Word: megawati
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...hard to say no to Taufik Kiemas. That much a senior executive from Indonesia's largest foreign investor, U.S. mining giant Freeport McMoRan, knew when he accompanied President Megawati Sukarnoputri's controversial husband to the company's mine site last September. Freeport officials were aware that Taufik had been asking about a chunk of shares in the company's Indonesian operations previously held by Mohamad ("Bob") Hasan, a confidant of former President Suharto. Indeed, the issue of the shares came up soon after the Freeport executive boarded the presidential C-130 aircraft carrying Taufik and a 40-member entourage. With...
...government and business. This isn't another case of your regular, pushy presidential spouse playing gatekeeper, but of a consummate networker aggressively meddling in matters with national ramifications. To many Indonesians, the flamboyant 58-year-old Taufik is now simply the most powerful man in the country. "If Megawati is Number One and Vice President Hamzah Haz Number Two," says Alvin Lie, an M.P. for the opposition National Mandate Party, "then Taufik is One-and-a-Half...
...Taufik's influence doesn't come solely from his three-decade marriage to the President. Of the pair, he has always been the political animal. He persuaded a reluctant Megawati to enter politics in the first place, and wielded a powerful voice in the councils of her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle. But it is typical of the quantum leap his stature and influence have taken since Megawati became President a year ago that, though he is only an ordinary M.P., the President's husband is now "de facto chairman" of the party, says senior M.P. Haryanto Taslam. Controlling...
...From the day she took office, President Megawati has continually stressed the importance of clean government and her determination to root out corruption. That's hardly surprising considering the billions of dollars that disappeared in behind-the-scenes influence peddling and cronyism during Suharto's time. There's no evidence that Taufik has done anything illegal. But his casual assumption of presidential prerogatives, his unabashed wheeling and dealing and the memory of Suharto-style backroom deals that clings to those activities have set alarm bells ringing in Jakarta. Speculation on the actions and intentions of the President's husband reminds...
...aides to the critical post of Cabinet Secretary, the official who acts as the chief intermediary between the President and her Cabinet and thus wields tremendous influence over policy decisions. "She knows that if she gives in on this that Taufik will control everything," says a source close to Megawati. Even Taufik loyalists express concern. "He uses his influence; he wants to make sure Megawati is effective as the President," says Rizal Mallarangeng, an academic who is a close friend of Taufik's. "But whether it's for good or bad depends...