Megawati's personal struggle comes full circle

Megawati's personal struggle comes full circle

JAKARTA (JP): The personal struggle of Megawati Soekarnoputri
has come full circle, with her appointment as Indonesia's vice
president. It was not the coveted presidency, but it will do, at
least for the moment.

From now on, she is virtually her own person.

She can no longer count on the greatness of her late father,
Indonesia's founding president Sukarno, the way she did in the
early years of her political career. Nor can she simply rely on
the sympathy of her supporters to prop up her popularity.

With her also at the helm, rather than at the wrong end of the
stick where she had been all these years, "struggle" will have to
take on a new meaning for her.

There is no doubt that her stature has grown these past few
years as she symbolized the people's suffering and their struggle
against tyranny and repression.

With her father's name of Sukarno, Perjuangan (struggle) has
became her adopted middle name. It was this name which she gave
to her party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI
Perjuangan), this year.

Now as vice president, she has the chance to prove that she is
worthy of the first two syllables of her name -- Mega -- and that
she does not live in the shadow of her father.

Born in Jakarta on Jan. 23, 1947, Dyah Permata Megawati
Setyawati Soekarnoputri plunged into a political career late in
life.

She joined the government-controlled PDI in 1987, defying a
family consensus that all Sukarno's offspring should stay out of
party politics. The rationale was that, as the nation's founding
father, Sukarno belonged to all Indonesians and should not be
monopolized by one political party.

A virtual political novice, some even dubbed her "a simple
housewife", most people saw that the only thing Megawati had
going for her at the time was her father's name. Few people
believed then that she had the staying power, let alone the
ability, to mount a serious challenge to the national leadership.

Her joining of PDI in 1987 evoked positive sentiments, not
only among Sukarno's die-hard supporters, but particularly among
first-time voters who were too young to recall the man who died
in 1971, of official but not popular disgrace.

Megawati and her husband were duly rewarded by the PDI
leadership with seats in the House of Representatives in 1987 for
helping the party's election campaign.

Little is known about her life prior to her entry into
politics. The few details that are available show that the mother
of three also had to struggle in her personal life.

In his autobiography Sukarno said his wife Fatmawati gave
birth to Megawati during the difficult period of the independence
struggle when his family was constantly on the run and in hiding.

"It was thundering. My wife lay in the bedroom which had been
fitted out specially as a hospital. Suddenly the lights went out,
the roof caved in, the dark, swollen clouds opened and water
rained in like a river," Sukarno wrote.

"The doctor and the sisters carried Fatmawati into her own
sleeping room. She was soaked, as were the instruments,
bedclothes, everything. In the darkness, by the light of a
candle, our daughter was born. We named her Megawati. Mega means
clouds."

Megawati spent her childhood at Merdeka Palace. She went to
Padjadjaran University in Bandung to study agriculture, but
dropped out in 1967 to be with her father after he had been
ousted and sent to live in internment.

In 1970, she went to the University of Indonesia to study
psychology but dropped out after only two years.

She has had her fair share of misfortune in her personal life.
Her first husband, First Lt. Surindo Supjarso was killed in an
airplane crash in Irian Jaya in 1970.

In 1972, she married Hassan Gamal Ahmad Hasan, an Egyptian
diplomat posted in Jakarta. The marriage was annulled --
reportedly before it was consummated -- two weeks later when it
became known that there was never any official declaration that
her first husband had died.

That official declaration came through in 1973, but by then
the Egyptian diplomat had returned to his country.

She married Taufik Kiemas, her present husband, in 1973.

The entry of Megawati and the "return of Sukarno's ghost" --
as the 1987 PDI election campaign was aptly described by the
media -- surprised many, particularly the government.

In retrospect, it was a political miscalculation on the part
of the Soeharto regime to allow the Sukarnoism revival. It was a
mistake that led to even more mistakes as the government tried
desperately to stop, at all costs, the trend of Sukarno's growing
popularity, and with it Megawati's own rise to fame.

The campaign against Sukarnoism began in 1992, when the
government banned PDI from using pictures of Sukarno in election
campaigns. But Megawati remained the biggest drawing card at
PDI's colorful election rallies.

In the election, PDI still came third and last, but it
significantly raised its standing, at the expense of the dominant
political group Golkar.

The writing was already on the wall for Soeharto and Golkar
then, that unless something was done, Megawati and PDI would
become a serious challenger in the 1997 election and the 1998
presidential poll.

In 1993, the government and military intervened in PDI's
chairmanship election when it became apparent that Megawati was
going to win. As a result, two PDI congresses ended violently and
inconclusively. But at a third attempt that same year, the
undercurrent was too strong for the government, and it finally
agreed to allow Megawati's election.

The harassment against Megawati resumed in 1996 when the
government and the military jointly conspired to remove her from
the party's leadership. They sponsored a breakaway group to
organize a congress that overthrew her.

That ironically was a major turning point in Megawati's
political career. Many people outside PDI rallied behind her; her
support and popularity rippled out well beyond the party's
boundaries.

She became a symbol that many people, particularly the poor,
identified with. Like them, she was a victim of endless
government repression; like them, she was almost helpless in
facing government wrath; and like them, she simply accepted one
abuse after another.

Yet, with every additional blow, her stature grew. She became
a figure to rally around for people clamoring for change and
democracy in Indonesia.

The government's harassment was targeted mostly at her
supporters and the symbols she represented, including at one time
a renewed character assassination campaign against her father's
reputation.

In July 1996, the government helped the breakaway PDI camp to
forcibly take over the party's headquarters. The incident turned
into a riot which the military quickly blamed on Megawati and her
supporters.

In 1997, the government barred Megawati's PDI from taking part
in the general election.

Her calm response to these systematic acts of harassment was
often a source of frustration for her supporters and close aides.

She continued to exercise restraint and avoid direct
confrontation with the government. She always insisted on
pursuing legal channels, even as she herself knew that the courts
of law were already in the government's pocket.

Megawati's fighting spirit has helped her overcome the various
obstacles put in the way of her political career. Her calm
response has also won her support. She increased her support from
only "victims of oppression" to include the elite middle class,
and lately hordes of former military officers.

The downfall of the Soeharto regime in May 1998 allowed her to
consolidate her political power. She formed her own party, built
around her loyal supporters who stayed with her through the
difficult years. At a congress in Bali this year, she coined the
new party name, PDI Perjuangan, to differentiate it from the
government-backed party.

PDI Perjuangan garnered the most votes in the general election
in June, but with 35 percent of the tally of the vote it was not
enough to clinch her the coveted presidency.

Even with the election victory, she continued to be the target
of abuse by her detractors, some questioning her commitment to
Islam, and others doubting her because of her gender.

Her silence on many political issues in recent months made her
prone to attacks. Her failure to take the initiative, including
approaching other reform leaders, was blamed for her defeat in
the presidential election by Abdurrahman Wahid.

Now as vice president, the time has come for her adopt a new
style of leadership. If, in the past, her popularity had been
more to do with her name and the outpouring of public sympathy
for the bad treatment she received from the government, she will
now have to prove herself through her own deeds.

She has ended one form of struggle, but another and perhaps
more difficult one lies ahead of her. (emb)