Jakarta - The reform movement which resulted in the ouster of authoritarian President Soeharto after ruling this world largest archipelagic country for 32 years had been facing away, as the political elite in the country failed to implement it thoroughly.
The spirit of reforms sounded by university students, academicians and religious leaders in 1998 hoping for a change in the many aspects of life through the so called people`s power movement was viewed as basis of democracy in the people`s life in Indonesia.
In reality, the reform agenda was not applied to the life of the nation with the exception of political reforms, while other agendas were still regarded as a dream which have yet to come true.
Hermawan Sulistiyo, a noted political analyst of the Indonesian Instutite of Sciences (LIPI), recently said that the country now was in need of second edition reform movement, as the reform agenda formulated ten years ago was not seriously implemented by the power elite.
"The failure in implementing the reform agenda was not a public secrecy," he said.
According to him, many of the deviations were found in regional administrations, whereas politics in the regions were mostly oriented to business transactions and often became a source of income to accumulate wealth.
Such situation in the regions, he added, was worse than ten years ago. Hence, with the second edition the reform movement a more serious commitment must be made in implementing the reform agenda.
Absence of improvement. Reforms agenda had been abused!
In the meantime, Yogyakarta Governor Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono X believed that the first edition reform movement launched ten years ago had failed to bring benefits to the people in many aspects of their life.
The failure, according to him, was measured by the absence of an improvement in the life of the people. "Many people are still unemployed and are short of food."
According to him, the failure in implementing the reform agenda was due to the fact that the economy is still dictating the life of the power elite and certain other people.
The Sultan believed that the reform agenda had been abused. He didn`t direcly pointed to perpetrators of deviation, but said that they were those who often took advantage of the present uncertainties.
The taking advantage of the current uncertainty take the form for instance of corruption committed by some irresponsible power elite who often prioritized their own personal interest than the people`s.
To overcome all of these irregularities, the Sultan called on all activists especially the power elite to prioritize more on ethics, culture and moral values, as the measurement which was then interpreted as the second edition reforms movement.
The Sultan appealed to the central government to change its strategy from giving priority to economy, ethics, moral values and culture as the bases in implementing their policies to improve the life of the people.
On the occasion of launching a new on the Nation`s Urgent Agenda, Save Indonesia recently, Prof Dr Amien Rais, a central figure of Indonesia`s reform movement in 1998, said the reform movement has run aground and therefore fresh wind was needed to revive it.
Of various aspects of the reform agenda, only political reform has yielded something, he noted.
The people could only enjoy press freedom, political freedom as well as freedom of expression and regional autonomy, he said, adding that in the meantime, social, economic, legal and educational reforms were practically untouched.
According to him, the social aspect was marked with the constantly widening gap between the rich and the poor, while in the economy the nation had practically lost its sovereignty. "Nowadays it is power and money that count if the legal aspect, rather than justice. Justice has become negotiable," he said.
"This deplorable situation prevails in education. Only the rich can send their children to good schools," Amien said adding that the poor could only hope for the government to enjoy similar opportunities in education. But till now, the hope remains a dream yet to come true.
In reality, the poor could not get such better opportunities in education, as they cannot afford to go to good schools. Hence, many of them could not continue their study to higher learning institutions or state universities.
No wonder, Amien added, that the latest UNDP report on Indonesian human resources against the human development index (HDI), indicated that Indonesia is only in 108th rank among 177 countries.
It means that Indonesia is even inferior to war-torn Vietnam which ranks the 111th.
Indonesia is far lagging behind Malaysia in the 61st rank, followed by Thailand in the 74th rank and the Philippines in the 84th rank. This condition is exacerbated by the high education cost which had denied the poor access to higher education.
"How can we tell that the reform agenda has been implemented as expected," he said, adding that more motivation should be given to inspire the government to go ahead with the reform agenda and prevent them from running aground which is then interpretated as the second edition reform movement.
In process?
In response to the above observers` statement on reforms agenda which have run aground, Cooperatives, Small and Medium Entreprises Minister Suryadarma Ali expressed his disagreement to it.
The government was really committed to implementing the reform agenda as could be seen from the democratic life of the country and the government`s attention to improve the economy and social welfare of the people.
But he admitted that not all reform agenda could be implemented within a relatively short period. "The government is, however, still in the process of bringing reforms agenda in many respects of life to a success.
The government`s attention to help micro and small businessmen was quite high, but of course such challenges should also be taken into account.
"However, making such an improvement as ideally expected by all elements of the nation in the context of implementing the reform agenda is not like turning our hands. Implementing the agenda will also take time and therefore we have to be patient while striving hard to make the goal achievable," said Suryadarma Ali who is chairman of the United Development Party (PPP).
Source: www.antara.co.id (26 Mei 2008)
