June 3, 1999
Indonesia's Quiet Candidate Is Gaining Momentum
By SETH MYDANS
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Though it was clearly the last thing he
intended, it was Suharto who launched the candidacy of his
most likely successor as Indonesia's next elected leader --
his longtime nemesis, Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Swatting away a political irritant three years ago, he engineered
the ouster of Mrs. Megawati as the increasingly popular leader
of one of the country's two normally subservient opposition parties.
In a stroke, he created a martyr.
Now, in Indonesia's first free parliamentary election since 1955,
to be held on Monday, Mrs. Megawati's party is riding a wave
of popular momentum and she is the leading figure to head a
new coalition government that is to be formed before the end of
this year.
Her extraordinary popularity is a puzzle to outsiders. A passive
figure who sometimes seems not very interested in her political
work, Mrs. Megawati, 52, is more symbol than leader.
Whatever their grievances after three decades of autocratic rule
by Suharto, who resigned as president a year ago -- corruption,
injustice, poverty -- many Indonesians now imagine that they have
found a savior and a kindred spirit in this fellow victim.
Indulging in something of a historical fantasy, many see in
her the incarnation of what they now imagine were better times
under her father -- Indonesia's charismatic founding president,
Sukarno -- who also fell victim to Suharto when he was deposed
in 1967.
"Sukarno passed away a long time ago, but we believe his
spirit is still here with Mega," said a hairdresser named
Bambang, using Mrs. Megawati's nickname. "And she suffered
so much when Suharto was president."
Mrs. Megawati seems to have taken little part in her own rising
stardom, and that may be one of the secrets of her success.
She hovered on the edges of the protests that forced Suharto's
resignation and remained in the background of the reform
movement that pushed his unelected replacement, President
B.J. Habibie, to liberalize the government.
She has made few public statements and offered little hint of
any policy positions she might hold.
"It was only when Suharto made Megawati the gift of having her
dumped that she became a symbol of dissent," said Jack
Bresnan, an expert on Indonesia at Columbia University who is
visiting Jakarta. "She had never uttered a word of opposition, of
dissent."
She still says little, mostly avoiding reporters and dropping in
only briefly at campaign rallies.
In a recent speech she urged her supporters to guard against
cheating by the governing party. "Stay there and watch the
counting," she said, "because our experience in the past showed
that thousands of our supporters came to vote, but when the r
esults came in, in some places we got nothing."
Statements like that leave little for analysts to chew on.
"There's no basis on which one could form definite opinions of
how she might be as a national leader," said a senior foreign
diplomat. "She has constantly frustrated everyone who has
tried to form a coalition or sound her out about her policy intent."
At critical moments in the last year, when violence erupted on
the streets, she refused pleas to intervene by using her calming
influence on the crowds. On at least one occasion her aides said
she could not be disturbed because she was taking a nap.
Some Indonesian political commentators wrote her off, saying
she had failed to seize her historic moment at the time of
Suharto's resignation. They were wrong. The less she did, the
higher her stock rose.
What seems, to the political elite, to be a maddening passivity
only seems to inspire her admirers, many of whom come from
Indonesia's huge majority of poor people. Among Indonesia's
Javanese majority, modesty and restraint are highly prized and
energetic activity is sometimes seen as a sign of weakness.
"I love Mega," said Syahril Ramdani, an unemployed bank
messenger. "She is calm and quiet, and she is persistent in her
struggle."
Gofur, who sells sweet bottled tea, said: "Certainly, absolutely I
love Megawati, because she fights for the little people. She
deserves to be president because of her ancestry."
Mrs. Megawati's statements and actions do offer some clues as
to her beliefs. She is not a political novice, having acted as a
student booster for her father and later, served in Parliament for
10 years.
Her party, the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle, is
nationalist, secular and essentially conservative. In a recent
platform it emphasized the rule of law and the revival of
democratic institutions.
In her years in opposition, Mrs. Megawati firmly rejected
the option of protest rallies in what her advisers said was
an attempt to avoid violence. When she was ousted as
her party's leader, she took her complaints to the courts r
ather than into the streets.
She has cultivated good relations with the politically powerful
military and has supported its mission to combat separatist
movements and maintain Indonesia's unity. She has opposed
retribution against Suharto, calling instead for reconciliation
and noting that he declined to put her father on trial after seizing
power from him.
But for all her symbolism and the hopes for change that she
embodies, it is not clear that her party or her leadership would
be very different from that of the incumbent party, Golkar.
"Golkar, PDI, where's the difference?" said Ann Marie Murphy,
a lecturer in East Asian Studies at Columbia University, using
the initials for Mrs. Megawati's party.
"They are both conservative. They both have ties with the military.
They both have a lot of gangsters."
Daniel S. Lev, an expert on Indonesia at the University of
Washington, said of Mrs. Megawati: "She is part of the old elite
and will be as accommodating to friends from that elite as anyone
can imagine. So, many of the army people are perfectly happy with
Megawati. They know perfectly well that when push comes to
shove, she will be delighted to have their help."
But he said there was no way to know how she and her advisers
would respond to the pressures and temptations of power. The
hopes of her fervent supporters could easily, and quickly, be
crushed.
"I like Mega because she is a woman and she can be a mother
to our country," said Nana Sumarna, who owns a garage.
Hari Tjan, a political scientist at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, had a rejoinder to that notion.
"People say they are looking for an affectionate, warm mother,
a safe and secure place," he said. "But you know, a mother
can be influenced by naughty sons and naughty uncles and
naughty nephews. You never know."
A prince must endeavour to win the reputation of being a great man of
outstanding ability.
A prince also wins prestigete for being a true friend or a true enemy.
Everyone imagines he is competent, and hitherto no one has had the
competence to dominate the others.
Niccolo
Machiavelli
