What PDI-P needs to make it one

What PDI-P needs to make it one

By Aleksius Jemadu

BANDUNG (JP): Many believe that the almost assured victory of
the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) in
the general election owes a great deal to the popularity of the
party's chairwoman, Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Can you imagine PDI Perjuangan without Megawati?

Charismatic leadership is not an important variable when it
comes to matters of how to build more rational political appeal
and create an effective government. There are suggestions that
the party should find a new "brand name" which is more permanent
and relevant to the nation's challenges in facing the third
millennium.

Some theorize that the future of the party will be determined
by its success in presenting itself as the real antithesis of the
New Order government. Three policy domains are particularly
important: the promotion of democracy, the practice of good
governance and the protection of human rights.

There are at least two reasons why PDI Perjuangan's reliance
on Megawati's charisma could be a serious liability for the
party's future. First, the success of a modern political party
both in the general election and the governing process is not
determined by the indispensability of a charismatic leadership,
but the capability of offering a conceptualized response to the
nation's problems and consistency in implementing subsequent
public policies.

Second, the party's constituency consists of different social
and economic groups. They need to be united by some kind of party
ideology which is believed to be capable of accommodating their
various interests. It is a normal practice in politics that a
political party should provide moral and ideological
justifications for its policies once it comes to power.

Taking into account the plurality of its constituency and PDI
Perjuangan's future role as an engine for Indonesian civil
society, the party leaders now face the challenge to formulate a
clear and coherent ideological platform. For instance, how can
the party combine a market economy and people-centered economic
development? How can the idea of self-reliance go together with
Indonesia's increasing integration into the world capitalism? If
PDI Perjuangan claims to represent the interests of wong cilik
(the grassroots), how can such a populist orientation be realized
without being hostile to market forces?

In many developed democracies like the United States,
Australia, Japan, Britain, France and Germany, there is always
competition between two major political parties with different
ideological orientations. Normally a conservative party is
countervailed by another party with a populist or socialist
orientation.

Is PDI Perjuangan a dominant-conservative or dominant-
socialist party? Given its close association with Sukarnoism and
its popularity among the grassroots, the party tends to fall into
the latter category. Given its long collaboration with big
business and capitalists, the Golkar Party may represent the
conservative camp.

If the above account is valid, then PDI Perjuangan can take on
a new identity as a social democratic party. Democratic
socialism, as promoted by the socialist democratic parties in the
aforementioned countries, has gone through major reform. The most
recent version of this political ideology tries to combine a
market economy and reasonable state intervention.

For instance, under the leadership of British Prime Minister
Tony Blair, the Labor Party has introduced some market-oriented
economic policies without sacrificing an equal distribution of
economic resources among different social and economic groups in
Britain. As it turns out, the renewed Labor Party is much more
popular than its predecessor.

Indonesia does need a modern political party which has a clear
concept of how to develop the national economy amid the
tremendous positive and negative consequences of economic
globalization. As a social democratic party, PDI Perjuangan is
expected to pay particular attention to poverty alleviation,
human rights protection, labor welfare, women's role in economic
development and environmental conservation.

The economic crisis has pushed millions of Indonesians below
the poverty line. If PDI Perjuangan becomes the ruling party, a
strong populist orientation in its economic policies is a must.
At the same time, it will be expected to be capable of using
every opportunity offered by the global market to ensure that a
sufficient level of domestic economic growth can be sustained.

Adopting democratic socialism will be a real challenge for PDI
Perjuangan. Still, it seems to be the only way to get rid of PDI
Perjuangan's general image as the mere personification of its
chairwoman, Megawati Soekarnoputri.

The writer is a lecturer in the School of International
Relations at Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung.