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.