Amid continued domestic and international pressure to distance himself from the autocratic behavior of his predecessor, Indonesian President B.J. Habibie is expected to announce a reform program in the next few days that would include plans to hold general elections.
A top opposition leader, Amien Rais, said Sunday that Habibie had assured him elections would be held within a year and asked him to help establish an independent body to draw up political reform proposals.
Rais said Habibie had told him it would take at least six months to prepare for genuine reforms, “including laws related to really democratic elections” for a parliament that would choose a new president.
Habibie succeeded long-serving President Suharto last Thursday amid popular clamor for Suharto to quit after 32 years in office, during which there had never been free and open elections.
It was expected that some political prisoners jailed during Suharto’s rule for opposing the regime would be released Monday, as Habibie sets out to distance himself from the hard-fisted rule of his predecessor.
Justice Minister Muladi said Monday that jailed labor leader Muchtar Pakpahan and former legislator and university professor Sri Bintang Pamungkas would be freed later in the day. Indonesia is holding at least 200 political prisoners, including some prominent academics jailed for insulting Suharto.
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There were fears when Habibie took office that he would continue the autocratic ways of Suharto, who resigned the same day. Suharto said at the time that Habibie, his vice president and friend, would serve the remainder of Suharto’s term, which won’t expire until 2003.
In a televised address later that day, Habibie said he was committed to reforms, but he focused more on economic measures. He promised to end the “nepotism, corruption and collusion” that characterized the Suharto era, a key demand of the popular opposition. Even so, he spoke only of “gradual” political reform without mentioning elections or democracy.
The outcry that brought down Suharto has continued, with pressure intensifying on Habibie to prove that the change of leadership was not simply cosmetic.
Rais, who heads a Muslim organization of 28 million people, called on Indonesians to give Habibie a six-month grace period to carry out changes.
The students who occupied parliament, first to demand Suharto’s resignation and then to press calls for political reforms, abandoned their protest over the weekend but said they would take to the streets again if Habibie doesn’t launch political reform in six months.
Five more members of Habibie’s new Cabinet joined the call for political reform Sunday.
The top economic minister, Ginandjar Kartasasmita, on Saturday called for elections and said he did not expect this government to serve its remaining term. Joining that call Sunday were the ministers of finance, industry and trade, national development planning and state enterprises’ empowerment, as well as the governor of the Bank of Indonesia.
There is a growing recognition that Indonesia’s political crisis has only been defused, not resolved, by Suharto’s resignation and that it won’t be possible to restore confidence and rebuild the economy without change in the country’s political system.
Indonesia urgently needs emergency foreign loans to shore up its flagging economy, which was driven further into the ground by the political crisis that paralyzed the country for more than a week.
The International Monetary Fund, which evacuated its staff during the upheaval, has suspended its emergency $43 billion rescue package and has not yet said it is ready to return to Indonesia.
Meanwhile, in another gesture to popular demands, Habibie’s brother, Junus Effendi Habibie, resigned Sunday as head of an industrial development authority.
He was quoted as saying it was his “moral obligation” to step down, and he urged all relatives of the president “to follow in my footsteps to prove President Habibie’s pledge to abolish corruption and nepotism.”
Habibie and his family have benefited to the tune of some $60 million, according to some reports, controlling a vast business empire with interests in chemicals, construction, real estate, transport and communications.