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Straits Times
June 5 1999
MEGAWATTAGE at the Indonesian elections
By SUSAN SIM
INDONESIA CORRESPONDENT
JAKARTA -- No need to vote on this. From the sock caps babies are now
sporting, to the paint youths are daubing on their body parts, to the huge
flags skyjumpers were trailing behind them at Thursday's mega rally, red is
definitely the hottest colour this season.
Those wearing the PDI Perjuangan colour did not even have to pay road
tolls that day, as cops and attendants waved them on and out of the gridlock
that cloaked the city in crimson all day.
Yes, red dye merchants are the clear winners. Is the woman at the centre of
this red craze, Queen Mega, champion of the
underclass, resistance fighter extraordinaire, a clear winner too?
Maybe not. Beyond the hubris, the unthinkable is being thought: Advisers to
Ms Megawati Soekarnoputri are beginning to worry about what she should say
if her party does not win as everyone expects.
Sure, PDI-P will still get more votes than anyone else come Monday. After
all, how can the party that fought the longest and hardest against the evils
of the past, whose chairman was removed by force and its cadres thrown into
jail, not do well?
But what if it gets only 25 per cent of the 462 legislative seats up for
grabs, as some pragmatists in the inner circle fear might happen, and not
the 40 per cent that will make its lead over Golkar unassailable?
In a town where few political observers qualify as independent (the New
Order was very good at co-opting bright minds), those familiar with the
mechanics of its electoral manipulation in the past reckon that Golkar can
still get up to 30 per cent of the legislative seats, perhaps just a few
seats shy of PDI-P's total. They estimate that out of the 35 million
card-carryinging Golkar members, the hardcore has been whittled down to
something like 12 million. But each of these might be able to influence
another three or four voters to punch the No. 33 ticket, giving the party
at least 28 per cent of the vote.
And then there is the vote-peddling. Critics note that even after rallies
ended yesterday, Golkar still has the weekend and Monday dawn to try to
influence the vote.
Even Ms Megawati betrayed growing anxieties on Thursday when she urged her
ebullient supporters not to sell their votes "just for money" and to monitor
the ballot count as well as the transportation of the boxes.
Beyond the mechanics of the electoral process, the reality is that there is
a huge groundswell of anger against Golkar, precipitated as much by the
economic crisis as by the realisation that after 32 years of living,
admittedly fairly well, under the boot-heels of coercion, they can resist;
the students have shown that in the face of sheer numbers, the military will
back off.
Among the sweltering masses of politicians, PDI-P stands out because it has
Megawati Soekarnoputri. The masses from Blitar to Medan to Jayapura know her
father's name and want to idolise her.
The party knows it and so she choppers round the country like royalty,
putting in as many appearances as she can, especially among the rural
lower-income Indonesians, the bulk of the electorate, who want an icon they
can identify with, and perhaps some words of assurance that she cares.
So, she appears to her audience like a benign queen, not glamorous but cool
as a cucumber amid their adulation, saying little beyond making it clear
that they now have the power to choose a new people-friendly government,
namely hers.
It is a deliberate strategy. Winning votes, after all, is like winning
market share, so why not market accordingly?
As the influential party treasurer Laksamana Sukardi told the Van Zorge
Report in February, the population can be divided into market segments and
the party intended to concentrate on those living below the poverty line.
As for the urban underclass, it has identified with Ms Megawati ever since
the Suharto regime made the mistake of ousting her from the party chair, and
needs discipline in containing its raucous celebration of her more than it
needs to be told who to vote for.
Still, it does not hurt to reinforce the message that she is fighting the
system for it. Her TV advertisements play cleverly on the idea that while
she is not responsible for their plight, she is here now to help it.
Intellectuals scoff at her academic deficiencies: she did not complete
university and, apart from her Bali congress speech last October, her few
policy pronouncements have her sounding like a populist socialist with
little inkling of how to deal with the realities of crisis-hit Indonesia.
Her advisers insist that while they have not always understood her
decisions, such as ignoring the student movement last May, her stincts have
invariably been proven right in the end.
More incredibly, if her friends and family are to be believed, she "talks"
to her dead father, founding president Sukarno, before making any major
decision, including her fateful 1994 decision to become the chairman of the
original PDI and her current stab at the presidency.
That accounts for her famous habit of keeping silent at party meetings;
daddy's girl has to consult him first. This mystic allure, too, is a strong
selling point in rural, syncretic Java and Bali, even if the chattering
classes find it bizarre. Yet, the Megawati enigma has not prevented the
middle-class and the ethnic Chinese business
community from contributing to her war chest.
Since last July, Mr Laksamana and close adviser Kwik Kian Kie have been
building the party profile, speaking to businessmen about their vision of a
clean government and an independent judiciary as the key to the country's
economic woes, and raising money.
One early fund-raiser organised by a group of young entrepreneurs in
Jakarta raised more than one billion rupiah, surprising even the taciturn Ms
Megawati, who asked, "Are you sure?"
For many people, her party represents a symbol of new hope. They are
realistic in not over-estimating her administrative or leadership
capabilities. As several businessmen told The Straits Times over dinner one
night, she has a "sell-by date".
"She's like Cory Aquino, good for one-time use only. And the time is now. We
need someone like her to breathe moral fibre into the country again," one
financier who golfs with several ministers and army generals said.
With nothing to lose but momentum, PDI-P has parleyed its new wealth into
mass rallies over the last two weeks. Hugely successful in entertaining the
crowds, from dangdut and Elvis-singing bands to the men in red who jumped
out of helicopters with party flags at
Thursday's grand finale, to the party vigilantes as adept at keeping
convoy vehicles from hitting each other as protecting Ms Megawati, the
rallies showed organisational depth.
Her soaring popularity since the rallies began have some of the Islamist
parties running scared. Hence, Wednesday's edicts from the Indonesian
Council of Ulemas (MUI) and Muhammadiyah to Muslims -- to vote for political
parties which represent their community; calls meant to undermine support
for her secular-nationalist party.
As with MUI's earlier injunction against a woman president -- a ruling based
more in politics than in theology since the Abdurrahman Wahid-led Nahdlatul
Ulama has a more flexible interpretation that depends on whether the woman
in question is Suharto's daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana or Ms Megawati, it
is unclear how these calls will affect PDI-P's electoral standing.
"It probably cannot prevent the Megawati fanaticism from growing," said one
observer sympathetic to her cause, yet sceptical of her abilities. "She's
become very charismatic." The irony of the Megawati phenomenon is that if
she had wanted to, she could also have played the Muslim card. She is not
only Sukarno's daughter, but also Fatmawati's, one of Islam's most devout
daughters in her day.
With a flick of her wrist, she could easily slip on a headscarf and
establish her Islamic credentials, like Mrs Rukmana did when her father's
throne kept her political ambitions alive.
But PDI-P is a secular-nationalist party, and she would no more misuse Islam
as sign electoral pacts with the Christian parties that might undercut her
vote in Christian eastern Indonesia. Observers here and abroad worry that
PDI-P's main message is simply one of blind trust: Vote us in and we will
put clean, competent people in
government regardless of their political affiliations now.
While that might smack of woolly thinking, it can also be powerful in
projecting Ms Megawati as a symbol of unity. Her party has no sacred cows it
must defend other than the state motto, "Unity in Diversity", so her
government will be all-inclusive, a healing force in a country shattered by
increasing religious and ethnic polarisation.
Just look at her inner circle: they are Sundanese treasurer Laksamana,
Javanese lawyer Dimyati Hartono, ethnic Chinese economist Kwik, Ambonese
Christian secretary-general Alex Litaay and Muslim Muhammadiyah educator
Mochtar Buchori.
Perhaps at the end of the day, whether she assumes the presidency or
not -- and she might not, regardless of how her party does -- the Mega
phenomena is useful for Indonesians to discover two things about
themselves: Will they succumb to polarising forces or will they give new
meaning to integration?
Also, can Indonesians overcome their phobia of mass politics? Mass
mobilisation after all led to the downfall of one regime.
Can a political party stake the moral high ground like the student
movement did last May and translate it into votes?
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