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.