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Golkar-power
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Golkar Party is on the way to return to power

Ardimas Sasdi
Staff Writer
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
ardimas@thejakartapost.com

The Golkar Party is still the most solid among big political
parties and one more step to return to power in next election, a
retired Army brigadier general has said recently.

Indeed, the Golkar Party still exists and ranks number two
with 120 seats in the House of Representatives (DPR), defying
predictions of many quarters that it would collapse after major
exodus of its cadres before and after the downfall of its patron
and strongman Soeharto in 1998.

The party is also most likely to survive its internal rift,
which rocked the party following a guilty verdict on chairman
Akbar Tandjung in a Rp 40 billion (US$ 8 million) scandal in the
State Logistics Agency (Bulog). The stolen funds was reportedly
used by Akbar to bankroll Golkar Party's campaign in 1999.

Akbar appealed the verdict.

The former ruling party is even able to continue to strengthen
its power base.

The Nov. 29, 2002 election of party cadres Amin Syam and
Syahrul Yasin as gubernatorial and deputy gubernatorial
candidates of South Sulawesi for the 2003-2008 period is the
testament of the party's latest achievement in restoring power.

Amin, a retired Army brigadier general, is a chairman of the
Golkar Party chapter for South Sulawesi, while Syahrul is Gowa
regent and a party cadre from the bureaucracy. The duo defeated
Nurdin Halid and runningmate Iskandar Mandji who was reportedly
supported from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle headed
by President Megawati Soekarnoputri, and candidates Aksa Mahmud
and partner Malik Hambali.

The pair would replace the outgoing governor Z.B. Palaguna, a
retired three-star Army general whose second term of office ends
in January 2003.

Amin and Syahrul were not the first and the only Golkar cadres
who were elected governors, regents and mayors in the past four
years, who include businessman Fadel Muhammad (Minahasa governor)
Zainal Bakar (West Sumatra governor) Zulkifli Nurdin (Jambi
governor), Saleh Djasit (Riau governor) and Abdullah Puteh (Aceh
governor) to name a few.

Golkar executives also seized the posts of regents, mayors and
heads of the provincial legislative assemblies in the country's
30 provinces. Other key posts in provinces and regencies are held
by military officers from another political engine of the now
demise New Order regime.

The only regent from Megawati's PDI Perjuangan is Endang
Setyaningdyah of Demak, Central Java.

"Practically, there is no difference between the current
administration and the New Order in view of the composition of
power," the one-star general said.

Golkar's success is attributable to two factors: It remains
the most solid party and the richest in human resources.

The other crucial factor is that other parties are embroiled
in serious internal conflicts.

Megawati's PDI Perjuangan split into PDI Perjuangan, PDI
Perjuangan Rakyat, Nationalist Bung Karno Party (PNBK) and
Indonesian Motherland Party (PITA). A reliable source said the
current leadership of PDI Perjuangan has even split into at least
three camps, with one believed to leave Megawati because of the
party's failure to fight for the poor majority despite its claim.

Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid's National Awakening Party (PKB)
broke up into PKB Batutulis headed by Minister of Defense Matori
Abdul Djalil and PKB Kuningan chaired by Alwi Shihab, a
confidante of former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid,
while Vice President Hamzah Haz's United Development Party (PPP)
split into PPP and PPP of Reform.

Amien Rais' National Mandate Party (PAN) had earlier split
with the exodus of outspoken, reform minded executives like
economist Faisal Basri and politician Bara Hasibuan .

Realizing the party was in a precarious state after Soeharto's
downfall, Golkar leaders quickly took strategic and tactical
actions to prevent the party from a political fallout by
enhancing solidarity among its leaders, building a new image by
shifting its paradigm from a ruling party into a promoter of
reform and democratization, and by changing its name from Golkar
(Functional Group) into Golkar Party; meaning that since then
Golkar became a political party in pure sense.

The steps taken by Golkar took place after its 1999
extraordinary congress which elected former student leader Akbar
as its chairman in the first democratic election in the party's
history in more than three decades. Akbar defeated Edy Sudradjat,
a retired four-star Army general and former Minister of Defense
who left Golkar after the election defeat and established Party
of Justice and Unity (PKP).

The party also took a distance from the New Order which it
created, by dropping the word New Order from the opening of its
statute and dissolving the powerful board of patrons which Akbar
blamed was modeled after a primitive political system.

The monolithic political culture and centralized system of
power which rested on the personality of Soeharto led to power
abuse because the system did not recognize a control mechanism
stipulated in the check and balance mechanism.

The Golkar Party has also been accommodative to sensitive
issues that endeared it among other parties in the legislature.

"The program paid off," then head of Golkar Party faction at
the House Syamsul Mua'rif ( now Minister of Information and
Communication) told the writer in 2001 ,"We had been fully
accepted by colleagues from other parties in the House".