BY MAX LANE
JAKARTA — If opponents of President Abdurrahman Wahid have their way, when it meets on May 30 the Indonesian parliament will call a special session of the People's Consultative Assembly, the only body which has the power to impeach and oust the president, for as early as late July.
The session of the DPR, the house of representatives, has been called to consider President Abdurrahman Wahid's response to a second parliamentary censure motion passed against him for alleged involvement in financial misappropriations.
Wahid has so far indicated that he will not respond to the parliament's censure motion, and has stated that he believes the special commission which prepared it broke the law by attempting to carry out a police-style investigation. The prosecutor's office is now investigating the president's allegations.
But within the DPR, an agreement already appears to have been reached by vice-president Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and the Suharto-era forces — the former dictator's Golkar party, the armed forces and the right-wing Muslim Central Axis — to call a special session of the People's Consultative Assembly (the MPR) to get rid of Wahid.
Fearful of a backlash if they are too aggressive, both Golkar and the TNI have chosen, for the time being, to accept a Sukarnoputri government.
But, with Wahid's fate seeming more and more sealed, manoeuvring is intensifying among the different factions of the Indonesian ruling class to position themselves to get the biggest slice of power under the next regime.
Military's manoeuvring
Indonesia's powerful armed forces, the TNI, has been particularly aggressive in seeking to strengthen its bargaining position.
In an attempt to ratchet up tensions, armed forces chief General Endriartono Sutarto has several times told media outlets that the TNI would oppose any attempt by Wahid to disband parliament so as to prevent a special session of the MPR.
The Indonesian media — still owned by the crony capitalists of the Suharto period, including Suharto's children — has used such statements to depict the TNI as the defender of the constitution against a cornered and desperate president ready to resort to unconstitutional methods.
Wahid has repeatedly denied that there is any plan to issue such a decree and has never made any public comments about it. The issue became a hot topic after a Central Axis politician said someone who had breakfasted with Wahid had mentioned such a possibility.
The TNI further escalated its offensive when Central Axis politicians launched another rumour that Wahid had met with reformist generals and was preparing to dismiss Sutarto and other top generals.
Military leaders immediately responded by saying that, while respecting the prerogatives of the president as supreme commander of the armed forces, such a move would have to be done in accordance with military procedures.
Golkar and Central Axis politicians, as well as many retired generals, then started to appear in the media echoing the TNI's criticisms, both of the decree and of the prospect of Sutarto's replacement.
All this continued despite repeated statements by Wahid and his spokespersons that no such changes were planned and that the rumours were "beat-ups by the press".
The TNI's offensive only slowed after a May 20 meeting between Wahid, Sutarto and other senior generals when the president again made it clear to the generals that there were no plans to replace them.
Golkar 'supports' Sukarnoputri
For its part, Suharto's former ruling party Golkar has now made it clear that it will support vice-president Megawati Sukarnoputri for the presidency, as has the Central Axis, which had previously opposed her candidacy.
Golkar chairperson Akbar Tanjung has sought to present himself as both taking a hard line against Wahid and supporting a compromise between the president and the vice-president.
Tanjung and his party, however, are still somewhat constrained in their manoeuvring by public memories of Golkar's role under the dictatorship.
These memories have been refreshed by the anti-Golkar campaign waged by the People's Democratic Party (the PRD) and radical student organisations in February and March. In April, sentiment was such that, even while forced to agree to a new head of the Supreme Court closely associated with Golkar, Wahid also announced a Supreme Court review of whether the party should be put on trial for crimes during the Suharto period.
Neither Wahid nor Sukarnoputri are capable of countering the Golkar-TNI juggernaut. The president has repeatedly failed to lend support to anti-Golkar campaigns, despite occasional statements in support of democratic measures such as lifting the ban on Marxism or calling a referendum in the troubled province of Aceh.
His organised support base in the National Awakening Party and the religious organisation Nahdlatul Ulama, both riven by factions, has always pulled back from a confrontation with the Suharto-era forces at the last minute.
To date, Sukarnoputri has remained silent on all major democratic issues. While Wahid, other cabinet members and even various parliamentarians have condemned recent burnings of left-wing books by right-wing extremists, for example, the vice-president made no statements.
There has been a series of attempts since February to gather together any and all elements opposed to the forces of the old dictatorship into a united front.
Some, like the very broad National Reconciliation Campaign, have broken up quickly. Others, like the Disband Golkar Alliance, have held several successful actions. But all have been ad hoc and none have developed into a permanent alliance that could act as a strong and effective counter-force to Golkar and the TNI.
The recent moves by the TNI and the impending removal of Wahid have forced another attempt to bring together such forces.
According to the chairperson of the Central Leadership Council of the PRD, Haris Rusli, the party has now succeeded in organising such a new formation, the Anti New Order Coalition, the KAOB.
The coalition's first meeting brought together 20 representatives of the PRD, a section of Wahid's Nahdlatul Ulama, a coalition of small Muslim parties, a grouping representing most active pro-democratic student groups and the social democratic grouping PIJAR.
Several prominent intellectuals and professional figures were also present, including human rights lawyer Hendardi, the outspoken Golkar critic Arbi Sanit and the former secretary-general of the National Mandate Party (PAN), Faisal Basri, who left PAN after it went into alliance with Golkar.
According to Rusli, KAOB may try to hold a protest action as early as May 29, but admitted that one uncertainty was whether or not the Nahdlatul Ulama elements would hold to the agreement or fade away again.
The KAOB is also planning to begin immediate efforts to expand its membership, including by attracting high-profile individuals, including Rachmawati Sukarnoputri, who has been critical of her sister Megawati's attempts to undermine Wahid.
Rusli also emphasised that the effort to regroup all the most advanced elements of the pro-democracy movement must eventually lead to some kind of permanent alliance.