On 21 May 1998, devastating
economic crisis has forced
President Soeharto to step down from power.
After that,
Indonesia has been experiencing the process of transformation from an authoritarian rule to a
liberal democracy. This process is popularly known in Bahasa
Indonesia as
" Reformasi ".
And today, 12 years after
" Reformasi ", I wonder whether the whole process has been beneficial for the Indonesian people, or merely for a bunch of politicians.
In this regards, I quoted a relevant article in
Kompas (below).
12 Years after Soeharto, Indonesians Fear for 'Reformasi'
Jumat, 21 Mei 2010 | 12:01 WIB
JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Twelve years after the dawning of Indonesia’s ’Reformasi’ movement with the resignation of military strongman Soeharto, there are fears the country of 240 million people is on a slipperly slope backwards. No one disputes how far Indonesia has come: the economy is booming and last year’s peaceful elections brought political stability by returning Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to the presidency for a second five-year term.
The massive street protests, bloody anti-Chinese riots and economic ruin that marked the last days of Soeharto's "New Order" regime are in the past, and Indonesia is demanding a greater say in world affairs. But on the 12th anniversary of Suharto’s resignation Friday, all is not well with ’Reformasi’, the sweeping popular movement for democratic change that energised reform across the vast archipelago for more than a decade.
Some analysts fear the tide may be turning back in favour of Suharto-style cronyism and a political and business elite that has never, they say, relinquished power.
“There is not much difference between Soeharto’s time and now. It’s just that Soeharto’s cronies have been replaced by new cronies,” economist Martin Panggabean said.
Analysts express concern about persistent, widespread corruption, a lack of government transparency, a culture of impunity for human rights abuses and the increasing use of draconian libel laws to muzzle critics.
Such fears came to a head earlier this month with the shock resignation of finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, an independent economist who frequently clashed with reactionary forces within the ruling coalition.
Indrawati won international accolades for keeping Southeast Asia’s biggest economy growing throughout the global downturn while battling to clean up the graft-riddled tax and customs offices.
But her lonely campaign received little more than rhetorical support from Yudhoyono, and eventually her position became untenable in the face of constant attacks from the Golkar party, Soeharto’s largely unreformed political vehicle. Speaking to business leaders earlier this week, the outgoing minister compared the current situation to the crony-dictatorship of Soeharto, who died in hospital in January, 2008.
“We have learnt from the 30-year regime of president Soeharto, where relationships between personal and public interests were so mixed-up,” she said. “We all knew — what occurred during the New Order era was like a disease. But at that time it was done behind closed doors. Now it’s more sophisticated and the skills of power enable the decision-making process to be co-opted.”
In what some observers interpreted as a parting shot at the ruling elite before she starts her new job as a World Bank director next month, she said the current system worked like a “cartel” or a “same-sex marriage”. “You can see for yourselves, government officials with business backgrounds, even though they say they have put aside all their businesses, everyone knows that their siblings, their children, who knows who else from their families, are still running the firms,” she said.
The comments were reported as a stab at Golkar party chief Aburizal Bakrie, seen as the architect of the campaign to remove Indrawati after she tried to bring his vast business empire under the rule of law.
Within days of her resignation, and after secret talks with Yudhoyono, Bakrie had been appointed to lead a new “secretariat” tasked with overseeing the ruling coalition.
Analysts said a key test for ’Reformasi’ will be whether an investigation launched by Indrawati into 210 million dollars in allegedly unpaid taxes by Bakrie-linked mining companies is brought to trial or swept under the carpet.
