Golkar's support for Wiranto is questioned

Golkar's support for Wiranto is questioned

Ridwan Max Sijabat and Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

After two weeks of the presidential campaign, Golkar leaders
have urged party executives to show their support for their
candidate Gen. (ret) Wiranto and running mate Solahuddin Wahid.

Sparsely attended campaigns have raised questions about
whether the party leadership is living up to its pledge it would
go all out to have Wiranto elected.

Golkar leaders last week did not seemed prepared to consider a
possible lack of genuine public support for their candidate. The
likelihood the party has to carefully manage funds to mobilize
support after spending much money on costly TV commercials is one
explanation for the lackluster campaigns.

Another is that Golkar is still divided after Wiranto's shock
win at the party's presidential convention, with the supporters
of rival candidates unable to get over their disappointment.

"Why should I support Wiranto now?" said one party executive
who said he remained loyal to defeated presidential candidate,
party leader Akbar Tandjung. Akbar, meanwhile, has been seen at
many of Wiranto's rallies across the country.

On Sunday, the only opportunity for Wiranto to hold an open
air rally in the capital, the Bung Karno Sports Stadium saw less
than half of its 100,000 seats occupied. Earlier Golkar campaigns
had seen much larger turnouts.

"If Golkar wants to continue existing given its humble victory
in the legislative election, it must back Wiranto; he's the only
one who can boost the party's standing if he wins the
presidential race," Andi Matalatta, a Golkar executive, said last
week at the party headquarters. He was speaking on the sidelines
of a party meeting to evaluate the first weeks of the month-long
campaign.

Golkar edged past the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle
(PDI-P) to take the largest share of the vote in the April
legislative elections and more than 30 percent of the seats in
the House of Representatives (DPR).

Matallata and others point to "lack of strong coordination"
among three campaign divisions -- the national team, Wiranto's
"Imperium Team", named after the South Jakarta building where it
is based, and the team of the National Awakening Party (PKB), of
which Solahuddin is an executive.

Matallata said he and other party leaders had repeatedly
warned against fragmentation in the party because of a "lack of
support of Wiranto". Wiranto, whose career has largely been spent
in the Indonesian Military (TNI) is considered a newcomer to
Golkar. Another executive said "not all players in the national
team are determined to win the presidential race."

Although all political parties nominating candidates for the
July election have had little time to prepare their campaigns,
Golkar is easily the party with the best resources after 32 years
in power during the New Order regime.

However representatives of the regional campaign teams have
said they were largely left on their own to produce campaign
paraphernalia. A few said they were not even involved in
Wiranto's rallies in the regions such as in Banten and Riau.

"The leader of Golkar's regional chapter in Banten had no idea
about Wiranto's campaign ... Yet their campaign paraphernalia was
seen in many strategic places -- it was clearly the work of
Wiranto's campaign team," a Golkar source said.

Yet a source in Wiranto's team said Wiranto was aware of
Golkar's "half-hearted support" and had entrusted his own team to
prepare all campaign activities. "So far only Wiranto's success
team has worked hard to arrange campaigns and Golkar has
contributed hardly anything to cover the costs," he said.

Party executive Bomer Pasaribu said, "It's not realistic to
ask former convention participants such as Surya Paloh, Aburizal
Bakrie and Prabowo Subianto to support Wiranto ... they've
already spent tens of billions of rupiah on the party's
convention," he said of Wiranto's rivals who lost the convention.

Bomer said "a little disharmony" among the campaign teams was
also because the coalition between Golkar and its former rival,
the PKB, was only based "more on strategic and short-term
interests" rather than similarities in ideology.