Who will thriumph at the polls<\/p>\n
This is the first of two articles on the mapping of Indonesian
\npolitics prepared by Lance Castle, a visiting lecturer in
\npolitical science at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta.<\/p>\n
YOGYAKARTA (JP): Like in the early 1950s, Indonesia has
\nembarked on a long campaign which hopefully will culminate in a
\ngeneral election in June.<\/p>\n
Every weekend will see parades and rallies. The streets are
\nbedecked with red, green and blue flags -- yellow has
\nmysteriously disappeared from the ensemble of colors.<\/p>\n
Large but flimsily built command posts, called Posko, in every
\nkampong assure the timid that there is strength in numbers.<\/p>\n
The tabloids sensationally proclaim the latest plots,
\ncoalitions and presidential prospects: President B.J. Habibie
\nversus Armed Forces (ABRI) Commander in Chief Gen. Wiranto?
\nGolkar Party chairman Akbar Tandjung and Minister of Cooperatives
\nand Small Enterprises Adi Sasono have a falling out? Nahdlatul
\nUlama (NU) chairman Abdurrahman \"Gus Dur\" Wahid supports Golkar?
\nThe Dream Team: Megawati Soekarnoputri of the Indonesian
\nDemocratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) for president,
\nYogyakarta Governor Sultan Hamengkubuwono X for vice president?<\/p>\n
Rather decently, the tabloids generally qualify their most
\noutrageous speculations with question marks. But it is clear that
\nby the time we know the winners, the nation will be as tired of
\npolitics as the Americans are of Monica Lewinsky and Kenneth
\nStarr.<\/p>\n
Still, there is great interest for political scientists,
\nincluding the amateurs, in trying to predict the outcome, though
\nno doubt Jakarta will not permit bets at high stakes such as
\nenliven elections in London.<\/p>\n
Is it possible to predict the outcome, given that it is over
\n40 years since Indonesia had a free election?<\/p>\n
We know that party systems tend to be stable over many
\ndecades. (Compare the Democrats versus Republicans in America or
\nthe Tories and Laborites in Britain, but remember, on the other
\nhand, the gradual erosion of Congress dominance in India and the
\ntwo decades in Britain when the two-party system was in abeyance
\nbecause Labor was replacing Liberal as the anticonservative
\nparty.)<\/p>\n
There are three ways of estimating the strengths of the
\nparties in Indonesia: Opinion polls, projections based on voters'
\nbehavior in pre-New Order elections (with adjustments for changes
\nin the interim), and speculations based on anecdotes and
\nprejudices about \"the simple Indonesian voter\" which still
\ninfluence many forecasts. Naturally, this article will rely on
\nthe first two, with occasional references to the fallacies of the
\nthird.<\/p>\n
The results of the 1955 election showed a pattern of voting
\nbased on aliran, the great religio-cultural streams of which the
\nIndonesian nation is made up. The result, contrary to
\nexpectations, was a great simplification of the party scene.<\/p>\n
When a voter entered the voting booth, he\/she was confronted
\nwith a paper listing up to 60 parties, depending on the province,
\nand their logos, and had to choose (puncture) one (most voters
\nthen were illiterate).<\/p>\n
Nearly four-fifths picked one of four big parties. The
\nIndonesian Nationalist Party got 57 seats (as compared to 42 in
\nthe old unelected parliament), the modernist Muslim Masyumi Party
\ngot the same number (44 previously), the traditionalist Muslim NU
\n45 (up from 8), and the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI)
\nastonishingly 39 (up from 17).<\/p>\n
Clearly, these unsophisticated voters made their distinctions
\nand did not vote randomly, which does not prevent some
\ncommentators predicting dire confusion as the result of the 100-
\nodd contenders in the field at present.<\/p>\n
While many expected those four to be dominant, most thought
\nseveral other parties would make a respectable showing. But note
\n-- the previously influential Indonesian Socialist Party went
\ndown from 14 to five, the Nationalist People's Party from 13 to
\ntwo, the Greater Indonesia Party from 21 to two.<\/p>\n
Two parties thought to have prospects -- the national-
\ncommunist Murba party and the Army-sponsored League of the
\nUpholders of Indonesian Independence, got only two seats and four
\nseats respectively.<\/p>\n
Consistent with the aliran pattern, the Indonesian Republic
\nCatholic Party and its Protestant counterpart Parkindo got 6
\npercent of the votes. Incidentally, explicitly regional-ethnic
\nparties, though not banned, did not reach 1 percent of the vote,
\ndespite the fact that a regional crisis threatening national
\nbreakup emerged only a couple of years after the election.<\/p>\n
How stable was the aliran pattern? In 1951, an election in
\nYogyakarta gave the Muslim parties a good majority of the seats,
\nwhich they fell far short of attaining in 1955. In 1957, PKI got
\na substantially higher proportion of the votes in regional
\nelections in Java than it had two years earlier. This shows that
\nshifts can take place within the broad aliran pattern.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, NU got almost exactly the same proportion
\nof votes in 1971 as in 1955. Thereafter, it ceased to be counted
\nas a separate party, and the published results of the New Order
\nelections gave no indication of aliran patterns or anything else.<\/p>\n
This time, there will be no PKI. But there is every reason to
\nbelieve that three huge parties will emerge with an enormous
\nmajority between them. The People's Awakening Party (PKB) will
\ninherit the NU votes, PDI for Struggle of the non-Muslims and
\nthose Muslims (syncretists, seculars or whatever) who object to
\npolitical Islam, and the National Mandate Party (PAN) led by
\nAmien Rais will get the votes of old Masyumi constituency, more
\nor less the nontraditionalist Muslims.<\/p>\n
In each case, there are skeptics who point out that there are
\nother contenders for all three of those rich inheritances. Why
\nshould only Amien, Megawati and Gus Dur-Matori Abdul Jalil (of
\nPKB) be the happy legatees?<\/p>\n
The simple answer is: There are polls -- not the wealth of
\npolls exploring changes in voting intentions in a variety of
\nregions and social strata which it would be so easy to do, but
\nenough to show who is winning.<\/p>\n
A recently published poll in The Jakarta Post shows that about
\n60 percent of respondents in five cities regarded either Megawati
\nor Amien as the best person to be president. The Sultan of
\nYogyakarta came next with 15 percent, followed by Gus Dur with
\nabout 9 percent. Habibie got a bit over 3 percent, followed by
\nYusril Ihza Mahendra of the Crescent Star Party (PBB), and former
\nJakarta governor Ali Sadikin. No one else was significant.<\/p>\n
That the sultan got more votes than Gus Dur does not, of
\ncourse, imply that the former's party (formally he is still
\nGolkar) will do better than PKB, but merely that people realize
\nthat Gus Dur is sick, while the sultan is perceived as a suitable
\npresident by many people who reject both Megawati and Amien.<\/p>\n
A more significant finding is that Yusril, whose party is
\nperceived by many as a stronger contender than PAN for the
\nMasyumi inheritance because it both retained the Masyumi Crescent
\nand Star symbol and loudly advocated an Islamic state, was
\noutnumbered 10-to-1 by Amien.<\/p>\n
PBB may not breach the 2 percent limit needed to get seats,
\nand in any case, will play no significant role in the new
\nparliament. Why? We can only say that it has already happened.
\nAmien is on everybody's lips as Mr. Muhammadiyah (Muslim
\norganization), the superclean, superenergetic, superserious new
\nNatsir (the late prime minister), who addressed the students
\nfrom the steps of the House of Representatives building on the
\nday Soeharto stepped down from his presidency (May 21, 1998); his
\nimage has captured the modernist Muslim aliran for his new party.<\/p>\n
To ordinary voters, Yusril is a blank, like Hamzah Haz of the
\nUnited Development Party (PPP) and Akbar Tandjung.<\/p>\n
The different, but equally compelling, images of Megawati and
\nGus Dur have driven out all rivals for their streams. Within the
\nlimits of the overriding aliran loyalties, people like to back
\nwinners.<\/p>\n
It is still common to maintain that Golkar should not be
\nwritten off; that even if it loses two-thirds of its 1997 votes,
\nit would still be a big bloc in the House (24 percent, plus 80
\npercent from the ABRI fraction).<\/p>\n
This seems to be nonsense, like the incomprehensible claim
\nthat Gus Dur \"commands\" 40 percent of the votes. Barely 3 percent
\nof the poll respondents thought Habibie to be the most suitable
\npresident. So will Golkar disappear without a trace? Obviously
\nthere is no fun in being a candidate, campaigner or voter for the
\nofficial government party, when everybody can see that after the
\nelection, it will not be the government any more. It would
\nobviously have been better to have decently dissolved the party
\nand its accursed symbols months ago.<\/p>\n
That this has not happened only shows that thousands still
\nenjoy the party's patronage in central and regional councils, and
\nthat in the world in which they move, they think \"established\"
\nparties like Golkar and PPP are bound to have an advantage over
\nnew parties. This is a fallacy. People are thirsting precisely
\nfor what is new. The notion that the unsophisticated villager
\nwill vote Golkar because it has a superb organization and vast
\nfinances, or because only they are visible to simple people, is
\nnonsense.<\/p>",
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