PDI-P's senseless game

PDI-P's senseless game

The Jakarta City Council had the honor on Tuesday to
demonstrate how democracy should work in the age of reform.

The event was the election of its speaker, which was well
participated in by 84 councilors, all of whom -- except for nine
military/police representatives -- were elected in the June
general election. No less than 30 of the councilors are members
of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan),
the largest faction in the council.

The party fielded its own candidate for the post but was
ironically defeated by a police major general, Edy Waluyo. Many
surely found the result well beyond understanding considering
that PDI Perjuangan participated in the vote. The PDI Perjuangan
councilors must have initially been members of the ruling party
who defected. Other councilors early stated that there was no way
they would elect a military man or a police officer because,
customary, neither participate in polls.

The PDI Perjuangan nominee Tarmidi Suhardjo, himself the
faction chairman, did not hide his disappointment over Edy's
appointment. But he had to calm himself because the chairwoman of
the party executive board, Megawati Soekarnoputri, had the last
word on the party's maneuver. She had apparently instructed the
faction to support a military/police candidate.

Tarmidi sadly lamented that half of the votes gained by the
general came from his faction. The strategy, he said, was aimed
at blocking the ambition of the "axis force" (Poros Tengah)
candidate. In Tarmidi's own words: "You know that the axis force
is attempting to push Megawati out (as a presidential
candidate)."

He said the move was also part of the party's strategy to
secure military/police support for PDI Perjuangan's bid to obtain
one seat representing Jakarta in the People's Consultative
Assembly (MPR), the country's highest constitutional body, which
will elect a president in November.

The confusion worsened after a later statement by a PDI
Perjuangan deputy chairman, Mochtar Buchori, claiming Megawati
had never given such an instruction. "It was the work of the
Jakarta chapter of the party," he said on Tuesday. The puzzle
ended yesterday after Tarmidi reconfirmed that Megawati had told
him again that it was her strategy.

Whether the strategy works or not remains to be seen. But the
military/police faction told reporters yesterday that no deal had
been made with PDI Perjuangan. The faction said it would select
the best son of Jakarta to represent the province in the MPR.

While only time will tell whether the maneuver worked, one
thing is sure, and that is that Megawati's unintelligent game
proves the truth of today's axiom that any friction between
civilian forces only benefits the military, which always looks
for an opportunity to be in the midst of things.

Megawati's maneuver is nothing but history repeating itself in
a counterproductive way. In the 1950s, when the nation started
experimenting with liberal democracy, this habit was part of the
game. It was popularly called koe handel, Dutch for cow trade.
This give-and-take game usually resulted in fragile cooperation.

Today, this kind of orthodoxy is dangerous for the development
of a civil society. PDI Perjuangan still has much to learn to
become a viable political power to lead this crisis-hit nation.