(WSJ) Mega’s Message to Jokowi: I’m the Boss

12/12/2018

Former President Megawati Sukarnoputri this week delivered an unveiled message to President Joko Widodo: You’re a product of the party, and you remain at its service.

That suggestion, delivered during a political party speech with Mr. Widodo in attendance, reflects the power the former president still wields in national politics, and the strained ties she has with the new president, political analysts said. It might also forecast growing pressure on Mr. Widodo from the party to placate Ms. Sukarnoputri – one of his most important political sponsors – in the months to come, they added.

Megawati Sukarnoputri, chairwoman of the country’s largest party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), invoked the Constitution in laying claims to Mr. Widodo’s agenda during a national congress in Bali on Thursday. During the meeting she was re-elected chairwoman of the party she founded for the fourth straight time, for a term of five years.

Indonesia’s system of democracy “regulates that the president and vice president naturally enforce a political party’s policy line,” she said. “That’s the constitutional mechanism that we know.”

Ms. Sukarnoputri didn’t describe the price to pay for not toeing the party line, but hinted at her own battle scars after a lifetime in the political area. Before a room of party members she spoke of “many betrayals,” saying “multiple times I was stabbed in the back” because of “political ambitions for power.”

Mr. Widodo ran on the PDI-P ticket to become a mayor, Jakarta governor and now president. He was not invited to speak at the congress.

Dressed in party colors, the president listened to the speech from the front row. Afterward, he told reporters that Ms. Sukarnoputri’s message was simply that “a good leader is a leader that’s willing to serve the people.”

Political analysts saw it differently.

“Basically it was her ‘I am the boss speech’,” said Yohanes Sulaiman, a political science lecturer at the Indonesian Defense University. “She went out of her way to humiliate him.”

Hendri Satrio, a political communication analyst from Jakarta’s Paramadina University, said it was significant that a standing president wasn’t even invited to speak.

It sent a message that, “he’s just the same with everybody else, a party official,” Mr. Satrio said.

Ms. Sukarnoputri, who served as president from 2001 to 2004 and is the daughter of Indonesia’s founding president Sukarno, came close to running again in last year’s presidential race.

She later stood aside when polls showed Mr. Widodo stood a much better chance of winning and allowed the party to back him. Many political observers believe she has wielded strong influence behind the scenes, however. And Mr. Widodo, always deferential to his party’s patron in public, appointed several of Ms. Sukarnoputri’s inner circle as ministers in her cabinet, including her daughter Puan Maharani.

Party officials say they’ve been disappointed in recent months that Mr. Widodo has not granted the party wider access to his administration. “We [PDI-P] only have a few ministers [in the administration], and we don’t even have our inner circle” in place at the presidential palace, said Eva Kusuma Sundari, a senior party member.

Out of 34 total ministerial posts Mr. Widodo appointed 15 ministers from political parties. PDI-P secured four spots, but several party officials have said that as Mr. Widodo’s main backer, PDI-P should have received more.

Ms. Sundari also dismissed calls from the public for Ms. Sukarnoputri, 68, to make way for a new generation to lead the party, pointing to accomplishments achieved under her leadership, such as the election win last July.

“Why would we want a new leader?” Ms. Sundari asked.

Mr. Satrio of Paramadina said that given the party speech Mr. Widodo is now left with two options: continue to satisfy Ms. Sukarnoputri “but disappoint the people,” or face rejection from the PDI-P.

“Judging from Jokowi’s character, I think he will listen to Megawati,” Mr. Satrio said, referring to the president by his nickname.

http://blogs.wsj.com/indonesiarealtime/2015/04/11/megas-message-to-jokowi-im-the-boss/

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(WSJ) Mega’s Message to Jokowi: I’m the Boss