PRESIDENT Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is unlikely to make any public comment on the issue, but it is a fair bet these days that House Speaker Marzuki Alie is not on the presidential list of favourite people.

To all appearances, Mr Marzuki is a loyal member of Dr Yudhoyono’s Democrat Party. But in politics, it is sometimes necessary to tolerate friends you wish you didn’t have. And from the President’s viewpoint, the House Speaker seems to fit the bill perfectly.

Mr Marzuki’s appointment as House Speaker in October 2009 was controversial from the start, partly because of his alleged involvement in a 2004 graft case concerning a South Sumatra-based cement company. But his subsequent attempts to prove his loyalty to the President during the controversy over the Bank Century bailout made things even worse. Indeed, in hindsight, they probably added to the President’s woes by making legislators even more determined to pursue the issue.

In March last year, Mr Marzuki enraged fellow lawmakers by unilaterally closing a plenary session of Parliament on the Bank Century issue while dozens of legislators had raised their hands, indicating that they wanted to make statements. The session ended in chaos as several angry parliamentarians attempted to seize the gavel.

But the real source of embarrassment for the President and his Democrat Party, of which Mr Marzuki is a senior member and former secretary-general: The House Speaker’s repeated gaffes. Political observers in Jakarta still remember Mr Marzuki telling the victims of a tsunami that devastated the Mentawai Islands off West Sumatra in late October last year that they should have expected the disaster. “If you’re afraid of waves, don’t live by the shore,” he told local fisherman.
The resulting public outrage seriously embarrassed the Democratic Party, and prompted several members to suggest that he be replaced.
In a statement issued the following month, Dr Yudhoyono urged party members not to comment on controversial topics without first ensuring that they were well-informed. The immediate issue was the party’s fumbling attempts to fend off accusations that it had improperly benefited from the Krakatau Steel IPO. But there was also a wider message: “Don’t just sound off for the sake of sounding off,” he said. “Don’t speak without a logical basis.”

Mr Yunarto Wijaya, an analyst from political research company Charta Politika, was quoted at the time as saying that Dr Yudhoyono’s warning was directed at members who frequently made statements that set back his own policies. “I think one of them is Marzuki.”

This year, the House Speaker has been at it again. Referring to the mistreatment of Indonesian migrant workers abroad, he commented in February that many such workers were hurting the country’s reputation with their lack of skills. “Some of them can’t iron properly, so it’s natural if the employer ends up landing the hot iron on the migrant worker’s body.”

Mr Marzuki has also been a strong supporter of a recent proposal to construct a new office tower costing about US$160 million (S$197 million) for legislators that has been widely criticised by budget watchdogs, the public and individual lawmakers as being wasteful and unnecessary. Dismissing the criticisms of non-government organisations, the House Speaker only succeeded in increasing the ranks of his critics: “Only elites can discuss this – regular people should not be involved,” he told the media.

The President, it seems, was not pleased. On April 7, without mentioning the controversial new building by name, Dr Yudhoyono called for the construction of all unnecessary government buildings to be cancelled or delayed in order to optimise the use of government resources.

Some gaffes reflect Mr Marzuki’s ignorance of the way the government interacts with international organisations. Earlier this month, the House Speaker suggested that staff from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) should vacate their offices in the legislative building because the UNDP was a “foreign non-governmental organisation”. Surprised UNDP officials later explained that the organisation was not an NGO, but a UN body invited by Parliament to use its premises to facilitate its operations.
Yet other gaffes have been merely entertaining. Earlier this month, when Mr Marzuki suggested that a recent plague of caterpillars in Java and Bali was a biblical-style “warning from God” to the Indonesian people that they should avoid engaging in mindless debate, local critics had a field day. One reader, posting his comment on the Jakarta Globe’s website, urged the House Speaker not to take the Creator’s name in vain: “Have you ever heard of the saying: ‘He whom the gods want to destroy they first drive mad’?”

In a recent media interview, Mr Marzuki conceded that one of his weaknesses was that he sometimes spoke without thinking. He also promised to weigh his statements more carefully in future. Dr Yudhoyono is no doubt hoping the belated attempt at self-improvement will be successful.

Copyright © 2011 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd