Public relations fail Golkar
Public relations fail Golkar
By Wimar Witoelar
JAKARTA (JP): The hottest political issue in this election is
the "Mega-Bintang" phenomenon, the voter coalition between the
United Development Party (PPP) and supporters of ousted
Indonesian Democratic party (PDI) chairwoman Megawati
Soekarnoputri. Many understand this to be a repudiation of
Golkar, judging from the types of people supporting the
campaigns.
Professionals, young people, independents who are far from the
PPP image, have seemingly turned from PDI and Golkar. They are
making the PPP campaign colorful and enthusiastic with a "people
power" feel. As we can be sure PPP's leadership does not have the
charisma to invite such broad-based support, it seems common
sense to conclude people are increasingly turning from Golkar.
But this may not be true. Golkar is still the only political
grouping of any credibility. PPP is exclusive and not geared for
what Sarwono Kusumaatmadja's recently emphasized "national
perspective". PDI is an empty shell with Soerjadi pathetically
flailing around for the disappearing masses who have followed
Megawati into the political sidelines.
Golkar has the experience, the people, the networks and the
power to manage the country. The problem is management has
recently turned into mismanagement. We are still crying or
laughing over the tragicomedies of the Busang fiasco, the
struggling national car project, the bank robbery of private
banks by their well-connected owners, and old standards like
airplanes traded for sticky rice, Ministry of Transportation
corruption, the Golden Key scandal and various shenanigans of
assorted relatives and friends of people in power.
Golkar has credible people and credible programs, but they do
not work in real life. Their power is most effective when used
against the public good.
East Java Governor Basofi Soedirman said in a campaign speech
last week that Golkar had bad public relations. This statement
hits the nail on the head, the best statement made in this
campaign so far, quite apart from the governor's own public
relations.
It certainly is bad public relations for the party in power to
say it is for clean government, when it has been doing the
opposite for years.
When you want to make a statement like that, at least take
accountability first for what went wrong. Show that you
understand the problem, that you empathize with your audience.
Otherwise you lose credibility, and it becomes downright funny.
Take the campaign statement in today's papers, saying that
Golkar is for regeneration of the national leadership. What
regeneration?
Recently writer Goenawan Muhamad coined the phrase "the
deflation of meaning". Words like democracy lose their meaning
when the people shouting slogans for democracy are precisely
those who are antidemocratic. The people making speeches about
the evils of corruption, about greed are, in fact, the top
practitioners of these crimes.
The other bad public relations strategy is to send campaigners
into the field without proper selection. Why send out as
campaigners people with clearly tarnished public records? Send
out people with good public and press relations, and give them
the courage to admit the government's mistakes. Show people the
difference between the good guys and the bad buys.
While you have many excellent public-minded and honest people
in Golkar, they are not necessarily the ones who are in control.
You have good people making very sound statements, but do you
really believe these intelligent people were involved in making
the incredibly bad public decisions?
Japanese consultant Kenichi Ohmae says Japanese people on the
whole are just average, but make good decisions. We have in
Indonesia some very good people in and out of high-level official
positions, but actual power is held by the junkies - addicts of
power and money.
Like drug addicts, they will do anything to satisfy their
habit. Like heroin junkies, they don't recognize their addiction,
saying "I only take the stuff because I like it, not because I am
addicted".
To a large extent, politics is addictive. Like true addicts,
most people who have been in politics a long time feel lost
without power. They scramble to stay in place, good guys and bad,
people of vision alongside people of greed. It is these junkies
who are damaging Golkar's public image. They, not Golkar as such,
are the ones driving people into the Mega-Bintang camp or into
apathy and indifference.
What choice is there in an election, when no contestant will
say who they will nominate as the next national leaders, when no
party leaders present faces of the future? Golkar says, "No
promises, just proof". What is the proof? What is their record on
democracy, on corruption, on transportation, on education? Maybe
we would be better off without their promises.
The one promise that will make Golkar win the hearts of the
people is to not let the junkies have free rein in running the
government. The best public relations act for Golkar would be to
take measures against government mismanagement - revoke support
for cabinet ministers who have clearly neglected their ethical
obligations, public officials who have clearly done a disservice
to the President, the government and the nation.
Allow people to offer their judgment of the Golkar track
record. If the people in power supported by Golkar would allow
different viewpoints to appear on the public agenda, their public
image would be better.
But if every dissident gets locked up or locked out, then the
differences become sharpened and the good guys within the system
are degraded to being apologists for the power junkies.
The good guys in Golkar often say they know the nation's
problems, then they say "come to me with solutions, not
problems".
Well, no single person or group can come up with a solution.
That is why we have a political system, so that everybody can
contribute a little bit and come up with solutions together.
If they don't work, try something else. If they still do not
work, have someone else try. We have elections to make sure
everybody gets a chance at the wheel. Then "Mega-Bintang" could
become a "Mega-Bintang-Golkar" for a truly national consensus.
The choice lies not with the electorate, but within the bowels
of the system. Make the straight guys talk back to the junkies,
and the elections will offer "a choice, not an echo".
The writer is a communications expert based in Jakarta.