PPP, PDI should become opposition parties, scholar

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) and the United Development Party (PPP) should act as opposition parties in order for a system of checks and balances to operate, a widely-respected Moslem scholar said yesterday.

Nurcholis Madjid said if the two parties functioned as opposition parties, control over the executive branch of government would become truly effective.

"Indonesia needs opposition parties to act as a check on the government," Nurcholis told journalists after addressing a seminar on Islamic perspectives on modern Indonesia. The seminar was organized jointly by the Ansor Youth Movement and the Muhammadiyah Youth Organization.

Indonesia recognizes three political organizations, which may contest general elections: the PDI, PPP and Golkar. The latter calls itself a "grouping," although it functions like a political party.

The Indonesian political system does not recognize opposition parties and the government has firm control over all political organizations.

Nurcholis argued that opposition parties, coupled with strong mass media, would be a powerful checks-and-balances means of achieving a clean government.

He cited as an example the wide media coverage of the recent corruption case involving state-owned Bank Pembangunan Indonesia, which caused the losses to the state of some Rp 1.3 trillion (US$620 million).

"The press coverage of the corruption case, not the judicial system, proved effective to check the conduct of officials," he said.

The PDI, child of a government-sponsored merger of nationalist and Christian parties in 1973, is the smallest of Indonesia's three political organizations. Nevertheless, it is regarded by foreign analysts as the closest thing to an opposition force in the country. The PPP is a largely conservative party whose support base is among Moslem groups.

Nurcholis admitted that the establishment of opposition parties was contradictory to the law.

"The law that shuns opposition parties is against the people's basic rights to speak and to associate," he said.

He said that members of both the PPP and the PDI should have the courage to nominate their respective party leaders as candidates for the Indonesian presidency, rather than merely backing the government's candidate.

"They should dare to nominate their own (party) leaders as president in the 1997 election," he said.

He acknowledged that the idea of nominating the two parties' leaders as presidential candidates might sound absurd at present.

"But somebody must try to do it," he added.

Din Syamsudin, chairman of Golkar's research and development division and one of the speakers in the seminar, took issue with Nurcholis over the idea.

He argued that Indonesia cannot have opposition parties until the Indonesian people are "mature" enough to practice full- fledged democracy.

"Let's be frank: Is our socio-cultural situation ready to have a political system with opposition parties?" he asked.

He said that the opposition system is currently inapplicable in the Indonesian political system.

At the village level, where the people are more involved in the decision-making process, the concept of "opposition" does not exist, he said.

He contended that Western countries did not adopt systems involving opposition parties until their democratic infrastructure was "mature enough."

"Our democracy is still developing. It would be risky to apply such a system," he added. (imn)