Indonesia's politics enters new ball game

By Gerry van Klinken

SYDNEY (JP): It still is not clear what kind of government will emerge from the elections whose results were declared last week. Some powerful Jakarta elites, unhappy with the people's choice, may manage to form a government that ignores the elections. Even so, the results give a rare snapshot of the political map at the grassroots. In particular, the regional distribution of seats won by various parties helps answer the question many asked beforehand: "Will these elections heal Indonesia's weakened politics body?"

The first impression is encouraging for all those who had hoped for a simple result to reflect the national mind. Defying pessimists, who said 48 parties would only produce chaos, the results are almost as simple as a New Order election, but with a huge swing away from Golkar toward Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan). The three New Order parties -- Golkar, United Development Party (PPP) and PDI Perjuangan -- wrapped up among them 72 percent of the seats. They each won seats in practically every province. The big five -- the New Order three plus Abdurrahman Wahid's National Awakening Party (PKB) and Amien Rais' National Mandate Party (PAN) -- won over 90 percent of all seats. Just eight parties won over 96 percent of them.

The swing against Golkar of 50 percent compared with the 1997 elections was strong right across the nation. Golkar achieved its highest result in South Sulawesi, but even there it suffered a swing of 25 percent. PDI Perjuangan at 33 percent of the vote won half as many votes again as its nearest rival Golkar, though less than a third as many seats because of the heavier weighting for votes outside Java. PDI Perjuangan, we must conclude, was the people's choice. This result does not suggest Indonesia is incapable of achieving a national mind under conditions of freedom.

However, there is a regional pattern to the distribution of seats. While Golkar took a pummeling nationwide, the areas where Golkar obtained more than the national average of 26 percent of the seats were all outside the Java heartland. In Java-Bali, Golkar obtained 17 percent of the seats in each province, whereas in the outer islands it was 36 percent. In as much as it was saved at all, Golkar's bacon was saved in the outer islands. Moreover, Golkar's votes were strongest in rural areas. Town voters, also outside Java, often protested by choosing other parties.

In the past, Golkar relied on two things to win elections: military force and spreading the largess among local elites. This was the first time when both were in short supply. The military mostly stood back and let this election run its course. And the economic crisis left Golkar short of the necessary generosity. The huge swing against Golkar indicates it never really won the people's heart.

The swing to PDI Perjuangan, with little money to throw around, suggested a rediscovered force in Indonesian electoral politics -- the force of charisma. But the swing was greatest in Java, while a strong Golkar vote persisted in outer island rural areas. This is an interesting pattern, one with a long history.

Golkar's approach to politics was reminiscent of the colonial Dutch: paternalistic, nonparticipatory and development-oriented. It worked for both Golkar and the Dutch in the outer islands, a thinly populated frontier region of plantations and mines. Both felt nervous about the potentially explosive populism of Java. The Dutch only once came close to panicking -- that was when the communist party, PKI, launched an uprising on Java and West Sumatra in 1926/1927. Golkar always won below average votes on Java.

During their brief occupation of the archipelago, only the Japanese 16th Army on Java felt compelled to swing with Java's populism by coopting Sukarno. Elsewhere, the Japanese ran an entirely nonparticipatory regime. The revolutionary republic of the late 1940s was largely confined to Java.

The perennially strong Golkar vote in the outer islands reflects that region's frontier "colonial" character. In its poorer parts, much of the urban elite is dependent on employment in the civil service. In the resource-rich western part of the archipelago, other elites benefit from export industries such as cash crops, mining and forestry. These industries were not badly affected by the economic crisis that brought so much misery to the cities of Java and that brought down Soeharto. Such local elites in turn played their part in ensuring a Golkar victory there.

But these areas are also wracked with "colonial" violence. Aceh, East Timor and Irian Jaya are outer island regions where ruling elites have lost touch with the aspirations of the people. If the New Order appears to linger in the outer islands, the heartland experienced a renewal in this election. A friend in Bali's Ubud described to me a "golden, crystalline feeling" on the day. People lined up quietly for hours waiting to cast their vote. They were determined to set right the wrongs they felt were committed under Golkar. Afterwards, they felt proud of what they did in that booth. The PDI Perjuangan protest vote in Bali was strong in rural as well as urban areas. Clearly, democracy should consist of more than a huge protest vote, but it was an inspiring start. Most of Java, where half the country's population lives, was the same, as were parts of Sumatra.

However, the pattern of "renewal in Java-Bali" versus "conservatism in the outer islands" cannot be the last word on this election result. The reason is simple. Golkar can no longer be a party of hegemony in the periphery if it has lost control of the center. This is the end of an era. Golkar might well become like Australia's National Party, a struggling rural party looking for coalition partners. However impressed local elites in the outer islands may have been by the long experience of Golkar's hegemonic powers, that is today just a memory.

We now need to think of Indonesia as a multiparty patchwork. PDI Perjuangan dominance extends far beyond Java into parts of Sumatra, Kalimantan and Maluku. We see the PPP emerging as a credible party in Aceh. PAN, a completely new party, is a creative and credible force in the towns of western Sumatra, as well as in Jakarta and Yogyakarta. The PKB, another new party, dominates East Java.

Golkar can't run Indonesia from a base in Sulawesi and a contested foothold elsewhere in the eastern archipelago. Not even PDI Perjuangan has hegemony. Politics has entered a new ball game, a shake up at least, one that moves from city to country, and which might bring back a salutary interest in what goes on on the ground. That's always provided Jakarta doesn't ignore the whole thing.

Gerry van Klinken Ph D. (editor@insideindonesia.org) edits Inside Indonesia magazine.