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Embattled Wahid fights on
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THE political pressure on Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid is growing by the hour. He has been written off before, yet survived to fight again. This time, he may not be so lucky.
The half-blind Muslim cleric, whose Nation Awakening Party controls only 10 per cent of the Lower House of parliament, has been written off numerous times since becoming the country's first democratically elected president in October 1999, but he has always managed to live to fight on. That may be changing.
His survival strategy in the latest bruising encounter with the nation's legislators appears to be no different from the past. The House of Representatives agreed late on February 1, without a vote, to embark on the road to impeachment by issuing a memorandum of censure over Wahid's alleged involvement in two multimillion-dollar financial scandals. Once again, Wahid came out fighting, deciding that attack was his best form of defence.
Wahid has insisted he is innocent and will stay in power until his mandate ends in 2004. Instead, he turned his fire on the legislators who had voted 393-4 to approve the report that implicated him in the embezzlement of US$4 million from the state commodity regulator Bulog, and the misuse of a US$2 million aid donation from the Sultan of Brunei.
It remains to be seen whether this tactic will pay off. Many legislators, whom Wahid once described as kindergarten kids, believe the president's actions over the next three months will make little difference. They fear he is now living on borrowed time.
Wahid's problem is that his critics believe no amount of time would be sufficient to resuscitate his presidency, because of the nature of the charges against him. “[Things] cannot be changed now," said Ade Komaruddin, a member of the former ruling party, Golkar, “because this is about KKN (Indonesian acroynms referring to corruption, collusion and nepotism), not policy."
Much of Wahid's attraction before his election was that he was seen as a clean, moral crusader who would not stand for corruption in his government. But, while few people believe Wahid has used his office to amass a personal fortune, there are mounting accusations that he is currying favours among wealthy tycoons to build a war chest for his party to fight the next general election.
He has also made enemies through his erratic and controversial style of government. Threats to dissolve the House of Representatives and mobilize tens of thousands of supporters from his heartland of East Java have not endeared him to parliament.
Wahid's supporters have fought back with mass demonstrations, mostly in East Java, Wahid's political support base.
Around 10,000 people protested in Jember city, East Java on Tuesday demanding Wahid stay on as president.
Some analysts expect Wahid to survive for now because of fears of violence if he loses office and the complexity of the impeachment proceedings.
Ordinary Indonesians and some legislators have urged reconciliation among the country's fractured political elite, anxious that the violent protests and constant bickering threaten to jeopardize the country's fragile transition to democracy.
The speaker of Indonesia's Lower House, Akbar Tanjung, has indicated he may support a proposed power-sharing deal between Wahid and his vice-president Megawati Sukarnoputri as a peaceful solution to the country's leadership crisis.
But Tanjung said he may still back the holding of a special upper house session at which Wahid could be impeached.
Neither Wahid nor Megawati has commented directly on the proposal, though Megawati has said that her father, the country's founding President Sukarno and his vice-president Mohamad Hatta ran the country together “despite their differences".
Last year, in the previous rounds of the battle, analysts said one of Wahid's greatest advantages was that there was a lack of suitable alternatives. But now, with the level of antipathy against him so great — on February 1 one of the country's most respected scholars, Nurcholish Madjid, turned against him — anyone is considered better than Wahid. That may work in the favour of Megawati, whose Indonesian Democratic Struggle Party has enough seats to block Wahid's impeachment — if they choose to save him.
The politically powerful military is also key to Wahid's survival. Key generals went out of their way early this month to distance themselves from the repeated warning by Defence Minister Mahfud MD that a coup cannot be ruled out. The police chief has similarly expressed his loyalty to the constitutionally elected president. But even if the army stays on the sidelines, the knives have been out for Wahid for months. His critics believe it is now just a question of how and when they deliver the fatal wound.
Born in Jombang, East Java, on August 4, 1940, Wahid, affectionately known as Gus Dur, is the oldest of six brothers. His farther, A Wahid Hasyim, was a religion minister.
Wahid studied at a number of traditional Islamic boarding schools in Java before undertaking tertiary level studies at the Al-Azhar Islamic University in Cairo, Egypt, in 1964. From Al-Azhar he went on to further study in the field of literature at the University of Baghdad in Iraq in 1966.
In December 1984, Wahid was elected general chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), a party founded by his grandfather, and re-elected in 1989 and 1994, for five-year terms.
In the early years of his chairmanship of NU, the government welcomed his presence as a voice for moderation and stability. In several years before he was elected president in 1999, however, he had increasingly been seen as an opposition figure as he, together with some leading intellectuals, launched the ginger group “Democratic Forum" to campaign for political reform. His public criticism of former President Suharto had put him under considerable political pressure.
Wahid upholds Islamic education. He was married to Nuriyah in 1968 and has four children.(SD-Agencies)
Educated in Indonesia, Egypt, Iraq and Canada, the frail 59-year-old has long had a reputation for religious tolerance and moderate politics. But can he work out a political reconciliation this time?
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