Uncertain Balance

For weeks, Indonesians have been looking forward to the meeting of the Provisional People's Consultative Congress as a dramatic test of strength between President Sukarno and the country's new ruling triumvirate headed by Army General Suharto. Students threatened to put six guards on each of the Congress' 616 members to make sure they did the proper thing. And the proper thing would be a drastic reduction in Sukarno's status; the students demanded that he be stripped of his President-for-life title and forced to run for re-election every five years. They also called for a return to parliamentary rule and new elections. Behind their demands, of course, stood General Suharto, who quietly encouraged the students to continue their demonstrations in the streets of Djakarta.

When Sukarno realized that the Congress might indeed dilute his already weakened presidential powers, he angrily summoned Suharto and the other triumvirate members, Foreign Minister Adam Malik and the Sultan of Jogjakarta, the economics chief, to a meeting at the Djakarta home of his lovely Japanese-born wife Ratna Sara Dewi.

Drawing on the wiles that have made him one of the world's most durable rulers, Sukarno threatened to dissolve the Congress, which he had reduced to a rubber stamp anyway. Suharto refused to allow that, since the triumvirate hopes to use the Congress as the vehicle by which to re-establish democratic government in Indonesia. But in line with its policy of avoiding any frontal clashes with Sukarno, whose popularity remains high among the back-country masses, the triumvirate agreed to postpone the Congress indefinitely.

Next, Sukarno turned to Malik, who had just returned from talks with the Philippine Foreign Minister in Bangkok, where Malik had declared that he would like to end Indonesia's costly konfrontasi with Malaysia "tomorrow." "We want to make war," thundered Sukarno, "and you want to end it." "If that's the way you feel, you can fire me," replied Foreign Minister Malik coolly. Sukarno quieted down and changed the subject, for he fully realizes that, at least for the present, he can no more fire a member of the triumvirate than they can fire him.

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