Golkar's next steps
On Saturday the government party, Golkar, elected Akbar Tandjung, who is President B. J. Habibie's powerful minister/state secretary, as its new chairman. He replaces Harmoko, who led the party during the last five years when it served little purpose beyond being former president Soeharto's general election machinery.
Recognizing that Golkar is still a powerful political force within the legislature and the administration, the election elevates Akbar, an experienced politician, into one of the nation's foremost political figures. According to our political tradition of the last three decades, he should become speaker of both the People's Consultative Assembly and the House of Representatives.
If Golkar can survive the looming political turmoil of the next 10 months it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Akbar will be the next occupant of Habibie's seat. But this depends on whether Golkar was really reborn as a modern political entity at the congress, cleaning itself of its hereditary sins and making itself capable of attracting popular support.
Last week's congress did not show that the party has prepared itself to become a viable election winner. It failed to prove that it has completely shed its the old mentality. The chairmanship election was indeed more democratic than the previous ones but the nature of politicking and exaggerated fuss about money politics showed that Golkar has not repented.
It seems to have forgotten that it is still too early for the people to forget how the party -- which until yesterday only called itself a functional group but in optima forma has been nothing but a political entity -- was ruthless in turning all democratic values upside down, and how widespread was its tolerance of corruption, nepotism, and crony capitalism. Golkar's most fatal thoughtlessness was reelecting Soeharto in March.
Although Golkar has never been an independent political grouping because no national policies have ever been decided at its headquarters and everything depended on Soeharto, who pulled the strings from behind the screen, the people believe it has to take its share of the blame for the present calamitous national crisis.
The organization has apparently looked down on the importance of a healthy public image because it seems to believe that its very survival can be guaranteed at the General Session of the People's Consultative Assembly, at the end of the year, which it dominates. This way of thinking is reminiscent of the way Habibie appointed his hand-picked members of the Assembly at the end of June to replace the old ones.
The sorrowful message from this maneuver is that it will take years for the present government to implement total reform, meaning it will never do it.
Such strategy sounds tactful. But Golkar has to remember that next year no sane person in this country will tolerate any rigged elections -- as Soeharto's regime held since 1971. If Golkar still hopes to play the same game again it will be squashed by time.
Akbar, who has promised to introduce change within the party, will surely find that the path to democracy is not as smooth as he imagined.