Golkar...why not just dissolve!
Golkar...why not just dissolve!
From D&R
Early this year the General Chairman of the Functional Group (Golkar), Akbar Tandjung, finally apologized to the community for all Golkar's past mistakes. I hoped this sincere apology would regain public sympathy for Golkar.
However, reform movement activist Yenny Rosa Damayanti, said that Golkar's apology was too late, adding that the political organization failed to make any mention at all of the myriad forms of violence committed during the New Order.
I would like to suggest Akbar Tandjung cease issuing statements and making promises that will never be realized and instead dissolve Golkar.
The rationale for my suggestion is as follows:
* Golkar leaders have never kept their word. Remember in the last general election how the prominent Golkar campaigners bombastically promised to increase the standard of living for all people. At the end of the day, all the benefits were enjoyed by the campaigners themselves and their associates only, leaving the people's fate the same as ever, or even poorer.
* Golkar veterans then adopted a very disappointing Reform Cabinet, one that selected none other than those arrogant old timers who belonged to the New Order regime. Look at the way Harmoko acted when he was the general chairman of Golkar and acted concurrently as minister of information. Recall also the arrogance that was shown by the Head of the Supreme Advisory Council, AA Baramuli. It was disgusting. During these ten months of Reform Cabinet administration, the government has failed to improve the people's standard of living. Conditions have in fact worsened with the prevailing climate of violence. Atrocities have occurred in a number of locales, the latest and most appalling one taking place in Maluku province.
The cabinet, House of Representatives (DPR) and the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) should also be dissolved, because most of the members of the latter two institutions are only mouthpieces for the New Order. To fill the vacuum in the administration I propose that the reform heroes (the best leaders from our university senates), under the cooperation and leadership of their rectors be entrusted to establish a provisional MPR. Their primary task should be the completion of all the unfinished laws, including the crucial political and election laws. Emergency measures need to be taken to rescue our country from crumbling and disintegrating. The situation could lead to social revolution, as feared by Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) organization chairman Abdurrahman Wahid and by us all. We need scrupulously clean, honest and concerned figures to build our social, economic and political as well as legal settings anew.
R. JOHAN
Address known to the editor