Golkar is making less than a full comeback

Golkar is making less than a full comeback

Endy M. Bayuni, Deputy Chief Editor, The Jakarta Post,
Cambridge, Massachusetts

As widely predicted, Golkar won the April 5 general election
for the House of Representatives by beating President Megawati
Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

Golkar, the party that kept dictator Soeharto in power for
nearly three decades until 1998, has won both the popular vote
and proportionately more seats in the House, thanks to the
multiseat district electoral system. The party is now back in
charge -- this time with a greater claim of popular legitimacy --
and the nation must brace for the political implications of this.

Widely discredited when the Soeharto regime collapsed six
years ago, Golkar has been busy fending off attacks from all
sides and, at the same time, consolidating itself. It even
survived a number of political scandals, including one involving
chairman Akbar Tandjung, who was acquitted of corruption by the
Supreme Court only last month.

Golkar's renaissance was not all that dissimilar to the return
to power of many of the communist parties in Eastern Europe in
the 1990s. They, too, survived the onslaught of reform,
transformed themselves and won free and democratic elections in
multiparty systems, some within five years of the demise of the
communist-led regimes.

Warnings of a Golkar comeback were voiced as far back as five
years ago, and not solely because of what was happening in
Eastern Europe.

In 1999, the first free and democratic election Indonesia had
held in over 40 years, Golkar lost the election to the PDI-P and
therefore had to share power in a coalition with other political
parties for the first time in over three decades. Golkar, which
won all six pseudo-elections held under Soeharto, no longer had
the monopoly. But the party, an amalgam of various interest
groups of which the military had, until recently, been the most
important and most powerful, still surprised many by coming
second in 1999.

Akbar is probably the most seasoned politician alive in
Indonesia today. In 1999, he secured the House speaker position,
and Golkar colluded with other political parties to deprive
Megawati of the coveted presidency. Akbar, the kingmaker,
outmaneuvered her to give that job to Muslim cleric Abdurrahman
Wahid, only to impeach him 18 months later, eventually giving the
job to Megawati.

In the last two or three years, we have also witnessed, time
and again, evidence of Golkar's political skill and prowess when
many of its candidates won local elections for provincial
governor and regency chief, all coming at the expense of
Megawati's largely inexperienced PDI-P.

Hence, when Golkar won the general election this month, it did
not come as a surprise at all. Whatever complaints we may have
about the electoral system and the way it was conducted, there is
no doubt about the legitimacy of Golkar's victory. Whether Golkar
will carry the presidency as well in elections in July, however,
remains in doubt.

The collapse of the Soeharto regime in 1998 may have
discredited Golkar, but the party still had many other cards to
play in both general elections it contested since then. It is
still the best organized political party with a large structure
that reaches down to the villages. Golkar is certainly powerful
outside Java, as the April 5 votes testified. In contrast, PDI-P
relied heavily on the support of its Javanese constituents.

Golkar also has the financial clout that most other parties,
including the new ones, lack. With political parties and campaign
finances still not subject to thorough auditing under the new
electoral legislation, there is no way of knowing precisely how
much Golkar raised and spent to win these elections.

The party also still owns or controls many, if not most, of
the private TV stations that helped to mobilize public opinion in
its favor. News about the outbreak of SARS, which stands for
Sindrom Saya Rindu Soeharto (I miss Soeharto syndrome) across
Java early this year, was, in all likelihood, stage-managed
precisely for that purpose.

And it worked. Golkar won the election on a platform of
stability, order and economic growth, elements that reminded many
to the "good old days" of Soeharto's New Order regime. The party
has been able to play up instability and economic stagnation
under the leadership of Megawati and the PDI-P, concealing the
fact that much of Indonesia's current predicament is a legacy of
the gross misrule and mismanagement of the corrupt Soeharto and
Golkar.

While there was no level playing field in either the 1999 or
2004 election, the other parties, especially those that put
themselves in the reformist camp, have no one but themselves to
blame. Five years should have been enough for them to build their
own power base significantly. Instead, most were locked in petty
internal struggles that undermine their own reputation and
eventually their mass support.

The 2004 election results clearly showed this. All the major
parties saw a decline in their share of the vote. The Muslim-
based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) was one of the two
exceptions, increasing its share of the vote at the expense of
other Muslim parties. The other, the new Democrat Party of former
security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, clearly stole some
disgruntled voters away from Megawati's PDI-P.

While we may feel that Golkar has made a tremendous comeback,
there are good reasons to believe that Indonesia is not going to
be plunged into another era of authoritarian rule. For one,
Golkar won the election on a 20 percent-plus share of the vote --
not the landslide victory it enjoyed in the six elections under
Soeharto. To control the House, Golkar still has to form a
coalition with other parties.

Golkar has also undergone significant changes. The party today
remains an amalgam of interest groups that puts it alongside the
PDI-P as one of the largest nationalist, as opposed to Islamist,
parties. Unlike the communist parties in Eastern Europe, Golkar
is not ideologically driven.

While it may have some historical and emotional ties with the
Indonesian Military (TNI), Golkar no longer enjoys automatic
support from it. In any event, the TNI as of this year will no
longer have representation in political institutions, such that a
formal alliance with Golkar will become irrelevant. Besides, both
Golkar and the TNI carry so much political baggage from their
past associations with Soeharto that they would do better to keep
their distance from each other if they ever want to shed their
past image and reputation.

There are enough institutional checks and balances in place
today that would likely prevent a full return to the era of joint
Golkar-TNI rule, even assuming that there were such an intention
on the part of the two institutions.

Moreover, they still have to win the presidential election in
July, a tall order in itself.

This time around, Akbar no longer has the luxury he had in
1999 when he could engage in horse-trading with other parties in
the People's Consultative Assembly to give the presidency to
Abdurrahman Wahid. This year, the election of the president and
vice president is fully in the hands of voters. Golkar and the
other parties can only nominate their candidates.

The lesson for other parties from the April 5 election is
clear. They have a duty to prevent a full Golkar comeback, a
possible scenario if they keep failing in future elections. The
nation could live under a Golkar-led coalition government for the
next five years, but for our democracy to remain healthy, other
parties must emerge to challenge Golkar's position in 2009.

At the very least, we can brag that we live under an electoral
democracy, a system that allows the nation to dump the party in
power if it fails to perform to expectations. That is exactly
what many voters did with Megawati and her PDI-P on April 5.

The writer is currently studying at Harvard University under
fellowships from the Nieman Foundation, the Ford Foundation and
the Asia Foundation.