Global News Journal

Ordinary Indonesians mourn loss of Finance Minister Indrawati

By Sunanda Creagh

The decision by Indonesia’s reformist Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati to move to the World Bank must have thrilled those politicians who lobbied hard to dethrone her and derail her anti-corruption drive. But if letters to the editor in the local media are any guide, Indonesia’s ‘wong cilik’ or the little people, as the man on the street is called here — are in mourning. “It was a black Wednesday in the history of our nation,” read one reader’s letter to the Jakarta Post. “One of the most honest and qualified people and someone who is known as the hope, finally succumbed to political pressure by the political elite that prefer to remain.” Many letter-writers have begged her to return in 2014 to run for president, while others have expressed fears that, without her, Indonesia will return to the bad old days of cronyism. “We didn’t want to see you driven out. Take pity on the people of Indonesia!” one reader, Daslam Al Maliki, wrote on the Indonesian-language news website Tempo Interaktif. Indrawati, as well as being a widely respected economist, is a notoriously tough cookie who stood up to powerful businessmen and politicians who wanted the rules bent in their favour. In retaliation, she was made the target of an inquiry into the 2008 decision to bail out the ailing Bank Century.

Chief among her detractors was Golkar, the party of former President Suharto, now headed by business magnate and politician Aburizal Bakrie. Her departure has also been met with a deafening silence from the country’s business elite. Few among Indonesia’s tycoons seem sad to see the back of a politician who made it her mission to end collusion between powerful businessmen and crooked officials and lawmakers. Several have paid lip service to her abilities as an economist but no-one — except the distressed letter-writers — appears to be pleading for her to stay. The yawning gap between the reponses of the public on the one hand and the political and business elite on the other underlines how out of touch those in power are with their constituents. Last year’s elections were fought over the issue of reform, the fight against corruption, as means to deliver better economic growth and more jobs in a country of high unemployment and underemployment. A recent poll by the Indonesian Survey Institute found that those parties that pushed hardest to investigate Indrawati and the Bank Century bailout decision have actually lost support. Political analysts and economists are now wondering if her departure is a sign that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s commitment to institutional reform is flagging. “What is wrong with Indonesia? While the top brains are needed to run this country, even the President approves this brain drain,” one reader, ‘Walt’, wrote in the Jakarta Post. Not all letter-writers are Indrawati fans; several are suspicious she is leaving the country to avoid further questioning over the Bank Century case, an allegation Indrawati has dismissed. But to many Indonesians, her bruising political battles have turned her into a national heroine while her new job on the international stage will bring prestige to Indonesia Indrawati herself appears relieved and happy she is moving on to a job that will, hopefully, involve a little less mud-slinging. “Don’t cry for me, Indonesia. I go for the good of all,” read one headline in the Jakarta Post, a wry reference to Argentinian leader Evita Peron.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sri Mulyani Indrawati addresses reporters. REUTERS/Enny Nuraheni

Indonesia goes for digital people power

By Sunanda Creagh

Just over a decade ago, Indonesians took to the streets to protest. Now they can make themselves heard without even leaving home.

A Facebook group supporting two senior officials from the anti-corruption agency, who many people think have been framed, has attracted almost half a million members in just four days.

This digital people power may well be one reason why on Monday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono launched a probe into the case.

It’s the second time Facebook has played such an important role in a public debate in Indonesia. Earlier this year, thousands “rallied” online in support of a woman who had been charged with defamation for complaining about her treatment in hospital.

Indonesia is the world’s seventh-biggest user of the social networking site, according to Inside Facebook, and 8.23 million of its 8.52 million Facebook addicts joined up in the last year. The new information minister, Tifatul Sembiring, is a daily user of microblogging site Twitter, and says he wants to use it to seek policy ideas.

Indonesia’s election: faster, better … boring?

By Sara Webb

It takes India weeks to complete an election and it never passes without flashes of violence.

But the much younger democracy of Indonesia voted calmly for their president on Wednesday and got the voting over in five hours with a good indication of the result — a second term for the reformist ex-general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono — out just a couple of hours later.

“Faster, Better,” was the racy campaign slogan of Jusuf Kalla, one of Yudhoyono’s challengers. He trailed in a distant

third, but his rally cry somehow seems fitting for the country’s remarkable journey since the chaotic coda of President Suharto’s authoritarian rule a decade ago.

And yet if you talk to many Indonesians, they’ll tell you that the whole campaign, which kicked off in January and encompassed parliamentary elections before Wednesday’s vote, has been one long bore.

The series of televised debates by the presidential and vice presidential candidates were so polite and deferential, so Javanese really, that it was hard at times to believe that here were three teams actually competing against each other. Perhaps it’s unfair to mention it on his victory day, but Yudhoyono himself has been known to send listener’s off to sleep with his speeches.

Indonesia: To hell and back

By Dean Yates

(The author lived in Indonesia from 1992-1995 and 2000-2005, with various assignments in between)

It was not that long ago that Indonesia was lurching from crisis to crisis, even drawing some (misplaced) predictions it could go the way of the former Yugoslavia and break apart. These days it rarely makes the front page. It has a steady president in Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, probably the freest press in Southeast Asia and political violence appears to be a thing of the past. The last major bomb attack blamed on Islamic militants was in 2005.

It’s worth recalling how bad things were in Indonesia as this country of 226 million people prepares to vote in parliamentary elections on Thursday, which will set the stage for the more important presidential poll in July. The parliamentary election will be the third time voters in the world’s most populous Muslim nation have elected their representatives at a national level since the downfall of former autocrat Suharto in 1998. As the Wall Street Journal noted in an editorial on April 8, Indonesia shows that democracy and Islam aren’t mutually exclusive.

All this progress seemed so unlikely early in 1998 when the country’s economy was in freefall. It’s hard to imagine a currency losing 85 percent of its value, but that’s what happened to the rupiah when the Asian financial crisis savaged Indonesia. I remember stunned Indonesian colleagues in the Reuters Jakarta bureau, their hands on their head, as the rupiah crashed to a low of 17,000 to the U.S. dollar. Months before, one U.S. dollar bought 2,500 rupiah. Food prices soared and the “wong cilik”, or little people, rebelled. Food riots hit markets. Protests escalated. Students demanded democratic change. Then Suharto — under pressure from the International Monetary Fund — hiked fuel prices on May 4, 1998. A week later, violence exploded, killing 1,200 people in Jakarta. Suharto was forced out a few days later.   

After three decades of authoritarian rule that combined rapid economic growth with political repression and breathtaking corruption, Suharto’s “New Order” government had collapsed. It was replaced by a vacuum. Communal animosity that had simmered for years in the eastern Moluccas, an idyllic group of islands evenly split between Muslims and Christians, erupted. Thousands were killed. President Abdurrahman Wahid, an affable moderate Muslim cleric with a penchant for cracking jokes, was toppled in 2001 in an impeachment vote, effectively for incompetence.

International perceptions of Indonesia, already pretty grim, got worse in 2002 when Islamic militants bombed two nightclubs in Bali, killing 202 people, mostly foreign tourists. As I stepped over debris the following morning, bits of flesh still under twisted metal, all I could think of was why?Why Bali? Why this beautiful island? The answer was obvious of course — kill holidaymakers enjoying themselves on one of the world’s most famous islands and you will get the world’s attention.

The political price of recession

As journalists, we spend a lot of time watching politicians and policies to guage their impact on financial markets and economies. Now, as recession takes an inexorable hold in the Asia-Pacific region, we’re watching for the impact on politicians themselves.

 So far there has been no repeat of the political upheaval triggered by Asia’s economic crisis a decade ago, which culminated in the ignominious resignation of President Suharto in Indonesia and the ouster of Thailand’s prime minister (see previous blog). There are no food riots as there were back then, and Asians are not crowding at  banks’ doors to rescue their savings.

The Economist magazine argues this week that Asia’s economic downturn will be milder than the one it endured a decade ago, when Asian governments begged households to be hand over their jewellery to be melted down to bolster official reserves.

That seems to be the consensus view. The president of the Asian Development Bank, for instance, argued in a speech this month that the region was well positioned to weather the global downturn and predicted that it should “avoid a full-fledged financial crisis”.

So can the region’s politicians breathe easily? Probably not.

In New Zealand earlier this month, Helen Clark’s nine-year-old Labour government was bounced from power by voters. Analysts reckon she was always heading for defeat at the hands of an electorate ready for change, but any hopes that she would make a last-minute comeback were dashed by the economy’s slide into recession.