What do PDI's losses mean for RI politics?

The heavy losses suffered by the minority Indonesian Democratic Party in the recent election took many people by surprise. Cornelis LAY, a political sciences lecturer at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, dissects the issue.

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The final election results that came out earlier this week left the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) led by government-back leaders Soerjadi and Buttu Hutapea with only 11 seats out of the 425 on offer in the House of Representatives.

For many this total defeat was predictable and showed how strong the grassroots support is for deposed PDI chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Not only have the people shown their allegiance to Megawati but they have sent a strong message that they are the true source of sovereignty and legitimacy, a priceless lesson on the substance of politics.

PDI's catastrophic defeat is testimony that the government- backed congress which dethroned Megawati, based on what the government called "sacrosanct party constitution, provincial aspirations and PDI's interests", was the result of government imagination devoid of accurate field data.

But is the crushing of PDI a mere internal problem of the party or is it a revelation of something more basic in Indonesian politics?

First of all, it is a national political tragedy that deserves to be lamented by us all. There is no reason whatever for anybody to rejoice. The deep tragedy is not that the Soerjadi camp has been morally and politically penalized for an uncommitted sin but that it is the most blatant proof of the failure of our political development during the last 30 years.

It is not merely an internal issue for sure, let alone limited to the Soerjadi camp. It is a reflection of the failure of the three-party format designed by the New Order regime.

For over 25 years the three parties have fallen into a prolonged emergency political format, a quasi-permanent transitory status. They are fragile and devoid of all autonomy, not only due to government repression and the overriding desire of certain political actors to control and win elections, but also because the masses expectations of the parties' function are incompatible with reality.

If political institutionalization was one of the objectives of the 25-year history of our political development, we have missed the target. What has happened has been a continuous political deterioration and PDI's total loss is only the tip of the iceberg.

If we think that a fragile political infrastructure is detrimental to the nation's development and political resilience, we must also accept that PDI's misfortune is a national tragedy.

This idea will bring us to the serious question as to whether or not we are on the right track with our party system. Will this indeed lead us to political maturity and stability, to a civilized, moral and democratic political society?

Or are we laying a foundation for long-term political instability which will find its expression, among other things, in anarchy simply because the political parties have failed to reasonably fulfill their minimal role?

Amid the euphoria of this year's election, the above questions have been branded either superfluous saber-rattling or even subversive. However, we must have the moral courage to see the PDI case with truly open eyes.

At the political level, it is very hard to imagine an effective system to cope with the internal and global changes in the next millennium if our political infrastructure is in a state of fragility and uncertainty.

On the other hand, with its landslide victory, Golkar has achieved or even exceeded the wishes of its leaders. But it would be a mistake to overshadow PDI's total loss with Golkar's success story.

By doing so we would dismiss the PDI case as solely an internal problem or even only as a problem of the Soerjadi camp.

We all know that the PDI was, from its beginnings, a result of political engineering born from a desire to form a three-pronged political configuration.

As we juxtapose Golkar's success story with PDI's misfortune, the first step to solve our political stagnation would be the resignation of Soerjadi and his friends as an expression of moral and political responsibility for their total failure in the general election.

But most observers of PDI's development in the past year believe that the Soerjadi camp is in charge because of external manipulation. This however we can only suppose, it is impossible to prove.

From the people's point of view, the PDI tragedy is also a process of destruction carried out by the masses. This has brought the whole party structure, and with it our political system, to a crossroads signposted with many question marks.

It even opens the whole recent election to question concerning its moral legitimacy, although on the surface it all looked very normal.

Hopefully the situation is not as dreadful as the above speculation makes out. Nevertheless, the problems the House of Representatives will face in the next five years are likely to induce a headache.

The House mechanisms that have been established for more than 25 years are now facing a severe test. If the running of the 1982 to 1987 House, in which PDI's representation was also minimal, was problematic, the forthcoming session will be more so.

Last week saw the government and the two other political parties facing the difficulty of trying to justify the free handover of seats to the PDI.

As for PDI's internal problems, we may soon witness a new episode, namely conflict within the Soerjadi camp, which will again sap the nation's energy. The elite at the center of power may tear each other apart, while the provincial elite who have shown their loyalty, will vent their anger. An "all-out war" will be difficult to avoid.