Quote of the week: The lawmakers who make no laws

“It is pretty hard to tell lawmakers to do their job of legislating these days.”

Ignatius Mulyono, chairman of the committee charged with steering legislation through Indonesia's House of Representatives (DPR), which has passed no bills this year and has had to slash its target of 70 new laws this year to just 17. (As quoted by the Jakarta Globe.)

Since the legislative elections last April, the DPR has focused on politicking rather than policy making, with much time taken up by the politically-motivated inquiry into the bailout of Bank Century, a small lender, in 2008.

Analysts say that the lack of legislative progress in the DPR should not necessarily hold up the reform agenda as many of the most important institutional reforms can be implemented through the executive power of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his Cabinet.

Painful history: Academic freedom receives another blow in Singapore

In a review of a new book on Singapore that I penned in March, I argued that Singapore's historical narrative had for too long been dominated by the People's Action Party and its chief figurehead Lee Kuan Yew because of direct and indirect control by the state over schools, universities and the mass media.

That view was sharply challenged by Ong Weichong, an associate research fellow at Singapore's S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, in an RSIS commentary (PDF here).

I intend to respond to his article in greater depth at a later date. His key argument was that the reason for a lack of alternative histories in Singapore was not state domination but disinterest among kids, who would rather play PlayStation games than buy history books.

"While there is a certain quality of truth to Bland's assertions on the state of historical awareness in Singapore, the main cause is not the 'government's hegemonic control over the school curriculum, universities and the mass media' as suggested by Bland, but the lack of historical empathy of many a young Singaporean."

Well, I wonder what Weichong makes of the news that Vincent Cheng, a former political detainee in Singapore, has been prevented from speaking at a seminar run by the History Society of the National University of Singapore entitled "Singapore's History: Who Writes the Script?".

In a posting on the society's Facebook page, its president Bernard Chen suggests that the National Library Board, which is hosting the seminar, blocked Cheng from speaking. The event is scheduled to go ahead without him.

How revealing that someone like Cheng, who was detained in a 1987 roundup of supposed Marxist conspirators, be prevented from talking at an academic seminar designed to examine "the repercussions of alternative narratives on the nation-building process in Singapore today".

There's no word yet from the National Library Board on why it blocked Cheng but it's more likely to be the result of action by some nervous mid-level civil servant than high-level government interference.

This kind of institutional self-censorship, which is a direct result of overt censorship by the government, is a regular feature of academic life and the wider public discourse in Singapore. (For more on this see James Gomez's book Self Censorship: Singapore's Shame, which can be downloaded free here.)

To go back to Weichong's argument, the problem is not so much the lack of enthusiasm for history, as demonstrated by the NUS students' plan to hold this forum, but a desire by the state and its actors to close down or restrict alternative views of history in order to enhance their legitmacy.

Hat-tip to blogger and film-maker Martyn See, who broke the story.

It's what's on the inside that counts: a review of Singapore's casinos

Having closely followed the build-up to the launch of Singapore's casinos, it was good to finally check them out last week.

The scale of both casino resorts - Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands - was impressive, with the triple-towered MBS dominating the skyline of downtown Singapore.

The interior of both casinos was rather less impressive, with construction work still ongoing at MBS and teething problems at both venues.

With both projects running behind behind schedule, it seems as if the casino operators (American gambling tycoon Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Sands and Malaysia's Genting) were desperate to throw open the doors and start raking in the cash as soon as possible.

I think some of the staff could have done with a bit more practice before being unleashed on the public.

At a number of different blackjack tables in both casinos, young Singaporean dealers regularly fluffed the deal and screwed up the pay-out - major casino faux pas. When ordinary people are losing hundreds of dollars in a matter of minutes, they expect good service.

Although indoor smoking is banned in public places in Singapore, both casinos were given exceptions by the Singapore government after concerted lobbying - the casino operators feared that if people had to go outside into the real world for a smoke they might think twice about coming back and losing more money.

The smoking area in Resorts World was a real den of iniquity, packed with chain-smoking Chinese gamblers pumping the slot machines and electronic roulette consoles with reckless abandon. Although the stench of smoke made the air almost unbreathable, some hardy and presumably not very well-off gamblers were sleeping in the room, ensuring that they didn't waste their hard-earned cash on such unnecessary frills as hotel rooms. An armed security officer stood guard just outside the smoking room, keeping the tobacco-addicted riff raff in check.

Like any casino, it all felt a bit seedy. But, once all the other facilities at both venues are fully open, perhaps they will feel more like "integrated resorts", as the government likes to call them.

If Singapore can pull off this grand experiment, boosting the coffers by legalising casino gambling without stirring up major social problems, other Asian governments are likely to sit up and take notice.

Vietnam is already building its first mega-casino at the Ho Tram strip, Taiwan has been debating legalising casinos and pressure is also growing in Japan for a similar move.

Just imagine how much money a casino in Jakarta could make.

For more on the casino issue, check out my latest story for Monocle.

Britain did not give aid to Singapore

A recent story in The Daily Telegraph suggesting that the UK's Department for International Development had given £8.7m in aid to Singapore over the last five years caused a bit of a stir. Particularly after it was picked up by The Online Citizen, an alternative news website in Singapore.

The piece by Andrew Gilligan, headlined "Did Britain really need to give millions to the wealthy state of Singapore?", argued that the new government should abandon its pledge not to cut the overseas aid budget.

He argued that DFID needed a critical examination of its spending, some of which had been wasteful, including the £8.7m supposedly given to Singapore and £40.2m given to China.

Like Gilligan, I was bemused by the suggestion that Britain had given aid to prosperous Singapore. So I checked out the official DFID stats, which do, indeed, show £8.7m given to Singapore over the last five years. (For the official stats, go here and then download table 14.3 - h/t friend and development blogger Francis Bacon.)

But Gilligan should have dug a little deeper.

The above-mentioned table reveals that the bulk of the £8.7m was composed of £8.511m of "aid from other official UK sources" spent in 2005/06.

I checked in with DFID and the British High Commission in Singapore who told me that this £8.5m was not aid for Singapore but was in fact an investment in a developing country business by CDC, the UK government-owned development fund, through a Singapore-based fund.

The rest of the apparent aid to Singapore related to pensions paid to civil servants in Singapore. Press officers at the High Commission and DFID said that "no DFID aid money is currently spent in Singapore".

So it was all a fuss over nothing.

Western-style leadership gets the thumbs down in Indonesia

I met a contact today who suggested that the pace of reform in Indonesia is dependent on the ongoing clash of mindsets between Western-style politicians and more traditional, Javanese leaders.

Often educated in the West, the first set of politicians tend to have clear policy aims, a strong belief that you win the argument first and the support will follow and a knack for political communication and marketing.

The latter group, often educated in Indonesia, typically prefer to promote unity over confrontation, building political support bases before pushing policy programmes and progressing with great caution.

While this simplified breakdown of the complex Indonesian political landscape is not unproblematic, it is interesting to note that the recent weeks have not been good for the Western-style politicians.

First Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the highly-rated finance minister, announced she was stepping down, following intense pressure from vested political and business interests who were unhappy with her reforming zeal.

Then yesterday, Andi Mallarangeng, the sports and youth affairs minister, suffered a humiliating defeat in the election for the chairmanship of president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democrat Party.

Both Sri Mulyani and Andi are reformers who undertook postgraduate education in the US, speak good English and would not seem out of place in many Western cabinets. Andi spent significant amounts of money on posters, TV adverts and a wider media campaign but lost out to Anas Urbaningrum, a more traditional Javanese politician who spent his campaign ingratiating himself with the various regional party chiefs.

The Javanese Yudhoyono, who put Sri Mulyani in the finance ministry and employed Andi as his first-term spokesman, clearly appreciates the pair's results-oriented political approach. But he evidently is not keen to back them at the risk of fomenting political discord.

 

Inside Indonesia's strange model town: Lippo Karawaci

Jakarta is a disjointed, sprawling mess like many large cities in developing Asia. In the main business district, skyscrapers back onto fetid rivers of sewage and crumbling kampungs. There are few real enclaves and even the well-to-do have to put up with potholes and pollution.

One of the few places where you can escape the urban planning nightmare is Lippo Karawaci, a model town 30 minutes drive (in good traffic) west of central Jakarta.

Built by the Riady family conglomerate, Lippo Group, it is meant to provide a slice of Singapore-style living within reach of Jakarta, with clean streets, pedestrian crossings and no hawkers or motorbike taxis. 

I went there today for the first time. Walking down the main street, lined with trees and a succession of open-air eateries and cafes, it feels more like a theme park than an Indonesian town.

The architecture is bizarre to say the least, with the Riady's University of Pelita Harapan looking like (and doubling as) a motor racing pit building and the monstrous Amartapura condominium towers dominating the skyline.

The influence of the evangelical Christianity of James Riady, son of the Lippo Group's founder Mochtar, is everywhere. American-style digital signboards distract drivers with religious messages and the Riady-owned Times bookshop in the centre of town, billed as one of the biggest in Indonesia, is full of dire, religious literature.

If this is what passes for urban planning in Indonesia, I think I prefer the chaos and sprawl.

Jakarta airport's twin-track immigration process

As this Jakarta Globe story suggests, Jakarta's creaking Soekarno-Hatta International Airport is sorely in need of an overhaul.

I was reminded of the dire state of the airport while waiting in the interminably-long immigration queue after arriving back from Singapore earlier this week.

While I was resigned to my fate, a couple of Singaporean business types behind me grew increasingly frustrated, particularly once the queuing time had surpassed the flight time.

I was rather surprised by their predicament as Singaporeans, like other Asian businesspeople, normally know how to play the system in countries like Indonesia where, as one friend puts it, "anything is possible".

If you don't like queuing - or having your passport or baggage inspected too closely - all you need to do is retain the services one of the helpful "fixers" based at the airport.

For a very reasonable fee, part of which is passed on to an immigration official in a side room, they will whisk you through passport control and customs quicker than you can say "Commercially Important Person".

You can view this in two ways. Some would say that such opportunities for lucrative backhanders (the fixers presumably have to pay off the airport management as well) mean there is little incentive to smooth the process. Or, conversely, you can simply admire the efficiency guaranteed by a little bit of baksheesh.  

First time journey to Pyongyang

Last night, I made the tortuous journey to Pyongyang for the first time. It was, as expected, a very strange place.

But I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food, the elegance of the women and the total lack of pictures of Kim Jong-il.

In case you're wondering how I'm managing to write this blog in a country that is completely isolated from the rest of the world, I ought to point out that I went to Pyongyang the North Korean restaurant in Jakarta, rather than the North Korean capital city.

Located off a non-descript main road in South Jakarta, it is an odd little place. The waitresses, who were trained in a North Korean hospitality academy, all wore elaborate traditional, red dresses, were heavily made-up and extremely polite. They didn't speak much English but it was a good opportunity to practice my Bahasa with fellow non-native speakers.

Disappointingly, there were no pictures of the Dear Leader on display, just a few tacky landscape paintings and some karaoke TVs. The clientele seemed to be mostly composed of South Korean businessmen.

The waitresses, who said they had three-year contracts in Jakarta, occasionally broke into song, chirping along merrily to such delights as Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On.

Presumably such morally-bankrupt capitalist running dog passtimes are hard to come by in the grit of the real Pyongyang. At the end of the evening, once the staff had encouraged my friends and I to leave, the dolled-up waitresses promptly disappeared up a staircase.

Given the supremely paranoid nature of the North Korean regime and its acolytes, some of my friends wondered if these women were ever let out.

This recent review in the Jakarta Globe (where I used to work) suggested that the restaurant was owned by an official from the North Korean Embassy.

If that's true, I hope my hard currency (yes, I mean the rupiah) somehow finds its way back to help the crumbling North Korean economy. At over Rp 200,000 ($22) a head, the meal certainly wasn't cheap.

Still, the food was tasty and well-presented, which got one of my co-diners thinking that perhaps Kim Jong-il has been approaching diplomacy from the wrong angle.

Instead of sinking South Korean ships and threatening a second nuclear war, why not just open up a chain of North Korean restaurants all over the world? That would surely win over the West.

Family values reign in Chinese, Indonesian civil services

At a recent lunch, I found out that Indonesian civil servants still have to present their prospective spouse to their boss and ask for permission before they can get married.

Like many of the stranger aspects of the Indonesian bureaucracy, it's a hangover from the Suharto era, when military and civil service wives wielded significant influence and had to be vetted before they could join the gang of kleptocrats.

Apparently, approval is mostly a formality these days.

Meanwhile, a Chinese diplomat explained that Foreign Ministry officials are prevented from marrying foreigners while on posting. To do so is an immediate sackable offence.

I suspect this policy is upheld due to a fear of espionage and some lingering sense of racial superiority.

It suggests that Chinese diplomats are rather less interested than some of their counterparts in spreading soft power.

But no-one said anything about mistresses.

Former spokesman eyes 2014 presidential race in Indonesia

In Indonesia, as in every good democracy, the positioning for the next election starts shortly after the last set of polls has closed.

With President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono obliged to step down in 2014 after two terms, Andi Mallarangeng, his former spokesman, has fired the starting gun in the race to replace him as the Democrat Party's presidential candidate.

Andi, who was promoted to Youth and Sports Minister by Yudhoyono after last year's election, is currently running for the chairmanship of the Democrat Party but has hinted that his ambitions go much higher. 

At a meeting of the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents' Club on Wednesday, Andi was asked why, given that the Democrat chairman is elected by a small group of party cadres, he had been spending large amounts on posters and TV adverts. (Images that, incidentally, mimic the famous Barack Obama "Hope" poster created by US artist Shepard Fairey.)

His response was that of a pro. "I'm running for chairman of Partai Demokrat full stop." Only he didn't stop there, adding with a glint in his eye:

"In due time, Partai Demokrat will nominate a presidential candidate for 2014. Any cadres of Partai Demokrat will be eligible to be nominated and we will support them to win the election. It could be anyone within the party. It could be the chairman."

Andi also set out his stall as a centrist on political and economic issues, arguing that Indonesia faced an ongoing to struggle to keep extremists at bay and ensure the country remained a pluralistic society.

Although Andi is close to the president and has the backing of his son Edhie, he faces tough competition in the battle to secure the party chairmanship from House of Representatives speaker Marzuki Alie and Anas Urbaningrum, who heads the party faction in the House. The contest will be concluded at the party conference in Bandung later this month.

As for the presidential race, it is, of course, extremely early days. 

The dark side of southeast Asia's street food

From steaming hot bowls of pho bo in Hanoi to spicy roti canai in KL and freshly-grilled sate in Jakarta, it's a sheer delight eating your way around the street food of Southeast Asia.

But street food can often deliver a few nasty surprises to the digestive system, especially for us lily-livered expatriates. (Many locals have immunity to the most commonplace bacteria and parasites but poor food hygiene can still be a serious problem, especially for children).

So I was disturbed, if not surprised, to see a report on the VietnamNet news website that over 70 percent of the restaurants and food stalls in Ho Chi Minh City are serving raw vegetables infested with parasites such as worms.

Researchers from Pham Ngoc Thach Medical University took samples of vegetables from 50 restaurants and 50 street stalls and found that 72 percent were contaminated.

Hygiene at street stalls, which lack running water and fridges, was much worse, according to the report. The samples taken from street stalls were 2.4 times more likely to be infested than those from restaurants.

It's almost enough to put you off your dinner. But I'm hungry and there's a cheap and tasty warung down the road that serves great lamb sate.

Democracy is the only clear winner from Britain's election

Having gone to bed at 3am Jakarta time (9pm London), shortly before the polls closed in the UK, and woken up at 6am Jakarta, as the first results came in, it's been a joy to watch the outcome of the election slowly unfold, nothwithstanding my crappy internet connection and persistent attacks from mosquitos.

With most of the constituencies having reported, it appears that the Conservatives will now be the biggest party in Parliament but without an overall majority. Meanwhile, despite losing many seats, it seems that the ruling Labour Party may be able to stay in government if it can form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, the third party.

It is far from obvious who will form the next government. But what is clear is that the whole election process has demonstrated the strength of democracy and the vitality of a system where power resides with the people, if only, as Rousseau noted, at election time. 

The peculiarities of the British system mean that while the aggregated will of the electorate has opted for a hung Parliament, it is now the political parties who will decide the make-up of the next government, with a fair amount of shady backroom dealing likely to be at the heart of any agreed coalition.

Still, it's undeniable that the political theatre of an overwhelmingly free and fair election both demonstrates the power of democracy and reinforces it, particularly in a country where voter apathy seemed in danger of becoming the norm.

For the latest results, see BBC News election site here.

Some worrying early signs for Singapore's casinos

Singapore's two casinos have succeeded in attracting a lot of publicity and hundreds of thousands of punters in their first few weeks.

But there appear to be some worrying early signs.

I set out previously how the Singapore government was taking a "double bet" by legalising casino gambling, wagering that:

1. The Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa casinos will be able recoup their massive investments (over $10bn in total) AND

2. The casinos can thrive financially without leading to untoward social consequences (prostitution, organised crime, addiction, etc)

Well, according to initial soundings by some analysts and a report in today's government-controlled Straits Times, they may have a problem on both counts.

Citing a number of analysts, the Straits Times claims that the bulk of the gamblers at the two casinos are Singaporean citizens and permanent residents, who have to pay a S$100 ($72) daily or S$2,000 ($1,435) annual levy to play the tables.

This represents a potential financial concern because analysts believe the local players are mostly gambling relatively small amounts. The casinos need to attract the likes of the big betting Chinese officials and businessmen who flock to Macau, even if strict Singapore regulations have made it difficult for them to bring in these high rollers.

It also points to a possible increase in social problems down the line. The government vision for the casions was that they would service mostly foreign players in order to limit the damage on Singaporean society - hence the rather high entry levies for locals.

That does not appear to be happening yet and if the predominance of local players persists, it will be harder for the government to justify its decision to legalise casinos that are effectively transferring Singaporeans' hard-earned savings into the hands of a Las Vegas casino magnate (MBS' ultimate owner Sheldon Adelson) and a Malaysian gambling group (Resorts World owner Genting).

Having said all that, it is still early days. The locals' fascination with the casinos may wear off and it may take time for the casinos' VIP marketing efforts to take effect.

The mystery of Indonesia's departing finance minister

Indonesia has been shaken today by the unexpected news that Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati is stepping down to become one of three manging directors of the World Bank.

Sri Mulyani was a key driver of reform in President Suslio Bambang Yudhoyono's cabinet and many international investors believe she helped to shepherd Indonesia through the global crisis unscathed.

However, her position had come under intense political pressure because of her backing for the $730m bailout of a small collapsed bank, Bank Century, in 2008. Her opponents charged that the bailout was illegal and alleged (with scant evidence) that Sri Mulyani and/or the president made some personal financial gain out of it.

Sri Mulyani has insisted that the bailout was driven by a desire to avoid financial contagion and that dark political forces were militating against her (i.e. Aburizal Bakrie, one of Indonesia's richest businessmen and the chairman of the opposition Golkar Party, who also happens to be involved in a messy tax dispute with Sri Mulyani's ministry).

Yet just when it seemed that Yudhonoyo, who has a strong preference for back-room compromises over open political bunfights, was willing to stand by his woman, she has gone.

The key question is whether she is leaving the finance ministry as a sacrificial lamb to assuage Bakrie and Golkar or whether she has just had enough of the endless political backbiting.

The Indonesian stock market, which has hit record levels over the last month, fell 3 percent earlier today because of concern about the loss of Sri Mulyani.

Certainly, businessmen I spoke to today were disappointed that she is leaving and worried that the search for her replacement could drag on for months and/or that an inept political appointee may be brought in rather than another reformist technocrat.

But I suspect that these initial fears will ebb away as investors realise that the strengths of the Indonesian economy and the continuation of the slow but steady reform agenda are about much more than one individual.  

After all, Indonesia has been without a central bank chief since May last year, when the then governor Boediono stepped down to run for Vice President, and no-one seems to have minded, judging from the record stock market rally and the gathering strength of the rupiah.