National Agenda : Suharto Keeps Indonesia Guessing at His Future : How long the president will continue his authoritarian rule and who will come after him remain unsettled questions. The uncertainty has cast a shadow on the nation.

When an Indonesian playwright recently produced a satire called “Succession,” about a king who outlives his usefulness, two significant events took place. Tickets to the show immediately sold out. And after 10 performances, the government closed the play down.

Although set in another time, few in Jakarta needed any hints that the play was really a wry commentary on the reign of President Suharto, the former army general who has ruled Indonesia since 1967.

With another election campaign already in full swing, the issues of how long Suharto will continue his authoritarian rule and who will come after him remain topical yet distinctly unsettled questions.

The leadership issue will decide the future direction of the world’s fifth most populous country, where 179 million people are squeezed into an archipelago of more than 13,000 islands. Indonesia also has one of the region’s fastest-growing economies, expanding at more than 7% a year in 1989 and 1990.

One of the world’s top 15 oil producers, Indonesia exported $4.8 billion worth of goods to the United States in 1989. In addition to blossoming business relations, the Suharto government has generally supported U.S. policy in Southeast Asia, especially with a firm stand toward Communist regimes.

Although Suharto hinted in his autobiography that he might retire at the end of his current term in 1993, when he will become 72 years old, his more recent actions have left many convinced that he plans to seek another five-year term.

For example, earlier this month he made a pilgrimage to Mecca in what many analysts saw as an effort to shore up voter support in this predominantly Muslim country before announcing his candidacy.

“Everybody says he is (going to run again) and he hasn’t given any signs that he is not,” said Aristedes Katoppo, director of the mass circulation Suara Pembaruan newspaper.

Suharto has been in power so long, and his influence is so vast, that the succession issue casts a shadow over virtually every important decision in the country, especially the campaign for next year’s election to the country’s 500-seat Parliament.

While the Parliament is derided by critics as primarily a rubber-stamp of the government, it makes up half of the consultative assembly that will choose a new president in 1993.

More importantly, the conduct of the election campaign provides a revealing barometer of the political mood in the country at a time when Suharto’s popularity is under challenge from a number of important new quarters.

“We like him. We respect him. But he’s been too long in power,” said Soemitro, an influential former general who like many leading Indonesians uses only one name. “We want to see him leaving gracefully. We are now entering a new era.”

Suharto and his supporters assert that the authoritarian nature of the government, with strict controls on politics, speech and the press, has contributed to an atmosphere of stability that has allowed Indonesia to prosper.

They point to the Communist-led coup attempt in 1965, which took place under the charismatic rule of President Sukarno, as an example of the chaos that can result from political instability. Nearly half a million people died in the fighting, which led to Suharto taking power.

Now, however, Suharto’s critics are becoming more vocal than ever before, asserting that the old standards by which Indonesia has been ruled are themselves an inhibition to development. Although the government says the country is getting more democratic, critics contend that the political process is closely controlled by those in power to serve their own ends.

For example, the consultative assembly that will elect the next president will contain 400 parliamentary members elected by the public and 600 (including 100 Parliament members) appointed by the government. Even the elected members must be “screened” by the police.

Among the frequent complaints against the regime, critics point to the growing “bureaucratization” of the country, with power concentrated in the hands of Golkar, Suharto’s ruling party, which includes virtually the entire civil service and the military.

Second, there are economic complaints despite the country’s impressive growth rate. The per capita gross national product figure for Indonesia is still just $520, for example--a quarter of that in Thailand. Factory employees here make the equivalent of 50 cents a day.

There is also mounting criticism of the government’s decisions to award “monopolies” to private companies for the control of everything from flour to satellite communication. One of the most controversial of these was the recent award of a monopoly in the trade of cloves--a significant economic franchise in a country where cloves constitute a major ingredient in cigarettes--to Suharto’s son, Tommy.

The monopoly controversy has also raised fresh concerns about the concentration of wealth and caused a significant racial backlash against ethnic Chinese businessmen who have maintained close relations with the Suharto regime. Many critics believe that this problem would be solved when the president steps down.

Imam Taufik, chairman of the Assn. of Indigenous Businessmen, asserted recently that the Chinese control 66% of Indonesia’s economy while constituting only 3% of the population.

“There’s a growing resentment toward those who get special privileges because it’s seen as unjust,” said newspaper editor Katoppo. “It’s not an issue, it’s the issue.”

Third, there is a small but vocal sector of the population that is beginning to chafe at the limitations on personal freedom imposed by the government.

Virtually any public meeting requires a permit that may be canceled without explanation. Academics are all state-employed and face loss of livelihood for taking unpopular positions.

Newspapers require a business license, which may be revoked at any time.

Equally important, the government keeps a tight rein on political activity, allowing just two opposition parties, the Muslim-based United Development Party (PPP) and the Christian and secular Indonesia Democratic Party (PDI), which includes two of the children of the late Sukarno and many of his followers.

Since every government official down to village head man is required to support Golkar, the party enjoys an extraordinary monopoly on political debate, and the elections are hardly a true contest. In the 1987 general election, Golkar swept 73% of the vote, PPP took 16% and the PDI 11%.

“The most important thing is that a calm situation prevails and that national unity be further enhanced,” Suharto said in a speech two weeks ago opening the campaign for the 1992 Parliament vote. The government is already seeking to enforce Golkar’s advantage by banning pictures of Sukarno from the campaign--an obvious move to hobble the PDI--and outlawing motorcades to attract potential voters.

Last summer, Suharto promised his country a new “openness,” although exactly what will be tolerated appears to be severely limited.

As a test of the government’s policy, a group of intellectuals in April formed an organization called Democracy Forum.

Democracy Forum is headed by Abdurachman Wahid, who is also leader of the largest Muslim organization in the country. The creation of the Forum received a chilly response from the government, but Wahid’s prestige has allowed the group to publicly express concerns about limitations on democracy.

An earlier effort, known as the Petition of 50, came from a group of former army officers in 1980 who demanded greater freedom. The signers of the petition have been banned from foreign travel and prevented from getting bank loans as a punishment for their dissent.

“The whole political life is paralyzed,” said Slamet Bratanata, one of the original Petition of 50 signatories. “I’m not against the government. I’m against the excesses.”

Against the background of uncertainty over Suharto’s plans, political analysts argue that the fate of the country will eventually be decided by Indonesia’s powerful military, which has an independent constitutional role in the political life of the country as opposed to being under formal civilian control as in the United States.

“The military wants a change, but they only express their feelings in private,” said Ali Sadikin, the former governor of Jakarta who was among those who signed the Petition of 50.

One recent indication of possible military disenchantment came with the disclosure that 40 retired military officers were joining the PDI instead of the traditional military grouping in Golkar.

Some recent high-level changes in the military have convinced diplomats that Suharto is growing concerned about opposition in the army.

The command of the so-called Strategic Reserve, which has a key role in suppressing civil disturbances, was given to one Suharto family ally, and the president’s former military adjutant was named head of the army’s Jakarta region seven months ago.

Significantly, Gen. Benny Murdani, who was the commander in chief of the armed forces and thought to be close to Suharto, was moved to be minister of defense--a position in the Indonesian system which has less power and influence.

Murdani’s successor as armed forces commander, Gen. Try Sutrisno, is widely mentioned as a possible running mate to Suharto in the next election, and there is speculation that Suharto may later resign so as to control the leadership transition.

“For the past 25 years, politics in Indonesia has been engineered from above,” said Soemitro. “We’ve done it consciously because of political and security considerations. Although we want to safeguard the development effort, we want to go back to the normal practice of democracy.”

A Nation of Islands The world’s largest archipelago, the Republic of Indonesia comprises more than 13,000 islands with a collective land area about equal to that of Alaska and California combined. It is rated by the World Bank as a low-income economy and is home to 179 million people, 88% of whom are Muslims.

The republic was proclaimed on Aug. 17, 1945, by President Sukarno and Mohammed Hatta, his vice president, following the surrender of the Japanese, who had occupied the territory during World War II. The declaration triggered fighting with the Dutch, who had colonized and controlled a majority of the islands during most of the previous 350 years.

On Nov. 2, 1949, Dutch and Indonesian leaders agreed on formation of a Netherlands-Indonesian Union, which Indonesia abrogated in February, 1956, following a longstanding dispute concerning continued Dutch control over a portion of New Guinea. The United Nations interceded in 1963 and turned the area over to Indonesia. Following a Communist-led coup against President Sukarno in 1965, Gen. Suharto, former head of the army, assumed emergency powers and eventually became president.

Sources: Political Handbook of the World 1990, CIA World Factbook 1990