Page 138 - SCANDAL AND DEMOCRACY

Scandal and Democratic Consolidation 123

multiparty coalition that brought him to power was relatively brief. During his first
six months he managed to alienate much of the new legislature, in part by repeat-
edly snubbing the two largest parties, Golkar and PDIP, in endless cabinet reshuffles.
By January 2000, rumors about growing tensions between the new administration
and military leaders prompted US officials to warn the military “not to try to seize
power.”
7
By April, patience with Wahid’s erratic ways ran out, even among reform forces,
when he abruptly fired two prominent members of Golkar and PDIP from his coali-
tion cabinet. When he refused to offer sufficient justification, legislators summoned
him to a hearing, bringing the president into open conflict with the two largest par-
ties in parliament. Wahid’s interference in the prosecution of three business tycoons
8
who refused to repay state loans also generated widespread criticism. Perhaps most
9
disappointing for ordinary Indonesians, however, were the administration’s failures
in handling corruption cases against former president Suharto and his son Tommy.
Some legislators began proposing impeachment hearings. Representatives of the
Crescent and Star Party were at the forefront, calling for an emergency parliamentary
session to remove Wahid for trying to lift the government’s thirty-four-year ban on
Communism. Critics complained about many other aspects of Wahid’s presidency,
10
from nepotism and overseas junkets to increasingly autocratic leadership. But when
11
his enemies finally moved to push him from power, they focused on two scandals that
set off a new media feeding frenzy and implicated Wahid in the same corruption he
had vowed to eradicate.

Concatenation of Scandal
While the Bank Bali case was sputtering along in a string of acquittals, mem-

bers of the media were “having a field day” over a new scandal involving Wahid and
Bulog, the state’s rice distribution agency. The case centered on a $4.1 million loan
12
that the foundation overseeing Bulog’s pension fund had granted to Wahid’s personal
masseur, Alip Agung Suwondo. The story broke in May 2000, when the head of the
nongovernmental organization Government Watch called a press conference to accuse
Suwondo of channeling these funds to four private bank accounts. The scandal then
13
widened over revelations that Suwondo and others involved were shareholders in
Wahid’s airline, Awair, causing speculation that the missing Bulog funds were fi nanc-
ing this new company. Suwondo’s disappearance overseas added to the drama.
14
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The flight of the masseur sparked immediate interest, but misuse of Bulog funds
had been going on for so long and involved so many people that it was hard to imagine
this incident could evolve into a major scandal. As observers pointed out, Suwondo
had taken “lunch money” compared with the amounts involved in other scandals—
Baligate, Suharto’s accumulation of $45 billion, and countless abuses of Indonesia’s
other cash cow, the state oil company Pertamina.
16
Disappointment over the government’s handling of other cases also made observ-
ers cynical about the Bulog scandal’s potential to escalate, particularly since it involved
an incumbent administration. As the Jakarta Post explained, “The scandal is develop-
ing into an all too familiar pattern where a simple issue is made so complicated and
hazy . . . that the guilty parties will eventually escape prosecution.” Similarly, Tempo
17
concluded that its investigation “could ultimately just end in political horse trading.”
18
But the scandal, dubbed “Buloggate,” did snowball, in part because its origin
as a leak produced a natural press drama, replete with the narrative tension of an