Sofjan to gather businessmen to help parties

Sofjan to gather businessmen to help parties

JAKARTA (JP): A group of top businesspeople have abandoned
Golkar and are studying the possibility of financially backing
some of the country's newly emerging political parties.

Noted businessman Sofjan Wanandi said yesterday he would no
longer help Golkar as he had under former president Soeharto's
New Order regime. Instead, he said he would gather fellow
businesspeople next month to determine which of the newly
established political parties they would support.

The chairman of the Gemala business group said yesterday that
at least 20 "still robust" businesspeople had agreed to the plan
to provide financial support to political parties.

Among the names that Sofjan mentioned were former chairman of
the country's biggest oil and gas company Medco Energi
Corporation Arifin Panigoro, South Sulawesi businessman Jusuf
Kalla, PT Astra International commissioner Teddy Rahmat, Raja
Garuda Mas Group owner Sukanto Tanoto and Jan Darmadi of the Jan
Darmadi Corp.

"Essentially, they are from companies which are still strong
enough to help ... not from bankrupt companies," he said on the
sidelines of a seminar at the Centre for Strategy and
International Studies (CSIS).

He said the Soeharto regime had forced businesspeople to
donate money to social foundations, which were suspected of
funneling funds to Golkar. One such organization was the Dakab
Foundation, set up in 1985.

"Up to 90 percent of Dakab's money was from businesspeople,"
he said of the foundation chaired by Soeharto. The foundation has
total assets worth Rp 836.2 billion (US$65 million).

Golkar's political opponents and government critics have
alleged that foundation funds had been unfairly used to support
Golkar's political activities.

"Now, the business community must be careful in supporting
political forces. Only parties with clear pro-people platforms
deserve to be supported," he said.

Sofjan said the planned meeting would determine a strategy on
how the group would go about supporting their chosen political
parties.

The group should make people, not government officials, the
main barometer of their political agenda, he said.

"So now if we are asked to help Golkar...we'll have to see
first if the party has taken the people's interest into account
in their main agenda," he said.

Golkar's new chairman, Akbar Tandjung, and Sofjan are both of
the '66 Generation of student leaders who helped topple
Indonesia's first president Sukarno and helped Soeharto ascend to
power in the 1960s.

Sofjan also said that if the business community helped
political parties, it must be done as transparently as possible.

"If we support political parties, we want to do it openly so
that the media can report the successes and failures of the
scheme," he said.

"They (political parties) must come up with real programs so
that the business community can really help," Sofjan added.

Sofjan is the spokesman for a group of businesspeople called
the Jimbaran Group, whose mission is to fight for certain social
causes. The group, for instance, pledged in 1995 to donate a
portion of its profits to help develop small businesses.

During the course of its existence, the group has offered
support in the fields of human resources, capital, market access
and information.

Elections

During the discussion sponsored by CSIS, political scientist
Riswandha Imawan of Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University suggested
that existing political parties needed to merge.

"Sixty political parties are too many to be effective in
achieving the ideals of the reform movement ... (They should)
merge into four or five, or else there may not be any elections
at all (next year)," he said.

Riswandha argued Golkar would win "with its money". He
speculated that Golkar could easily buy off votes even without
campaigning.

A few free packages of rice from Golkar could easily win the
party support since many people were suffering from the prolonged
crisis, he said.

Riswandha's remarks were countered by political scientist
Rizal Mallarangeng, also of Gadjah Mada University, who said the
former's view was "anti-democratic".

Rizal argued that the number of political parties was not the
problem.

Observers should, instead, focus their attention on the new
political laws soon to be introduced by the government, since
they were "the rules of the game", he said.

"They are the very starting point of the institutionalization
of reform," Rizal said.

Separately, Akbar Tandjung said in Bandung yesterday that
Golkar was ready to ally itself with other parties with a similar
platform in order to survive the next general election.

He also acknowledged that Golkar would need to change some of
its political style in order to win back the people's confidence
in it.

"Our political life in the future will be very diverse with
the emergence of so many new parties, some of which are believed
to be able to win people's support. So Golkar must take them into
account," he was quoted by Antara as saying. (aan/swe)