[Ada banyak kisah menarik di Indonesia sekarang ini, malangnya ramai mungkin tidak berminat untuk membacanya sedangkan banyak pengajaran yang dapat diperolehi.

Hari ini akhbar the Age (Australia) meyiarkan satu rencana bertajuk 'Megawati shakes hands, business shakes heads' sambil memetik satu kata menarik:

"We thought at this stage Megawati would be locked in crucial urgent talks to nail down the cabinet. Instead, she's gone off shaking hands."

Berbalik kepada rencana ini satu kes trajik telah berlaku. Hakim yang menjatuhkan hukuman terhadap Tommy Suharto telahpun ditembak mati semalam. Pemerhati ragu Megawati akan memburu keluarga Suharto kerana suaminya sendiri seperti tidak merestui.

Indonesia telah membiarkan Suharto berkuasa terlalu lama sehingga ramai menjadi punah atau takut termasuk suami Megawati dan Gus Dur sendiri. Kroni menjadi terlalu berkuasa dan jahat sehingga mereka ditakuti. Itu juga telah berlaku di Malaysia kerana sudah ada banyak kes bunuh secara misteri.....
- Editor]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/A53727-2001Jul26.html

Megawati Hits Snags in Opening Days of Presidency

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Washington Post Foreign Service

Thursday, July 26, 2001; 12:11 PM

JAKARTA, Indonesia, July 26 - Just three days after Indonesia's first-ever peaceful transfer of power, Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri today began to confront many of the same contentious political forces that toppled her predecessor.

The national assembly, which in an unprecented display of unity chose Megawati Monday, elected an unlikely politician to serve as her deputy: the leader of conservative Muslim party who had argued that women are not fit to be president.

The bitterly divided assembly also gave strong support to the leader of a political party associated with former dictator Suharto, a result that effectively compels her to give the party a sizable chunk of seats in her coalition cabinet if she wants to maintain good relations with parliament.

Her disgraced predecessor, Abdurrahman Wahid, finally ended an awkward standoff by leaving the presidential palace, but he vowed to return to lead an opposition movement to her government, saying that she would be manipulated by the military and corrupt business interests.

And in a brazen daylight attack that helped to stoke fears that corruption cases involving those close to Suharto may be mothballed, a judge who sentenced Suharto's youngest son to jail on graft charges was assassinated this morning as he was driving to work.

"It looks like the honeymoon is over," said a Western diplomat here. "Now she is going to have to deal with the same political infighting - and the same forces that do not want reform - as Wahid did."

The new vice president, Hamzah Haz, is the leader of the country's third-largest political party, the Muslim-oriented United Development Party. In 1999, after Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle won the most votes in general elections, putting her in position to become president, Hamzah helped galvanize a Muslim alliance that opposed her because of her gender. His efforts resulted in Wahid's ascension to the presidency.

Hamzah, 61, has since moderated his views, arguing in recent months that Megawati was preferable to Wahid, who was accused of incompetence and corruption. Nevertheless, one legislator with Megawati's party said it could prove "a challenge for them to work together."

Although the vice presidency has been a largely ceremonial job in past administrations, analysts said Hamzah will be particularly powerful because of expectations that she will not immerse herself in policy formation or day-to-day government operations.

He defeated five other candidates, among them Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former army general who served as Wahid's top security minister, and Akbar Tandjung, the leader of the Golkar party, which was Suharto's political machine.

It took three rounds of voting, however, before Hamzah was able to garner a majority of ballots.

Legislators said Tandjung's strong showing in the contest also poses a headache for Megawati, who wants to minimize the parliamentary opposition that helped lead to Wahid's downfall. He has demanded a large share of seats in her cabinet, giving his party greater control over government policy, otherwise he has suggested Golkar could emerge as a thorny opposition force.

Tandjung, the speaker of the House of Representatives, said his party would keep an eye on Megawati's government. "If they make any mistakes . . . you know what happened with Gus Dur," he said, referring to Wahid by his nickname.

While giving away cabinet posts to rival parties helps to mollify them, analysts and diplomats said it is a primary cause of political gridlock in Indonesia because ministers are not always loyal to the president's agenda.

Analysts said Hamzah, who had threatened to have his party boycott Megawati's cabinet if he did not win the vice presidency, could help her by preventing Muslim parties from undermining the new administration. "He gives her legitimacy among the Muslims," said Azyumardi Azra, the rector of the State University of Islamic Studies in Jakarta.

At the same time, Azyumardi said Hamzah is not regarded as a fundamentalist who would push for radical religious policies. "He has fashioned himself as a conservative for political support but he really is more of a moderate," Azyumardi said.

A few hours after Hamzah was elected, Wahid finally departed the presidential palace to travel to the United States for a medical examination. After leaving the sprawling grounds, where he had been holed up since the assembly voted on Monday to remove him, he stopped to speak to several thousand of his followers who had congregated outside, telling them he would "come back and continue fighting for democracy."

He said he would join forces with Megawati's estranged sister, Rachmawati, to push for democratic reforms. His close supporters said he has not ruled out a return to politics, although they said his first priority would be to set up a policy institute.

In an interview with a group of reporters earlier in the day, Wahid argued that Megawati's government would be controlled by military officials and corrupt business leaders.

"I am painting a gloomy picture," Wahid said in his office in the presidential palace.

"Indonesia will be looted," he said. "There will be no law and human rights will be nowhere."

Wahid, 61, a nearly blind Muslim cleric with liberal views, was regarded as a leader who would help smooth the country's stormy transition from dictatorship to democracy by attacking the culture of graft and human-rights abuses that flourished under Suharto. But he proved to be erratic and antagonistic, spending much of his 21-month tenure picking fights with his allies and creating new political problems for himself.

Today, he blamed his ouster on political elites who wanted to protect their personal interests. "I underestimated the opportunism of politicians, their lust for power and their fear of being brought to the courts for law violations."

Earlier today, two men on motorcycles assassinated the judge who sentenced Tommy Suharto to 18 months in jail for his role in a multi-million-dollar land scam. The judge, Syafiuddin Kartasasita, 61, was shot five times at close range through the window of his car as he drove to his office, police said.

Tommy is the only member of the Suharto clan to have been convicted of a crime, but he disappeared in November after a warrant for his arrest was issued and he has not been seen in public since.

Anti-graft activists have expressed concern that Megawati would cease efforts to investigate and prosecute Suharto and his children for corruption. Megawati's influential husband, Taufik Kiemas, recently told a local magazine that the former dictator's family should not be made to face "this kind of suffering."