Book Review : Family Ties

Don Corleone was probably right after all. So was JFK. Every family must have its concigliere, every leader must have his/her "Bobby". Anybody watching the U.S. Democratic primaries between Obama and Clinton (Hillary, not Bill), would by now be watching who would get the VP nod. Long time Obamaistas (I believe there is even a Jakarta chapter ?) would probably pray that their anointed leader wouldn't take the "Change" message to heart and change mindset to have Clinton as his running mate.

Are there many "JFK and Bobby" pairs out there ? Leaders who - despite being brothers, even the two Kennedys are poles apart- can trust each other and can almost finish each other' sentences ? Does this partnership work ?

Answering these questions are better done using empirical data. Unfortunately, there aren't that many studies that I know of which can explain this. Frequent readers of this newspaper would have guessed by now that your correspondent has a particular fascination with presidencies. Having just finished two more books on presidencies and those people close to them, a common theme running through them are that gifted politicians definitely have their conciglieres and their bobbies. JFK has of course set the gold standard by having his Bobby who is , well, Bobby.

So what should you look for in finding your "Bobby" ? Here are some personal observations from Evan Thomas' biography of Robert F. Kennedy :

1)Somebody you can trust completely to overlook your failings as a normal human being
2)Somebody that when he /she speak his/her mind has your best interest at heart, and not their own'
3)Somebody that you can be sure will get the job done. Also known as "the enforcer"
4)Somebody that in carrying out your order, will not have too many questions asked
5)Somebody that you can groom to take over your role and you know he/she will not stab you in the back in the process

More to follow

A Convenient Truth

Indonesia's leaders hosted the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali. They probably would prefer to be remembered for that, rather than for being publicly associated with an "invention" to convert water into oil.

In case readers of this newspaper have not noticed by now, your correspondent is a cynical sort.

Laudable as it is, relying on a magic wand (how else do you explain converting water into oil) , is hardly the stuff of first class government in action. Neither is the government attitude that they can walk on water and not expect the voters to remember these magical events.

But the truth of the matter is that global warming is not an easy matter to be resolved. It takes as much scientific innovation as much as political leadership.

But as a nation, for us , "scientific innovation" means Blue Energy (they even have a brand for aqua conversion) and "political leadership" means creation of a taskforce (after a while, the task is ill-defined but "may the force be with you" blessing was given by the leader anyway.

This is one of the reason for my earlier posting , where I urged us to act as individuals and tackle the problem starting from ourselves. As that icon from a bygone era put it , "As each man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others ..he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope ..and by creating millions of energy ...creating a strong current to crush the mightiest walls ..of resistance"

Oh and just in case you were wondering, water apparently was mixed with gasoil to come up with "water conversion".

The Presidents

It is commonly known that "the world's most exclusive club" will soon add another "George Bush" to its list, therefore increasing the total membership into four. It is less commonly known that the club of living ex Indonesian presidents actually have less member (three) and therefore arguably more exclusive.
It is possible that this is due to the stature of the two clubs being markedly different.Bill Clinton set up a foundation to fight obesity, AIDS in africa and climate change. Jimmy Carter also set up a foundation, won a Nobel Peace prize in the process but remained a thorn in the side of his successors - on issues like North Korea and lately, the Middle East. On the other side of the world, an ex Indonesian president also set a foundation and also visited S. Korea at the request of the S. Korean presideny, to 'wage peace' in the Korean peninsula.
Whilst it will be a long time before Indonesia will have her own "41st" and "43rd" father and son presidents (George Bush and, er, George Bush), presidential politics in Indonesia have already been a family affair. Indonesia already have father and daughter presidents (Indonesia's 5th president, Megawati, is the daughter of the first, Soekarno). Megawati has already been nominated as her party's nominee for next year's election (she failed to win a second term in 2004 and was not elected for her "first" term).
Whilst waiting for elections, it is not uniformly common what Indonesian ex presidents do. President Habibie has wrote a book (2006), polishing his Mercedes classic cars collection in Hamburg and met with incumbent President Yudhoyono on June 13th. President Wahid , or Gus Dur as he is more commonly known, has kept his "Presiden Republic Indonesia" hat despite being thrown out by parliament, and has also fought for religious freedoms ( a very noble clause). President Megawati, who served as president Wahid's vice-president has made some eyebrow raising visits to South and North Korea.
Until his death in January of 2008, president Soeharto spent his days cocooned in his Jakarta home before finally succumbing to ill health.
Could and Should they do more in their "sparetime" ? The first question will be answered "maybe" and the second will be answered "yes".

More in the next posting

Hello, Is It Me You're Looking For ?

The key characters in the narrative had no idea that their phone calls are being recorded. One protagonist, Untung, who's a deputy attorney general, received a call from a middle-aged female lobbyist. The lobbyist (Artalyta) was panicking because Udin, a senior prosecutor (who is working for the deputy AG), had been arrested by the anti corruption agency barely minutes earlier. Artalyta was asking Untung to release Udin , fearing that he will drag her into the case. The call ended with the Untung assuring Artalyta that she will be 'arrested' by his office, therefore preventing the anti corruption agency from arresting her too.

Unfortunately, although it has all the makings of a detective novel or political thriller , the event actually did happen. The case involved the alleged pay off of USD 600,000 from Artalyta to Udin who is leading the state's case against her associate, Sjamsul Nursalim, a well known conglomerate in the bad old Soeharto days. Foreign observers or Indonesians growing up on the diet of the Nixon White House's stories of secret recordings (not too many were seen raising their hands filtered with these categories) are somewhat surprised that there is a tap in the first place.

In your correspondent's knowledge of recent cases, the use of phone taps is the first of its kind. It is not yet known who authorized the recording, whether it is illegal and why is it only started to be used now. These questions are critical because if the evidence using the phone taps are accepted - as they appear to be for the moment - it is possible that these will be used for future cases where 'hard evidence' are likely to be hard to find. These may help the government's stated drive to root out corruption at all levels.

Arguably, the disclosure that a deputy AG (who is tasked with bringing to court all those serial corruptors) is actually striking some kind of deal with a lobbyist, will impact how successful the government will be in rooting out corruption ( with or without the phone taps). This is actually the second time that a deputy AG is implicated in the same case in the last three months (the recording also mentioned the name of a third deputy AG), so there is an impression that the AG's office has been compromised.

What is even more exciting is (and so far no journalists have picked this up) is why it took so long for the tapes to surface (the arrest took place a few months ago, which means that the recording has been sitting idily. Or was it a conscious decision that it only now saw the light of day ?) One potential reason is to further embarass the administration of President S.B. Yudhoyono. On the day of the revelation, Australian PM Kevin Rudd paid his first official visit to Jakarta. This may explain why in the same evening, Vice President Jusuf Kalla went on an offensive and turned the news cycle around by suggesting that this is further evidence of how serious the government is, pointing out that senior government officials are not immune and not above the law.

There is truths to this. In that same week, a former chief of national police, was sentenced for alleged corruption during his ambassadorship to Malaysia. A recent visitor to the Jakarta police office's detention house witnessed a former governor and a former regent being detained (albeit in a nice "cell" , said ). As we hit the press, the president has ordered for a full investigation to the case. What ever the result, it appears that the mobile phone will not be a favourite gadget in prison.

Picture Perfect

Indonesia's worst kept secret these days was reflected when an Indonesian oil executive joked to his Pakistani colleague that the Pakistani got the wrong picture of the Indonesian president (in the Pakistani slide pack, it was the picture of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono). Indeed the Vice Presidency is widely perceived to be the one calling the shot these days. The latest rumor mill is that Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who heads Golkar Party, may well split the ticket and run separately from his nominal boss in the 2009 presidential election.

What started the latest bout of speculation is Golkar's miraculous discovery that their political interests are not served by the president's cabinet. In two recent cases, Golkar's candidates for provincial governors lost their appeal of the election results. Golkar's 'chief whip' in the House of Representatives (DPR) have publicly threatened to withdraw parliamentary support to the government and claimed that the majority of Golkar's executive board shared this view.

Publicly at least, the vice president have always maintained that his top priority will be to serve out his five year term together with the president. Privately it will be another miracle if a seasoned politician such as MJK (as the VP is known) did not think of occupying the grander presidential palace after a term in the less grander vice presidential palace (the lawns are markedly bigger in the former).

But the series of miracles are not an unusual occurence with Golkar. After 30 odd years as the ruling party under the late President Soeharto, most people and political hacks wrote Golkar off the scene following Soeharto's timely demise from power. However two presidents later, Golkar emerged as the second biggest party in parliament and its chief becomes the vice president.

So what will happen next year ? One scenario is indeed Golkar is pressuring MJK to split and aim for the RI-1 spot. It is possible that following results in other non disputable election results (where Golkar's candidates also lost), Golkar felt its association with an unpopular administration - already , President SBY presided over two fuels price increases, an economy of ever increasing food prices, and an unending series of corruption scandals - would end up hurting its electoral prospects.

Another scenario is that some people believe that MJK is acutely aware that he will not make President. There is an unwritten rule that Indonesian presidents must be Javanese. MJK comes from South Sulawesi and may well decide that he is better off to throw his lot with President SBY.

But in case MJK changes his mind, he has a precedent. President B.J. Habibie who was in charge for two years serving out Soeharto's term was the only non Javanese; he also hails from South Sulawesi. In such an event, the Pakistani executive would be well served to change his slides once and for all.

Winds of Change

If you're reading this, it is a fair guess that you first stumbled upon the Library's web address at a recent series of columns I wrote for a free magazine. So it may make sense to focus my scribblings on career advise, for indeed, that was the topic of my monthly column.

Alas, I have had to cancel my column and so I am now in a dilemma as to what should I focus my writing on.

At one hand, I have had fairly positive responses to my columns and to my previous writings on the same subject when it appeared at a national newspaper in 2005. On the other hand, I feel that I am keen to share some thoughts about one or two other things as well.

And so I will now also start writing about life as Indonesian in these times. My objective is to take the mantle of the mission of Walter Bagehot when he set up The Economist " to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress"

And so my writings will probably be focusing on politics, and leadership in politics in Indonesian, on the Economy and dare I say on business.

I hope to hear direct feedback from you as reader soon.

Moral Hazard

In my previous blog post, I had mentioned about Global Warning. Of course I meant that as a word play on the global warming phenomenon now engulfing the world.

What I will now say is also a bit of a word play, albeit of another one.

For the economists among you (they do exist), the term moral hazard is likely to bring back memories of reading a chapter either on Lipsey Steiner "Principles of Economics" or Paul Samuelson's "Economics". Of course I am refering to the case of the central bank rescue of a failed lender , arguably with the good intention of saving the savers, but in effect resulting in providing an incentive for other lenders to be reckless (because they know they will be bailed out by the central bank).

So I hear you say what does this have to do with anything? Well I beg to differ. This moral hazard as it turns out are prevalent in other institutions as well. So my plea is for the managers among you (o ye they also exist) to be wary if you are at the receiving end. Do not be easily accept a request such as these which will reflect poorly in your function's performance.

So the morale of the story is have an wider view of the situation prior to making a commitment which you may regret later. This is hardly rocket science, but sometimes this view gets lost in the jungle of exotic terms we face these days.

Global Warning

It has been sometime that I have contributed to this and my apologies for those of you who asked me about it. I have been detained on pressing issues and only now can find the time to put pen into paper.

I would like to take this opportunity to share some observations on the matter of “ Global Warming”. I believe we find ourselves (as Indonesians) at a very important time in our history. We have been as a nation for 60 + years and we have not played a part in, and if not the, definitely one of the most difficult challenges we as humans have faced.

Of course, I hear you say, that it is blindingly obvious. But how many times have we hear lately that all the right things have been said at the strategy level, but nothing is happening at the operational level.

And so I firmly believe that we are poor in execution. Politics aside, we tend to hear more people identifying what is wrong but we tend to see less people actually suggesting good solutions for a problem.

And so , true to my own critiques, here are my suggestions :

* Change light bulbs in all houses including presidential palaces and government buildings into energy saver light bulbs
* Open window curtains in the morning so not all lamps need to be turned on
* Timer on aircondition, so it is only when the weather is unbearably hot
* Adopt efficient driving techniques
* Identify activities which are adding to CO2 emissions and find ways to do less of them

I know they are not original, so let me know your tricks that you are currently doing. We can share them to others...