Political parties a conflict resolution training ground?

Harry Bhaskara, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Democracy in the country has reached the awkward stage of adolescence. Power transfers at the highest level were successful last October, but not so at political party level this year. For free elections to be held, political parties must be willing and able, but a spate of party congresses in recent weeks have shown that democracy is in short supply.

Political parties have been saddled with internal disputes. A rival leadership group had threatened to set up a new party to challenge Megawati Soekarnoputri before she was reelected in March at the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle's (PDI-P) congress in Bali.

A splinter group of National Awakening Party (PKB) leaders is seeking legal means to declare the recent PKB congress invalid. They are also planning to set up a rival party.

The reelection of Megawati is intriguing since she failed to bring the party to victory in the 2004 election. In fact, the congress in Bali became a rubber stamp for Megawati's reelection.

Megawati, undoubtedly is indebted to her late father, Sukarno -- the charismatic founding father of the nation -- for her reelection. A good many of her supporters were her father's admirers. The general public, however, rejected her leadership by voting last year for Army Gen.(ret) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Following Megawati's reelection, Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid was reelected as chief patron of the National Awakening Party (PKB) in its congress in mid-April in Semarang.

The maverick Gus Dur is the grandson of the founder of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world's largest Muslim organization, which he led for 15 years. As a PKB founder, Gus Dur retains a central position in the party, which was founded in 1999. He was also instrumental in his nephew, Muhaimin Iskandar -- who is also House of Representatives deputy speaker -- securing the party's top post. The election was marred by a fight that left two people injured.

Most political parties are imperfect in the preparation of their leaders, from the bottom up.

To some extent, this is also true of the National Mandate Party (PAN), which convened its congress in Semarang prior to the PKB's. Here, the charismatic leader is Amien Rais, who catapulted little-known businessman Soetrisno Bachir into the position of party chief.

A party leader who owes his leadership to a charismatic leader will likely be guided by the latter.

For the 32 years of Soeharto's rule, political party leaders were largely determined by the strong man. Now that Soeharto is no longer in power, leaders with connections, or charisma, have taken his place. Conspicuously absent is a leader who comes from the bottom. The public, ever so hopeful of a healthy democracy after Soeharto's fall in 1998, must cling to that hope, for the time being.

Leadership is but one of a string of handicaps in the recent party congresses. A large dash of nepotism was thrown in as well. Megawati installed her younger brother, Guruh, as a board member and Gus Dur fought for his nephew, Muhaimin, to be chosen as party leader and his daughter, Zanuba "Yenny" Arifah Chafsoh Rahman, to sit on the party's executive board.

In the PDI-P congress in Bali, sessions deliberating Megawati's performance were cut short. In the case of PAN, leadership contender Hatta Radjasa, who is also minister of transportation, withdrew from the race following talks with Amien. Although there was no brawls in this congress, things could have been done in a more transparent way.

Money politics and rewards for favors have been the substance of strong rumors from each congress. Difficult as they are to prove, public interests are not as high up on the agenda as one would hope.

The choice of a businessperson as party leader could also be perceived as a handicap. Soetrisno, like Jusuf Kalla -- the vice president who was elected as Golkar leader in December 2004 -- is a businessmen. The fact that businesspeople are selected as the heads of political parties underlines the glaringly obvious: Money is a prerequisite for power.

Political parties make excellent training ground for the resolution of differences. Thus, a rift within a political party is a sure sign that members' training is not going so well. If this is so, how do politicians imagine they can solve problems at national level?

While reports on congresses unveil a certain level of immaturity on the part of our politicians, they are not entirely to blame. They are nothing but the victims of past political practices, when political parties were the mere tools of those in power.

Hard work awaits the members -- particularly the reformists -- of those parties, to navigate the difficult terrain toward a durable democracy.

Otherwise, their erstwhile narrow political outlooks will translate into a faltering political system at a national level.

The author is a staff writer with The Jakarta Post.