A lesson for a multiparty system
A lesson for a multiparty system
Kompas of May 30 carried a thought-inspiring caricature
depicting a bunch of hilarious, merciless-looking men who raise
posters identifying their respective political parties, while
others hold up still blank posters. A trampled, injured man in
rags lies dying on the ground, personifying the battered national
economy. In a corner, a modest image of a common man displaying a
poster signals the Sembako Party. Sembako is an acronym for the
nine basic commodities.
The striking satirical message elicited by the caricature
reflects first the escalating breakaway of certain groupings from
some existing political parties, other than the justifiable moves
of former repressed opposition leaders to set up new political
parties.
Second, the image of the dying man and the innocent common man
wielding the Sembako Party sign fitly depicts the callous
disregard on the part of the political movements of vested
interest groups vis-a-vis the poor economic state of the country
and the people's suffering in the current economic crisis.
In my view, the caricature should serve as a reminder that the
existence of a multitude of political parties, with rampant,
incessant antagonism raging between them, as prevailed in the
1950s, did not provide political stability, nor economic
development, to the country and people. Cabinets survived less
than a year.
It resembled the political instability in France which held
sway in the 1950s in the pre-De Gaulle era.
A university professor of constitutional law in a talk show on
SCTV on Sunday evening (May 31) stated that in the 1950s no
antagonism existed between political parties in the matter of
their programs.
But it must be recalled that the antagonism between the
parties in 1958 reached such a stage as to end up in a stalemate
of the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly, which
undertook to lay down a new constitution. This stalemate angered
president Sukarno, who at that time went on record with the
warning "I will bury the political parties". He finally revived
the 1945 Constitution.
The antagonism between the political parties which caused the
failure of the Assembly in 1958 must serve as a lesson for
retrospection and introspection to the leaders who are intent on
founding new political parties and accordingly participating in
the coming general election.
S. SUHAEDI
Jakarta