Page 99 - SCANDAL AND DEMOCRACY

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transitions toward restoration of the old order by eroding the residual power of the
superseded regime.
Following the Panji report, Habibie suffered open speculation that he was too
damaged to win the next election. With such speculation, the scandal advanced the
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critical transformation described by Adam Przeworski: the normalization of contests
with uncertain outcomes. By their nature, scandals tend to heighten political uncer-
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tainty. The wiretap controversy, by reducing the inevitability of a second Habibie term,
added a new element of unpredictability to the electoral process. After nearly thirty
years in power, Indonesia’s ruling party suddenly confronted the possibility that new
leadership might take control. The wiretap revelation thus became a key test of Indo-
nesia’s progress toward democratization, generating unfamiliar uncertainty through
this upset in the balance of power just as the country was preparing for the historic
elections of June 1999.
The confrontation that the story provoked with the state served one final purpose:
binding the press community together in defense of the public’s “right to know.” In
the unity that Jakarta’s media showed in resisting government intimidation through
summonses and interrogation, we see the media collectively asserting their right to
protect the confidentiality of sources and defend a public right to information. But as
chapter 5 will show, even as media reformers worked to pass the 1999 Press Law that
established a firm legal foundation for this right, the majority of news outlets would
fail the next critical challenge: providing the public, in June 1999, with uncompro-
mised coverage of the nation’s first free parliamentary elections in four decades.