Struggle is Megawati's middle name

Struggle is Megawati's middle name

JAKARTA (JP): Megawati Soekarnoputri has survived one body
blow after another on her way to being nominated as Indonesia's
next president by the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI).

The government and the military stopped at almost nothing --
bar arresting or physically harming her -- in blocking her path
to contest the national leadership, which many of her ardent
supporters claim to be rightfully hers.

PDI Perjuangan -- literally "PDI in struggle" to distinguish
it from the government-created PDI executive board -- was
unanimous in giving her the presidential ticket during the
party's congress in Bali which ended on Saturday.

For a political organization that has been built more around
her stature than any policies or ideology, her early nomination
was a matter of course, and a clever campaign ploy ahead of the
general election planned by President B.J. Habibie for next May.

But it has been a "long and winding struggle" -- to borrow the
phrase from her speech to the opening ceremony in Denpasar -- for
the 51-year old, much more so than for her party.

Perjuangan has always been part of her since she plunged into
the political arena even though the odds were stacked heavily
against her. Struggle has become the hallmark of her political
career. It is like a middle name to her, not that she needs
another one.

Born in Jakarta on Jan. 23, 1947, Dyah Permata Megawati
Setyawati Soekarnoputri joined the PDI in 1987, defying a family
consensus that all Sukarno's offspring should stay out of party
politics. The rationale was that, as the nation's founding
father, Sukarno belonged to all Indonesians, and should not be
monopolized by one political party.

A virtual political novice, some even dubbed her "a simple
housewife", most people saw that the only thing Megawati had
going at the time was her father's name. Few people believed then
that she had the staying power, let alone the ability, to mount a
serious challenge for the national leadership.

Her joining of the PDI in 1987 evoked sentiments, not only
among Sukarno's die-hard supporters, but particularly among
first-time voters who were too young to recall the man who died
in 1971, of official but not popular disgrace.

Megawati and her husband were duly rewarded by the PDI
leadership with seats in the House of Representatives in 1987 for
helping the party's election campaign.

Little is known about her life prior to her entry into
politics. The few details that are available show that the mother
of three had to struggle in her personal life.

In his autobiography Sukarno said his wife Fatmawati gave
birth to Megawati during the difficult period of the independence
struggle when his family was constantly on the run and in hiding.

"It was thundering. My wife lay in the bedroom which had been
fitted out specially as a hospital. Suddenly the lights went out,
the roof caved in, the dark, swollen clouds opened and water
rained in like a river," Sukarno wrote.

"The doctor and the sisters carried Fatmawati into her own
sleeping room. She was soaked, as were the instruments,
bedclothes, everything. In the darkness, by the light of a
candle, our daughter was born. We named her Megawati. Mega means
clouds."

Megawati spent her childhood in the presidential palace. She
went to Padjadjaran University in Bandung to study agriculture,
but dropped out in 1967 to be with her father after he had been
ousted and sent to live in internment.

In 1970, she went to the University of Indonesia to study
psychology but dropped out after only two years.

She has had her fair share of misfortune in her personal life.
Her first husband, First Lieutenant Surindo Supjarso was killed
in an airplane crash in Irian Jaya in 1970.

In 1972, she married Hassan Gamal Ahmad Hasan, an Egyptian
diplomat posted in Jakarta. The marriage was annulled --
reportedly before it was consummated -- two weeks later when it
became known that there was never any official declaration that
her first husband had died.

That official declaration came through in 1973, but by then
the Egyptian diplomat had returned to his country.

She married Taufik Kiemas, her present husband, in 1973.

The entry of Megawati and "return of Sukarno's ghost" -- as
the 1987 PDI election campaign was aptly described by the media
-- surprised many, particularly the government.

In retrospect, it was a political miscalculation on the part
of the government to allow the "Sukarnoism" revival. It was a
mistake that led to even more mistakes as the government tried
desperately to stop, at all costs, the trend of Sukarno's growing
popularity, and with it Megawati's own rise to fame.

The campaign against "Sukarnoism" began in 1992, when the
government barred the PDI from using pictures of Sukarno in
election campaigns. But Megawati remained the biggest drawing
card at PDI's colorful election rallies.

In the election, PDI still came third and last, but it
significantly raised its standing, at the expense of the dominant
political group Golkar.

The writing was already on the wall for president Soeharto and
Golkar then, that unless something was done, Megawati and PDI
would become a serious challenger in the 1997 election and the
1998 presidential poll.

In 1993, the government and military intervened in PDI's
chairmanship election when it became apparent that Megawati was
going to win. As a result, two PDI congresses ended violently and
inconclusively. But at the third attempt that same year, the
undercurrent was too strong for the government, and it finally
agreed to allow Megawati's election.

The harassment against Megawati resumed in 1996 when the
government and the military jointly conspired to remove her from
the party's leadership. They sponsored a breakaway group to
organize a congress that overthrew her.

That ironically was a major turning point in Megawati's
political career. Many people outside the PDI rallied behind her;
her support and popularity rippled out well beyond the party's
boundaries.

She became a symbol that many people, particularly the poor,
identified with. Like them, she was a victim of endless
government repression; like them, she was almost helpless in
facing the government wrath; and like them, she simply accepted
one abuse after another.

Yet, with every additional blow, her stature grew. She became
a figure to rally around for people clamoring for change and
democracy in Indonesia.

The government's harassment was targeted mostly at her
supporters and the symbols she represented, including at one time
a renewed character assassination campaign against her father's
reputation. The government also ordered the tightly controlled
press to refer to her as Megawati Taufik Kiemas, without the
"Sukarno" tag.

In July 1996, the government helped the breakaway PDI camp to
forcibly take over the party's headquarters. The incident turned
into a riot which the military quickly blamed on Megawati and her
supporters. Many of them were subsequently rounded up, tried and
jailed.

Megawati was also barred from traveling to meet her supporters
outside Jakarta. In 1997, the government barred Megawati's PDI
from taking part in the general election.

Her calm response to these systematic acts of harassment was
often a source of frustration for her supporters and close aides.

She continued to exercise restraint and avoid direct
confrontation with the government. She always insisted on
pursuing legal channels, even as she herself knew that the courts
of law were already in the government's pocket.

Megawati's fighting spirit has helped her overcome the various
obstacles put in the way of her political career. Her calm
response to all of these has also won her much support. She has
increased her support from only "victims of oppression" to
include increasingly the elite middle class, and lately hordes of
former military officers.

Yet, there is still a nagging question whether she has the
capacity needed to lead the nation. This is the side of Megawati
that the public has not yet been fully exposed to. Her rise in
popularity has been due to her name, and to outpouring of public
sympathy for the bad treatment she received from the government.

It will certainly take a lot more than these to lead a nation
of more than 200 million if she wants the public to take her more
seriously as a presidential candidate. The real test of
leadership, and therefore the struggle, may only just be
beginning for Megawati. (emb)