The Golkar backlash
The Golkar backlash
Growing calls to outlaw the Golkar Party may seem justifiable
given the ghastly record it accrued while ruling the country for
32 years, but they have come too little and too late. To many
people, Golkar remains a stigma from the New Order regime, but
the fact that it has managed to survive the reform era has given
it the legitimacy for continued participation in this country's
political landscape.
On the contrary, the demands, especially if they are
accompanied by violent attacks on Golkar property as we have
witnessed these past few days, can be detrimental to the reform
movement. Those who are seeking Golkar's dissolution are veering
toward unconstitutional and undemocratic practices, the very acts
which the reform movement has been fighting to eradicate.
The issue of Golkar's political legitimacy and its right to
exist should have been settled once and for all some two or three
years ago. Its fate should have been sealed when the reform
movement brought the tyrannical regime of president Soeharto to
its knees in 1998. Golkar was, after all, the political machine
which propped up the autocrat for more than three decades.
Golkar's fate could also have been settled before the nation
held its first ever democratic general election in June 1999. The
fact that not a single one of the new reformist parties
questioned Golkar's participation then was tacit approval that
the party, whatever its past record may have been, still had a
right to contest the elections in a democratic Indonesia.
As it turned out, Golkar not only survived, but it defied
predictions by coming second in the general election, behind the
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan). Golkar,
therefore, has managed not only to entrench its political
legitimacy, but as the election runner-up, it retains the right
to call some of the shots on major national political issues.
Thus, Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung, despite having served in
three different Cabinets under Soeharto, secured his post as
speaker of the House of Representatives after the 1999 elections.
Golkar played a major role in electing Abdurrahman Wahid of the
National Awakening Party (PKB) as president in October 1999 when
it became apparent that its own candidate, the incumbent B.J.
Habibie, did not have enough support to run against the leading
contender Megawati Soekarnoputri of PDI Perjuangan.
The largest single mistake made by the reform movement, as
well as the political parties that were formed out of the
movement, was in relaxing its momentum once Soeharto resigned. By
treating his downfall as an end, the movement effectively ended
its reform agenda there, leaving some of the main pillars of the
regime intact. As these new reform parties busied themselves in
preparation for the 1999 elections they completely forgot about
Golkar, which quietly but quickly consolidated its position to
emerge from the turmoil virtually unscathed.
Today, like it or not, the nation has to live with this fact.
As long as we profess to live with democratic principles and to
abide by the law, we must accept the fact that Golkar can and
will determine some, but not all, of the developments in the
country's political process.
Golkar can frustrate the reform agenda. The present
administration's failure to prosecute past human rights abuses
and prominent corruptors are cases in point where Golkar has made
its presence felt. Now, the nation must even live with the
prospect of Golkar returning to rule, in the same way that some
communist parties have been returned to power in Eastern Europe.
Why the issue of Golkar's legitimacy should be raised today
has something to do with the ongoing power struggle between the
House of Representatives and President Abdurrahman. While Golkar
played a role in last week's move to censure the President over
his alleged role in two political scandals, it was not, by any
means, the only faction to have done so. PDI Perjuangan and other
reformist parties also had a hand in the censure motion.
Golkar, however, given its terrible record, makes for an easy
and convenient target, witnessed by the violent backlash at
Golkar offices in a number of East Java towns this past week
after the President manifested the Golkar stigma. But by doing
so, the embattled President risks provoking Golkar and its
supporters, whose strengths must never be underestimated.
Ultimately, given that Golkar's political legitimacy has been
secured in a democratic Indonesia, attempts to outlaw the party
in itself would give the reform movement a bad name.