Indonesian Constitution strangely does not present a right of veto to the president as commonly found in other presidential systems.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri, for example, during her term scuttled attempts by the House to pass a law on the Batam Free Trade Zone by, among other things, postponing discussion on the bill. The free trade area was only established under the administration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono several years later.

The President also holds the keys to various budgetary allocations that could sway the way legislators vote.

Key to this all will be an improvement in the powers of lobbying and persuasion that the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P)-led coalition has performed so poorly.

The president and vice president must cultivate a network of relationships in the legislature where prior informal discussion will be the most essential part of the process. This will occur at commission levels, not at plenary sessions, given that most bills reached in an opaque process of consensus at commissions usually pass unimpeded at the plenary stage.

Hence the important role of presidential advisors and the team likely to be created for an office of the chief of staff of the president.

None of this is new in Indonesian politics. We forget that Yudhoyono himself began in 2004 as a minority president, with his own Democratic Party only garnering 7.45 percent of the vote.

Current developments merely replicate events of 2004. Except now the positions are reversed.

In his first weeks in office, the Yudhoyono administration faced a deadlock in the House.

It began as the opposition Nationhood Coalition '€” comprising the PDI-P, the Golkar Party, the Prosperous Peace Party (PDS), the Reform Star Party (PBR) and the National Awakening Party (PKB) '€” which held a majority of 275 seats in the 550 member House, demanded the selection of leadership for the House'€™s 11 committees be selected through a vote.

Meanwhile Yudhoyono'€™s People'€™s Coalition '€” comprising the Democratic Party (PD), the National Mandate Party (PAN), the United Development Party (PPP) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) '€” insisted they be proportionally
distributed.

But the impasse lasted less than two months. By mid-December, then vice president Jusuf Kalla took over Golkar and the balance within the House began to shift.

A similar scenario is also now emerging with the Prabowo-led coalition. Golkar is set to hold its leadership congress in the first quarter of 2015, while the United Development Party (PPP) no later than October 2015.

In Indonesian culture, political power is always seductive and activity focuses and clusters around those perceived to be at the height of power.

The question that mighty Golkar and the meager PPP will be asking themselves is: What gain do I have to be in absolute opposition?

Hence the Jokowi administration need not fear the roar and thunder of a cacophonic legislature, for history can be made to repeat itself.