Cult of personalily haunts Megawati's 'democratic' congress

By Marcus Mietzner

DENPASAR (JP): Megawati Soekarnoputri's recent Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) congress in Bali has established her organization as the major nationalist force in Indonesia's political landscape.

Riding on a wave of public sympathy, Megawati's party branches reelected her as their chairwoman without a single delegate opposing her nomination. Equipped with a monopoly on the formulation of PDI policies, she succeeded to maximize the party's prospects for the upcoming general elections by forging an alliance with other nationalist organizations.

However, behind the facade of internal harmony several problems emerged during the congress that in the long term might endanger the faction's solidity.

The most serious problem Megawati's PDI faction faces has to do with the very reason for its extraordinary success. Megawati's dominance of the organization attracts the mass support that probably will carry it into the next government, but it weakens the party as far as its institutional development is concerned.

The congress endowed Megawati with unprecedented authority without installing a mechanism of control. The close identification of the PDI faction with its chairwoman mirrors the structural weakness of the party vis-a-vis Megawati's overwhelming popularity.

Seen from a short-term perspective, this structural weakness will do the party no harm. In the long term, however, the party might become a pure electoral machine to secure Megawati's success at the ballot box.

While this arrangement might work well as long as Megawati leads the party, it will leave the organization empty-handed and programmatically hollowed out as soon as she leaves the political stage.

The congress failed to address this problem. It even rejected the idea of installing a deputy chairman who would succeed the popular daughter of the country's first president should she herself become the chief executive.

The weak institutional basis of the party creates not only problems for PDI's internal decision-making process, but it also affects Megawati's public image.

The congress was held in an atmosphere in which it was impossible to criticize the chairwoman. While much of the public adoration of Megawati is genuine, the party deliberately promotes the personal cult created around her.

In a country that only recently agreed that idolatry of an individual leader was one of the problems leading to its economic and political breakdown, this phenomenon should be the source of some concern.

At the congress, there were indications that the absence of criticism of her leadership had increased Megawati's sensitiveness. Confronted with rumors about friction within the party and attempts of bribery allegedly involving her husband, she made a dramatic appearance during which she reportedly threatened to step down if the party was not ready to unite.

One of her advisers confirmed that she usually applied such a threat when she was confronted with heated debate within the party. Her threats, however, do not create an incentive for debate within her PDI camp, and it will remain to be seen how she can cope with public criticism should she win the race for the presidency.

Another result of the concentration on Megawati's personality is the sidelining of programmatical content. While she has earned admiration for her fight against the government's obvious intervention in PDI's internal affairs, especially after her government-orchestrated ouster in 1996, she has been less explicit when elaborating on her programs to solve the country's economic and political problems.

Her opening speech at the congress was clearly composed in order to give her the visionary profile that she has lacked so far. But apart from a proposal to replace the country's leading judges in order to reform the judiciary, and a general invitation to foreign investors, she offered few concrete solutions.

Although her programmatical weakness is surely an expression of the collective confusion about which way Indonesia should go politically and economically, Megawati's silence on concrete issues seems to be more than that.

As she pointed out in her speech, her capital is the trust that people put in her, and nothing else. This trust is not based on the confidence in her intellectual capacity, but in her moral integrity. She therefore refuses to make any statement that could alienate her supporters or potential coalition partners.

The experience of Amien Rais, whose attempts to formulate a concrete party platform have alienated many voters simply because of its explicit nature, might have convinced Megawati that holding her tongue is the best strategy.

In terms of tactics, Megawati provided evidence at the congress that she has the potential to be a master player in the political arena. The inclusion of Hasyim Wahid, the younger brother of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) leader Abdurrahman Wahid (better known as Gus Dur), in the party's leadership board has formalized the close relations between Megawati's PDI and the People's Awakening Party (PKB), the party established by NU.

NU is Indonesia's largest Moslem organization.

Megawati sees the alliance between traditionalist Islam and nationalist forces as crucial in order to win the general election. Aware that she cannot win a single majority, she is taking steps to secure coalition partners as early as possible. She attended a public prayer on the eve of PKB's establishment, and Hasyim's joining of PDI underlines the commitment of both Megawati and Gus Dur to go ahead with their alliance, despite criticism from NU's religious leaders in the regions and PDI activists sympathetic to Amien Rais.

Besides securing Gus Dur's support, Megawati managed to recruit figures from other major nationalist organizations including Meilono Suwondo, the younger brother of former Golkar leader Siswono Yudohusodo, in the party board. Siswono is a prominent member of a nationalist association of civilian figures and retired officers.

The movement had been founded after nationalist elements within Golkar failed to place former minister of defense Edi Sudradjat as Golkar chairman in July. Edi was seen attending the PDI congress' opening ceremony. Sitting beside him was Kemal Idris, the leader of another nationalist organization, the National Front.

Having arranged political marriages with elements of traditionalist Islam and civilian nationalists, she also attempted to forge an even more sensitive alliance by appointing retired Maj. Gen. Theo Syafei as one of her deputies. In doing so, she tried to win support from prominent representatives of the Armed Forces (ABRI). Whether she will succeed with this effort is still an open question. There are three factors creating uncertainty concerning a possible cooperation between PDI and the Armed Forces.

First, Theo Syafei is not representative of the Armed Forces. Even before his retirement, he was known as an extraordinarily outspoken general. In 1997, he was recalled from the House of Representatives by the Armed Forces headquarters for declaring that boycotting the election was a public right. His relations with the military leadership have been tense ever since.

Second, the current top brass' stance toward Megawati is unclear. Although the military finally issued a permit for her congress and Commander-in-Chief Gen. Wiranto reportedly was impressed with Megawati's rejection of a federal system, ABRI's political orientation in the post-Soeharto era has yet to be defined.

It is quite possible that ABRI might opt to continue its support for Golkar in order to defend its institutional interests.

Third, Megawati's PDI congress -- in its one and only show of party sovereignty -- passed a resolution calling for the abolition of the military's dual function. Despite intensive lobbying by Megawati's advisers for a more moderate formulation, the congress' participants insisted on the move. The delegates were furious when they realized that the agreement reached in a special commission had been manipulated by party officials. Only after its political statement was changed for a third time in order for it to include the dual function language, did the party's delegates agree. However, the extensive powers given to Megawati allow her to change this commitment at any time.

Although the chances for a cooperation with ABRI seem slim, Megawati has succeeded in forging an impressive alliance. The chances that she will be able to build up a workable coalition in the next House are high. However, her problems might start at the very moment she takes over the national leadership. She would have to guard against the dangers arising from her own personal cult and would have to prevent her party from becoming a mere personality oriented public relations agency.

In addition, she has to accept the possibility of public criticism should her concept of leadership fail. The congress in Bali has done little to prepare her for this eventuality.

The writer, a PhD scholar at the Australian National University's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, is currently a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.