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View point: GBHN and the assurance of sustainable development
Megawati Soekarnoputri, chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), received wide publicity when she addressed the partyâs national working meeting here on Sunday last week
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Megawati Soekarnoputri, chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), received wide publicity when she addressed the party's national working meeting here on Sunday last week. The event coincided with the 43rd anniversary of the party, which was established on Jan. 10, 1973, as the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) before it was renamed PDI-P in October 1998.
Megawati, the eldest daughter of founding president Sukarno and the fifth president of the country, took the opportunity at the event to propose the 'selective' restoration of the People's Consultative Assembly's (MPR) authority to establish State Policy Guidelines (GBHN), a document that details the direction and objectives of the state for five years in advance ' one leadership term for a president.
The PDI-P leader proposed the amendment of the 1945 Constitution as an entry point to reviving the idea of a long-term national development cycle as practiced by the country's second president, Soeharto. The idea itself was first introduced by Sukarno, but it was Soeharto who made it into reality when he launched in 1969 a 25-year national development program, which was then popularly known by the acronym Repelita. (See thejakartapost.com/news/2012/05/27/chinathebiggerbetter.html.)
In Megawati's ' and officially her party's ' words, the long-term development program is now named the Universal National Development Plan.
Speaking before the party's executives from the national level to its regional branches, Megawati said the idea to restore the selected roles of the MPR and its authority to establish the GBHN-like policy guidelines came to her because of her and her party's concern over disconnection between national and regional development programs. It was also exacerbated by the fact that the state's vision tended to change every time a leader was elected.
'It's a shame that the practice of democracy is often reduced to a five-year cycle of mission statement changes,' she said, in particular reference to different policies taken by different presidents in the last two decades.
Each president has their own platform and style, so the continuity of national development could be at stake in the absence of such a grand design. That is apparently the logic behind Megawati's and her party's initiative.
The initiative to revive the practice of state policy guidelines and establish a blueprint for long-term development deserves praise as such practices proved effective in bringing the nation out of poverty and elevating its status among developing and developed nations worldwide.
In order to swing its campaign into action, the PDI-P definitely cannot carry this giant program all alone. The party initially has to win recognition and support from other political entities in the republic, including political parties, the House of Representatives as the current supreme law-making body, the MPR as the legislative institution that is expected to establish and enact the state policy guidelines if they became operational, the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) and the general public.
Further, the PDI-P must be able to convince all those political entities, particularly the House whose membership consists of factions of political parties that have secured votes in the legislative election. Real support for the PDI-P's initiative would require a large segment of the House to be behind it when it comes to voting on the matter.
The PDI-P could also use President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo, who is also a PDI-P cadre, to help gain wider support from other political elements in the country. With Jokowi's relatively consistent popularity with the general public, it would perhaps be much easier for him to win support for any maneuvers, particularly popular ones such as these issues of state policy guidelines and long-term development programs.
There is a long way to go as other parties might disagree with the concept and cause the idea to fail.
In this case, the PDI-P and its cadres must strive to convince other political elements in the country, particularly other political parties, that the proposal is the best solution for settling problems of disconnection between central and regional governments and to settle problems of discontinuity between national development programs from one president to another.
There are a number of constitutional options for the PDI-P and other parties ' represented by their political factions in the House of Representatives ' to use to try to move forward with the ambition of establishing their new state policy guidelines and with it, the long-term national development plan.
They can start by first agreeing to make it the role of the MPR to establish the guidelines as well as restore the long-term national development plan. Otherwise, the idea will lack the constitutional umbrella needed for it to be put into action by the president.
Or, the political parties could also proceed by including terms of reference for the establishment of the guidelines and the long-term development program into a number of laws that would authorize its implementation. The only problem with the second alternative is that it lacks conceptual consideration of the key objectives.
The idea to revive the role of the MPR to establish state policy guidelines and a long-term national development plan is noble indeed. It certainly needs support from all parts of the nation in order to succeed.
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The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.
