An Unlikely President, but Indonesia’s Last, Best Hope

JAKARTA, Indonesia —  He travels with a Sony Walkman, indulging in his passion for music, particularly Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee.” For a trip to Europe, he took along a CD by Jim Reeves. “He’s really gotten into country,” says an aide.

He attended the top Islamic universities in Iraq and Egypt and managed to flunk out of both. He had to repeat two years of high school because he seldom showed up for class, preferring to spend his time in movie theaters and libraries. “His mind was too far ahead of the class. He already knew what they were trying to teach,” a daughter says.

He can’t remember when he last bought new clothes, doesn’t know what his salary is (it’s $4,714 a month) and only indulges in his favorite meal, sashimi, at the Jakarta Hilton’s Japanese restaurant--when someone else is picking up the tab. “It’s not that he’s cheap so much as it is that he doesn’t care about accumulating money or possessions,” a friend explains.

From every perspective, Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia’s enigmatic and eclectic president, is a study in contrasts. He is a Muslim cleric who lets drop an occasional swear word, tells risque jokes and has the fast-paced humor of a stand-up comedian. He is frail and legally blind but graced with an intellectual’s mind and an elephant’s memory. Disorganized and lacking managerial skills, he nonetheless speaks five languages, can recite all the verses of the Koran and 2,000 phone numbers by heart.

As leader of the world’s fourth-most-populous country, he can charm generals, woo diplomats, calm peasants and toy with journalists. Many visitors arrive unannounced at his home, where he sits on an open-air veranda, barefoot and wearing a sarong, slouched in his chair, listening with eyes shut, speaking from time to time in a soft mumble and occasionally appearing to be sound asleep.

“His modus operandi is sometimes bizarre,” says a Western ambassador. “But don’t make the mistake of selling Wahid short. He has excellent judgment and a tremendous intellectual capacity. His mind stores information like a computer and his personality exudes great strength. He may be an unlikely president, but I don’t know anyone better positioned to be Indonesia’s last, best hope.”

Wahid, more than 100 days into his administration, has earned praise from Singapore to Washington for his commitment to build a democratic, secular and moderate society free of corruption. His experiment is of huge importance because, as U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said here last month, it is inconceivable that Southeast Asia can be “prosperous in the years ahead without an open, stable and vibrant Indonesia.”

Few dismiss lightly the challenges facing the 59-year-old president. Indonesia, with more Muslims than any other nation, has seen its viability thrown into question by separatist movements in Aceh and Irian Jaya provinces, bloody religious conflicts in Maluku province, a restive military humbled by the loss of East Timor, a crippled economy that has left millions of people out of work, and a crisis of lost investor confidence. Wahid’s response: We can fix all that.

“What crisis?” he asked foreign journalists recently, as Muslims and Christians fought pitched battles in Ambon, the provincial capital of Maluku, and the city burned. “We know how to settle the problems.”

Exactly how he intends to do that is unclear. But Wahid, as wily and manipulative as the savviest of politicians, is counting on his oft-displayed ability to cut deals, dangle concessionary carrots, make U-turns in policy and offer assurances to those who feel threatened to rescue this archipelago of more than 200 million people from further chaos. “The main job of the majority,” he says, “is to protect the rights of the minority.”

Wahid derived his early power base from his family’s prominence--his father was a government minister of religious affairs; his grandfather, the nation’s leading Muslim scholar--and from his leadership of the 30-million-member Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization. Yet despite his devout faith, he is a firm advocate of women’s rights, the separation of mosque and state, and the need for Islam to be inclusive, modern and pragmatic. He once suggested to a mass gathering of Muslims that the traditional Islamic greeting in Arabic, assalamu alaikum (peace be upon you) should be replaced by simply “good morning.”

When daughter Zannuba Arifah told him years ago that she intended to study Arabic in college--a decision that would delight most Muslim clerics because it is the language of the Koran--he replied: “Why Arabic? English and French would be much more useful.” She followed his advice and eventually became a journalist.

“My mother was the disciplinarian in the family, and my father never forced his views on us,” Arifah, one of four daughters, recalled recently. “When things came up, he’d say: ‘Ultimately, the choice is yours. You’ll pay a price if you decide wrong, but you’re the one who has to choose.’ Our household was really very democratic.”

The girls’ mother, Siti Nuriyah, uses a wheelchair because of a crippling 1993 automobile accident. Wahid urged her to continue her postgraduate work. She did, and for three semesters fellow students inserted bamboo poles into supports on her wheelchair and carried her up to a fourth-floor classroom of a university building that had no elevator. Last year, Nuriyah received her master’s degree in women’s studies.

Even those who know Wahid well cannot explain the genesis of his disdain for militant Islam or his obsession with creating a just society. Some say they stem from the mid-1960s, when youth groups from Nahdlatul Ulama, which his grandfather founded and he took over in 1984, worked closely with the military in an anti-communist purge that left half a million Indonesians dead. “He still suffers nightmares about it,” a friend says.

Wahid’s election in October came in the wake of President Suharto’s 32-year rule and the 17-month administration of his successor, President B. J. Habibie, which together left Indonesia a shambles. Wahid rode to victory on borrowed power, stitching together a coalition that included Muslim and military factions, and the concession he made to them was to appoint a compromise Cabinet. Political analysts rate his inner circle of advisors at about 7 on a scale of 1 to 10 but bemoan the absence of economic stars.

It took Wahid only about a month before he reverted to his go-it-alone, unpredictable style. “Decisions are very much made on the run,” says one Asian diplomat who requested anonymity. Wahid has pretty much ignored the religiously based Muslim bloc; clipped the power of the military, which has been accused of widespread human rights abuses in Aceh and East Timor; and started moving trusted advisors into key positions.

“There will be no Cabinet shuffle,” he said days before shuffling and dismissing some key aides. He then responded to the changes by saying, “If some people choose to walk away, what can I do?”

In short order, Wahid abolished the draconian Ministry of Information, lifted the ban that prevented ethnic Chinese from publicly celebrating their cultural holidays, sent more soldiers to troubled Aceh but denied a military request to declare martial law there, and started a globe-hopping schedule in search of financial support and debt reduction that by next month will have taken him to nearly 30 countries.

He has received pledges of support from China, Japan and the United States, along with a commitment from Singapore to invest $1.2 billion. In Qatar, he spent the first 50 minutes of a scheduled hourlong meeting swapping jokes with Sheik Hamad ibn Khalifa al Thani while his aides fidgeted, fearing he had forgotten the purpose of the visit. Finally he said to the emir, “We do have this little debt to Qatar I’d like to talk about,” and the emir said, “Oh, let’s just write that off.” They exchanged 10 more minutes of jokes, and Wahid left with thanks.

Despite his widespread respect, Wahid is not without his critics. Some complain that he has spent too much time abroad, others that he is paying too much attention to the Christian minority. His inattention to detail is a concern, as is his health. “How do you know you can trust someone if you can’t see his face?” asked an Indonesian businessman about Wahid’s limits, expressing a common Asian sentiment.

Wahid’s eyesight had been failing for a decade when in 1998 he suffered the first of two strokes. It left him in a coma and unable to see anything but blurred images and light and dark. Friends paid for him to have eye surgery last year in Salt Lake City. Two weeks ago, he was able to discern the color blue for the first time in years.

“His physical handicap is a burden, but the big problem is that he listens to so many people--his councils, his advisors, his longtime friends--that sometimes there isn’t a clear framework for what the problem is,” says Sri Mulyani, one of his economic advisors.

“The next three months represent a critical moment for Indonesia. The president has to show people and the international community that he is capable of controlling the political and economic turmoil so that he can get the necessary support to survive.”