By Onghokham

By Onghokham

PDI crisis reflects local political culture

JAKARTA (JP): In every election held under the New Order
government, the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) has always come
third, even though its supporters seemed so numerous and
enthusiastic during campaigning in the last two elections.

This third-ranking party is in the limelight these days, but
it is no threat to the government even led by a charismatic
figure and transformed into a formal opposition party. All it
would be able to gain is a few more seats in the House of
Representatives in the next elections since it seems that the
state apparatus is still strong enough to contain any electoral
threat from the party.

However, the government seems bent on exhausting Megawati. In
a cynical and obvious way it has sided with Soerjadi -- if it was
not the architect of the Medan congress itself. Might is on the
side of PDI-Soerjadi, and his faction is formally the winner.

Since the last election and in this late period of the New
Order -- which must be the oldest New Order around -- the
government seems to have indulged in a form of "political
cleansing" of the political parties.

First there was a cleansing within Golkar itself, with the
recall of legislator Bambang Warih. Then there was the recall of
legislator Sri Bintang Pamungkas of the Moslem-based United
Development Party (PPP) who is presently appealing his prison
sentence in a defamation case against President Soeharto.

But these were just minor nuisances compared to the PDI under
Megawati. It was thus inevitable that the PDI would be cleansed
politically in order to prevent it from becoming an opposition
party and to make it toe the government line. However, since
Megawati was elected chairperson by popular vote the process was
more difficult. But it was still done.

This policy of political cleansing, making all political
forces defer to the government, reminds one of the last days of
the Sukarno period when we had what was known as Nasakomisasi.
Nasakom was the acronym of Nasionalis (nationalism), Agama
(religion) and Komunis (communism)".

Every political force and institution had to have these three
elements. In Sukarno's day it seemed sensible to include the
communists, although it was a policy which met with a great deal
of opposition, covert as well as open.

Still it is worth noting that during the late Sukarno era the
government got into the habit of banning and closing down
everything. Looking back, were all these moves necessary and
rational? Or were they symptoms of a political culture in which
the leader can not bear to have a second star on the political
stage, however lackluster it may be?

Traditional concepts of power have a totalitarian aspect.

Whatever happens to Megawati, as far as the PDI led by
Soerjadi is concerned, the party is finished.

The formation of PDI-Soerjadi was done in such a cynical and
rude way, and its dependence on the government is so obvious,
that it can no longer be said to be functioning as a party.

The PDI as well as the PPP, the two non-ruling parties owe
their survival to ideology and the charisma of their leaders.
PDI-Soerjadi has none of these elements. It has undergone a
"Golkarisasi" without earning the same wealth and patronage from
the government as Golkar does. If for the sake of PDI's survival
it is given some influence and subsidies, it will prove to be a
bottomless pit. But what for? True, in the next general elections
it might still win a few seats but it must surely wither away
eventually. The number of "Golput" (non-voters) might increase
significantly. The PDI may be finished but not its chairperson
Megawati.

Megawati's popularity has grown fast among the people, beyond
the confines of the PDI. She is seen as a victim of government
interference. In short, a succession has taken place within the
ranks of the opposition. Megawati has at present become the main
opposition leader with deep roots in society and outside the
political parties.

All the discontented people, people eager for change for the
sake of change, reformists and others, are now behind her. No
other recent government policy has obsessed society more than the
PDI policy. Not even the controversial policy on the "national"
car, despite the fact that it has a direct and more important
impact on the public and the economy. The Megawati case has
sparked a greater obsession within society.

Megawati's career might have some parallels with that of her
late father, Sukarno, Indonesia's first president. Back to the
colonial days of the Netherlands Indies in the mid-1920s a number
of Indonesian nationalist leaders including Sukarno launched the
concept of an independent Indonesia while he was chairman of the
PNI (Indonesia Nationalist Party) he had founded.

The Indies government arrested Sukarno and sentenced him to
four years in jail, later reduced to two years by the governor
general. After Sukarno's arrest Sartono dissolved the PNI for
reasons unknown, a move still hotly debated among historians.
What is important is that the PNI itself never really recovered
from Sartono's dissolution during colonial days. The move caused
quite a furor among party leaders at the time and the PNI split
into splinter factions.

Even after Sukarno's release from jail the party never
reunited and the leadership remained divided into two camps. In
the early 1930s Sukarno and most of the other nationalist leaders
such as Hatta, Syahrir and other freedom fighters were re-
arrested and exiled to places outside Java. The PNI disappeared
from the political scene only to rise again after 1945.

The PNI might have been dissolved, and the nationalist
leadership divided, but its founder who launched the independence
idea remained in the hearts of many people. Sukarno with his
fiery oratory skills gave Indonesians an alternative to the dull
Netherlands Indies. An independent Indonesia, a free Indonesia,
not a colony, and not dependent on any other country.

This concept took over Sukarno's personality and he became its
personification. Sukarno might have been exiled for many years
and made compromises with the colonial government, but his
charisma remained untarnished, although there were many other
nationalist leaders who suffered much more from the colonial
government's suppression of the nationalist movement, like Hatta,
Syahrir and others who were exiled to terrifying Boven Digul in
the middle of the malaria-infested jungle of Irian Jaya. Sukarno
was exiled to relatively pleasant places.

When the historic moment came in early 1942, the Netherlands
Indies fell and the Japanese took over, they turned to Sukarno
for support in their war against the allies and made him the
leader of the Indonesians. The rest of the story is familiar. The
dull Netherlands Indies period was replaced for several decades
by exciting times indeed.

One wonders how far the Netherlands Indies government was to
blame for making Sukarno such a charismatic leader. He did have
an impressive personality and his sentencing by the colonial
court in Bandung caused quite a stir. The government's
prosecutor, Kiewiet de Jonge, shook Sukarno's hand after the
trial. Professor Schepper of the Law School in Batavia wrote a
pamphlet to condemn the court's sentence. In a novel written in
Dutch in the 1930s by S. Djojopoespito (one of three Indonesian
writers in Dutch), Sukarno received a great deal of attention in
his role as nationalist leader and husband of the elderly Inggit,
his wife at the time.

Speaking of Megawati, one is reminded of another famous
political victim, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar. Her rise in
Myanmar to the status of major political figure was even more
improbable. Aung San Suu Kyi's youth was spent almost entirely
abroad where she went for her studies. She received her degree in
Great Britain, and married a British academic.

Megawati is much more homegrown while Myanmar, as a
continental country, has a society which is more inward-looking
than archipelagic Indonesia. It is the Myanmarese government
itself which created Aung San Suu Kyi, whose fate and career is
now compared to that of Megawati. In South and Southeast Asia
personality and charisma still are part of the dynamics of
history.

A few last notes about the Megawati case. It looks as if,
through heavy government support, Soerjadi will become the
official PDI chairman. But any political party is a social
phenomenon too, meaning that it has its supporters within
society. The PDI is not the PNI alone. It is an amalgam of
parties and people of religious minorities, including the
Protestant party (Parkindo), the Catholic party, and Balinese
Hindus. Who will represent them now outside Golkar?

Usually, apolitical minorities will support the government
line or the majority. But religious leaders might now find that
relations with society are more important than those with
officialdom.

Another important element of the PDI's mass support has always
been the young, who hate dullness and have the sweeping ambition
all politicized youngsters tend to have.

With the suppression of PDI-Megawati, where will these
frustrated youthful energies be channeled? We can probably expect
some ugly developments in the future which may not be related to
last Saturdays' riots.

In Indonesia the state has always been overwhelmingly strong,
both in colonial days and after. Its overwhelming power has bred
arrogance and isolation. That can be self-destructive. The ease
with which it destroyed political parties, especially the
formidable PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) in its heyday in the
late 1960s has caused these attitudes.

The writer is a historian.