Richard W. Baker: INDONESIAN LEADERS PUT COUNTRY AHEAD OF THEMSELVES

Date: 07-23-2001

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INDONESIAN LEADERS MUST PUT COUNTRY AHEAD OF THEMSELVES

HONOLULU (July 23) -- Indonesia's political elite must now put their country's needs ahead of their own in order for new leader Megawati Sukarnoputri to succeed, the East-West Center's Indonesia specialist said.

That includes allowing Megawati to choose a competent cabinet rather than rely on politicians who are pursuing individual agendas and lobbying for positions that will give them control of financial resources, said Richard W. Baker, a senior fellow at the Center and former U.S. diplomat who served in Indonesia.

"The precedent is that everybody gets behind the new person and then tries to get a piece of the action to serve their own interests," Baker said. Indications of this tendency are already apparent in jockeying among the parties for the vacant vice presidency and representation in the cabinet. "This is not the time for politics as usual. Megawati has to be given the ability to pick her people on the basis of competence and to develop a set of policies that realistically meet the country's needs."

The supreme consultative assembly (MPR) voted today in an emergency session to end President Abdurrahman Wahid's term three years early and to hand leadership to Megawati, his vice president.

Baker noted that Indonesia has many competent leaders who are dedicated to solving their country's massive problems. "The difficulty has been that the overall political system has compromised and ultimately stifled much of the good that some of the more capable and nationally oriented advisers have been trying to pursue."

Richard W. Baker can be reached at (808) 396-6021 or (808) 944-7371, and bakerr@eastwestcenter.org

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