Indonesian elections: Reflections 1 (September 8)

2009
Indonesian elections: Reflections 1 (September 8)

by Max Lanehttp://blogs.usyd.edu.au/maxlaneintlasia/2008/09/2009_indonesian_elections_refl.html#more






[The following are notes intended to be the first in a series of informal
commentaries on the 2009 Indonesian election campaign. I will try to write
these reasonably regularly – but no guarantees. I hope they are of interest.]





The Indonesian election campaign has started,
following the announcement of the 44 political parties that passed the
electoral verification process. The most obvious signs have been the waves of
TV and newspaper political ads broadcast by the most well-healed parties,
particularly the new parties established by ex-general Wiranto (HANURA) and
ex-general Prabowo (GERINDRA). In reality, however, electoral politics has been
ongoing now for at least two years. This has been the result of the new laws
passed a few years ago to allow direct elections for the positions of Governor
and Vice-Governor as well as for Bupati and Vice-Bupati. Bupatis are head of
Kabupaten, the administrative region below governor. The Kabupaten are
important administrative units because following the passing of
decentralization laws in 2001-2, the Kabupaten administrations have had
significantly enhanced budgetary powers.



Elections for governors and bupatis have been
staggered throughout the last two years. This means that it is possible to
identify some general trends and features of electoral political activity. Some
key points are:


Ideological consensus

It would be tempting to conclude that policy and
ideology have played no role in these processes, with no clear pattern to the
wide range of combinations and alliances that have taken place. Everybody has
been in alliance with everybody at some time or another: fundamentalist with
secular; “nationalist” with “religious”; so-called opposition with government
parties and so on. However, the more appropriate conclusion is that there is
general consensus among all the currently registered parties that the
ideological, economic and political perspectives currently reflected in
government policies are more-or-less acceptable to all. Differences between
parties reflect more the politico-cultural outlooks of segments of the elite
whose patron-client praxis is different. These different patron-client praxis
in turn can flow from there being different regional bases or different
religious bases or different histories of interventions into electoral or other
politics.


There has been a fairly consistent record of the
parties in the parliament all voting for the major economic, social and
political legislation that have become before the parliament. The Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) has been the most active in attempting to
present itself as a party of opposition, having taken a few symbolic actions,
such as staging a walk-out at the time of the vote of the new very neo-liberal
foreign investment law. The party of (at that time) Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus
Dur), the National Awakening Party (PKB) also staged a walk-out. All other parties
voted for the legislation. Voting for pro-neoliberal legislation, and for the
government budgets based on its neo-liberal strategy, has been the general
pattern in the parliament underlining the fact that there is no ideological
differences on economic issues among the parties. Almost all parties, including
the smaller parties, also voted for the new electoral legislation aimed at
making it difficult for new parties, especially unmoneyed parties, to register.


(The only really consistent policy difference to
emerge has been over moral-religious issues with the more conservative
religious based parties, such as the United Development Party (PPP), the Star
and Crescent Party (PBB), and the Star Reform Party (PBR) supporting the more
harsher versions of laws making religious education obligatory, women’s dress
codes harsher and, outside of the formal parliamentary processes, mobilizing
together demanding the banning of organizations they consider heretical. The
other parties have either resisted this, or tried to find a way to acquiesce
quietly or compromise.)



Cynicism

One common feature of the electoral results has
been a manifest cynicism among the voters. Turn-out has been low for Indonesian
standards, with between 30-40% of eligible voters either not voting or not
registering to vote in many elections. I suspect that the figure is actually
higher given the high mobility of the Indonesian semi-proletariat and the
difficulty in registering them at a fixed address for election purposes.
Another manifestation of the cynicism towards all the parties is that the
parties themselves, having picked up on how much they are disliked, have
increasingly put forward candidates not associated with them historically. Thus
they nominate show-biz celebrities, religious figures, academics and other
non-party community personalities. Interestingly, one category of non-party
figures that have been tried, but have failed, are prominent ex-generals and
police officials. Celebrities and non-party “community personalities” have been
doing better. Of course, none of these figures have been part of any political
activity in opposition to the pro-neoliberal economic strategy nor the policies
aimed at defending the hegemony of the establishment parties and figures.


New parties

44 parties succeeded in registering for the 2009
elections, including the 17 parties already in the parliament. I know little
about most of these parties (which I suspect will be the same for most
potential Indonesian voters). Of the new parties (though some may be renamed
parties that have tried and failed to register for earlier elections), it is
HANURA, headed by ex-general Wiranto and GERINDRA (headed by ex-General
Prabowo) that will have the highest name recognition as a result of quite
substantial television advertising.



There are no signs yet of any of the other new
participants for 2009 having a campaigning capacity that may allow them to have
a significant national impact. Most of the media discussion of the parties
still focuses upon what are considered by the media commentators to be the
front runners to have a significant parliamentary representation. These are:

·
GOLKAR Party

·
Demokrat Party (of current president Yudhoyono)

·
PDIP,headed by Megawati Sukarnoputri

·
PAN – National Mandate Party, whose first
chairperson was Amin Rais and which is still associated in many peoples minds
with the Muhammidiyah (although at least one of the new parti esalsohasa Muhammidiyah
association.)

·
PKB – National Awakening Party. The PKB was
formally associated with Abdurrahman Wahid, but he lost control of the party in
the course of a recent dispute with other PKB leaders. The PKB split and the
Electoral Commission has recognized the non Gus Dur PKB as the one with the
right to participate in the elections.

·
PKS – Justice Welfare Party. This is a small
party, but with a disciplined membership base among a strongly religious base.
There is a lot of discussion that it may be increase its national vote in 2009.
It scored about 7% last time, but has got as high as 30% in Jakarta. In the election for Jakarta governor, it faced off against a
coalition of almost all the other parties and still got around 40% of the vote.
While having a staunchly fundamentalist leadership and base and promoting the
Islamic syariah among its own members and supporters, it packages itself to the
rest of the community as a modern, welfare oriented party.



Neither HANURA nor GERINDRA have entered most
commentator’s calculations at this point, apart from people speculating on the
impact of their advertising campaign and the obvious access ex-generals Wiranto
and Prabowo have to funds. Of course, the campaign period has just begun and
still has seven months to go, so nothing can be ruled out yet in terms of any
of the new parties – or the older smaller parties – finding gimmicks or tactics
to propel them forward.


Social movements and “civil society”
opposition

A section of the social and political activist
sectors, claiming to be opposed to the neoliberal economic strategy of the
government and to the policies aimed at institutionalizing the political
establishment’s hegemony have attempted to register to participate through new
parties in the elections.

Peoples’ Unions Party

There had been two efforts for parties with their
roots and base in the social political activist milieu to register for the
elections. One was the attempt by activists from various, mainly rural NGO,
advocacy and community campaign groups to register the Partai Perserikatan
Rakyat (Peoples Unions Party – PPR). The PPR was formed in 2005 and aimed for
registration for the 2009 elections. It tried to amalgamate activists from a
range of the local community activist groups into a national electoral party.
However, it could not consolidate enough people and resources to meet the
onerous bureaucratic qualifications for parties to register (which require not
only proof of the numbers of members in more than half of Indonesia’s
regions, but also proof of the existence of registered and equipped physical
offices.) I am not clear where the PPR people are concentrating their political
efforts now.


Peoples Democratic Party

The second effort was by the Peoples Democratic
Party (PRD) which formed a new party, PAPERNAS (Party of National Liberation
Unity), to attempt to gain electoral registration. PRD had made a similar
attempt to register a party called POPOR for the 2004 elections. The effort,
which had begun just a few months before the deadline for verification failed.
This time they began their effort to recruit PAPERNAS members and activists much
earlier. Despite a massive effort and a substantial increase in the PRD’s
activist resource e base, reflected through the PAPERNAS structures, there were
still not enough people or resources to expect to be able to successfully
register for the elections. As a result, the PRD leadership adopted a position
of seeking to stand its leaders as candidates for the Star Reform Party (Partai
Bintang Reformasi), a formally Islamic based party. A minority of the
leadership and membership opposed this decision and were eventually expelled
from the PRD as a result.


The chairperson of the PRD and the person
originally nominated as PAPERNAS’s presidential candidate, Dita Sari, is now
one of six PRD leaders, standing under the banner of the PBR.


In most of the left, activist milieu, this move
is seen as the PRD breaking way from its earlier trajectory, where it was seen
as both a socialist and a mass action strategy oriented party. It an interview,
with the new publication JURNAL BERSATU, PRD leader and PAPERNAS secretary-general,
Harris Sitorus, stated: “Papernas
itself is projecting to take state power, because real power lies in the state
institutions, such as the parliament and so fourth. It is here that political
power is established, not in the streets.” Previously, the PRD saw
extra-parliamentary struggle through mass action as the primary form of
struggle and the arena in which working people would develop their power; now
street protest mobilizations, which have become fewer in any case, are
subordinated to the electoral ambitions.


The decision has also bewildered people because
of both the very conservative religious base and policies of the PBR, as well
as the extreme opportunism of its leadership generally. I just note here a few
basic points about the PBR’s record:


• The PBR has voted for almost every
pro-privatisation and deregulation legislation introduced by the
Yudhoyono-Kalla government (at least the other former PRD chairpertson who has
gone over to a bourgeois party, Budiman Sujatmiko, can claim the PDIP walked
out on the vote on the neo-liberal foreign investment law)

• The PBR has voted for the budget, including the budgets with the fuel price
rises

• The PBR supported the new education law making it compulsory for children to
receive religious instruction in state schools, while secular and pluralist
forces campaigned against it

• The PBR signed the letter by a range of conservative religious organizations,
including the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) which had attacked civilian
protesters defending the democratic rights of the Ahmadiyah, demanding the
government ban the Ahmadiyah organization – a peaceful religious group with
500,000 members and whom have existed in Indonesia for 100 years

• That the PBR chairperson has been campaigning for the GOLKAR and Demokrat
Party candidates for governor in Sumatra

• That the PBR chairperson has stated in the media that he thinks the current
head of GOLKAR, Vice-President and leading capitalist, Yusuf Kalla, in
conjunction with mulit-millionaire Sultan of Jogjakarta, an interesting
offering in the presidential elections, making no critical comments whatsoever

• That the PBR chairperson has agreed to provide a platform for former Suharto
cabinet minister and head of GOLKAR, Akbar Tanjung, at the PBR convention to
choose a presidential candidate as well as arch neo-liberal ideologue, Rizal
Mangelarang

According to a newspaper report (Java Post), Dita
Sari stated that

“she does not have a problem with the PBR
being an Islamic based party. This is because much of the PBR’s program is in
accordance with her [views]. For example, economic independence that is not
dependent upon foreigners, the option of abolishing the foreign debt and
economic development in rural areas as a priority. “I see the PBR as a party
that is trying to introduce Islamic principles with a more open understanding,”
she said. (more)



Dita Sari may have been referring to a ‘political
contract’ that the PBR signed stating a ‘minimum commitment” with the
Indonesian Union for the Poor (SRMI), according to KOMPAS newspapers:

"The Minimum Commitment asserts that the
PBR will struggle for national self-sufficiency through accelerating the rescue
of national assets, abolishing the foreign debt and national industrialisation.
The PBR was also asked to struggle for healthcare guarantees and free
education, not to evict the poor from their homes and provide job opportunities
for the people". (more)



Despite all its election period rhetoric and
"political contracts", given its record, it is difficult to see the
PBR as anything but another of the opportunist, socially reactionary and
neo-liberal complicit components of the bourgeois political establishment. Like
all of the parties in the parliament, we can expect it during the next seven
months of campaigning to be using more nationalist and populist rhetoric. All
of these parties will contort whichever way the need to in order to attract
this or that constituency.


Counter-positions

The PRD’s new policy of seeking to convince the
people to campaign for, support and vote for the PBR, despite its record,
stands in direct counter-position of the efforts of a large number of activist
groups throughout the country, as well as the long-term projections of the PRD
aimed at developing a political movement and political culture that broke with
the masses’ dependence on the political elite and its establishment. It should
be pointed out here that the minority that was expelled from the PRD for its
opposition to the new line has formed as the Political Committee of the Poor –
PRD (KPRM-PRD), which in turn has also formed the Union of the Politics of the
Poor (PPRM), comprising KPRM-PRD members, PAPERNAS members in agreement with
the basic position of the KPRM-PRD and other newly recruited activists.
However, the KPRM-PRD and PPRM are not the only other political or activist
groups who are choosing a different and counter-posed route, to the PRD.


Before commenting on the KPRM-PRD and such other
groups, it should also be noted that the adoption of a policy of working inside
political parties of the political establishment has not been confined to the
current leadership of the Dita Sari wing of the PRD. Both other PRD leaders, as
well as activists from the NGO sectors, have increasingly adopted this
approach. In some respects, the 2009 elections represents the defeat of the
1990s generation given that such a large segment of them are being absorbed
into the institutions that they had previously declared their enemies.


Other PRD leaders who left the PRD earlier to
join parties of the establishment – all of them complicit in the implementation
of neo-liberal and anti-democratic policies – include:

• Budiman Sujatmiko, former PRD chairperson, now
a figure in Megawati’s PDIP and liekly to be elected to parliament in the 2009
elections

• Faizal Reza, former PRD chairperson, now an
electoral candidate for the PKB (non-Gus Dur wing)

• Haris Rusli Moti, former PRD chairperson, now a
figure in PAN

• Yusuf Lakaseng, former PRD chairperson, now
deputy secretary-general of PBR.

As more parties announce their candidates for the
2009 elections, we see more and more names of NGO and former student activists
appearing. The PDIP, which has been the most consistent in presenting itself as
an opposition (sometimes publishing full page advertisements listing its acts
of parliamentary opposition to the Yudhoyono government) appears to have
absorbed the most activists. In fact, many activists had earlier been recruited
through their employment as research officers to PDIP members of parliament or
to PDIP institutions. But all the parties have been able to recruit former
activists, including HANURA and GERINDRA.


The result of the absorption into one or other of
the parties of the establishment of so many former activists, whether en bloc
as with Dita Sari’s taking of her whole party in that direction, or through the
shift of individual PRD or other activists, represents a kind of decomposition
of the 1990s activist vanguard. This also means that the processes visible in
the attempts re-compose a mass action oriented political left, building itself
independent from and opposed to the political establishment, are more and more
involving a post-1998 generation of activists.



Political Alternatives Independent from the Post-New Order
Establishment.

A fundamental feature of the transition from the
period of Suharto’s New Order dictatorship in 1998 to the current situation is
that the student led mass movement of the 1990s did not produce a political
party, either electorally oriented or mass action strategy oriented, that
challenged the political establishment that had developed during the New Order,
which included both the cliques around Suharto and at the top of the army as
well as the cliques that had been more distant from Suharto (and the booty that
came with being close to the power centre.) What rivalries that emerged in
party politics after the fall of Suharto had little to do with basic
differences on policy questions (except perhaps some constrained differences on
the role of religion), but rather on where one’s clique (or new clique in
formation) stood in relation to sources of power and money (or power over
money).


The anti-dictatorship movement of the 1990s had
not been in existence long enough – developing on a mass scale mainly between
June 1996 and May 1998 – to consolidate either ideological perspectives or
institutions. After the dictatorship fell and relatively open electoral
activity became possible, there were not either the ideological or
institutional resources to compete against the myriad parties of the
establishment. Those parties drew upon substantial financial resources,
depending on how wealthy their core cliques were, and substantial ideological resources,
drawing on a combination of elements of the legacy of the 33 years of Suharto’s
period and from religious, cultural and remnant historical legacies. The main
historical ideological resource available to radical activists namely Left
Soekarnoism (which included advocating unity with communists) was not
accessible both because of legal suppression and because such an outlook had
been so successfully blackened in the minds of the population.

Various political groups and figures that had
emerged out of the 1990s activism, including the PRD, stood in the 1999
elections, when there were no serious regulatory obstacles. However, none made
any headway against the parties of the establishment, both those representing
the forces of Suharto’s New Order or their rivals from within the elite.
Building on this victory, the political establishment, through its parties in
the parliament, have used the last ten years to consolidate its hold over
electoral politics and political in general.


This obvious dominance by the two sets of parties
– those of the New Order and what the PRD analysed as the “fake reformists”
(reformis gadungan) – quickly established as a major priority for those sectors
radicalized by their experience of the 1990s and opposed to the neo-liberal economic
strategies the building of a political alternative to what the “New Order
remnants” and “fake reformists” represented.



The PRD’s campaigns to establish POPOR and
PAPERNAS as independent political organizations with programmes that challenged
the establishment’s economic and political agenda and which hoped to break the
masses dependence on the elite’s parties were a very important reflection of
that priority. But the processes pushing forward towards the formation of such
an alternative, especially after 2001/2 were not confined to the efforts of the
PRD. In the sphere of electoral campaigning, I have already mentioned the PPR.
But there were other efforts also that were not constructed around an electoral
orientation. In this reflection, I will just mention them in brief. In the
course of commenting on Indonesian politics over the next several months, there
will be more scope to discuss them. There are also some related comments on
this blog, in earlier posts relating to the formation of new left-wing
alliances and to the round of protest actions last May-June against the
government’s decision to increase the prices of fuel.


Sectoral organisations and political
blocs

It is difficult to put a precise number to it,
but it is very obvious that since 1998 (and actually starting before that but
under heavy constraints) the number of sectoral organizations, as they called
in Indonesia,
has increased dramatically. These include trade unions, peasant organizations,
other campaign oriented occupational based organizations (such as for
fishermen, street traders etc), student organizations, women’s groups and so
on. A few of these have now organized nationally, but many more operate on a
local or provincial level, while starting to network more nationally. Even harder
to calculate are the ad hoc, temporary action committees that have been set up
around this or that issue.


Out of this ferment, it is possible to identify
at least two, perhaps three, ideologically based political formations – besides
(previously, before 2007) the PRD and, since 2007, the KPRM-PRD – presenting
the perspective of building an independent and progressive political
alternative to counter the political establishment. These definitely include
the Working Peoples Union (PRP) and the Peoples Struggle Front (FPR). The
general political perspective of the PRP is outlined in an interview with its
Secretary-General, Irwansyah, with the leftwing journal, JURNAL BERSATU, and
which has been translated by James Balowski. I have never seen a similar summary
of the perspective if the FPR, or its core political groupings. It is clear
however that that they give a higher priority to peasant land struggles. There
is a possible third stream reflected in the collaboration between the
Indonesian Students Sarekat (SMI) and various worker organizations.

The PRP and the KPRM-PRD (see the interviews with
Irwansyah
and Zely
Ariane) explicitly advocate socialist goals. Along with the SMI, they also
emphasise mass struggle and organization as a strategic outlook, based on
intervening to organize and mobilize the widespread discontent in mass action.
Zely Ariance captures the basic features of this approach in the JURNAL
BERSATU interview with her. First she points to the most organized and
radicalized political groupings:

First, the movements that still have a link
with those of the 1980s and 1990s, such as the Green Indonesia Union (SHI), the
Working People’s Association (PRP), the Workers Challenge Alliance (ABM), the
Indonesian Farmers Federation (FSPI), the National Students Front (FMN) and so
forth. This spectrum is more open to programs to solve neoliberalism radically
or in stages and their action committees have demands that are quite radical politically.


The SHI and FMN are associated with the Peoples
Struggle Front (FPR). The ABM and FSPI are multi-stream in terms of the
ideological influences inside them. Ariane then continues:

Second, there is the spontaneous, fragmented and economist movement, which
does not have or only has a small link with the movements of the 1980s and
1990s. Included within this movement is the response or resistance by the
people that statistically could reach the thousands every month. Their actions
are also becoming richer with revolutionary methods such as occupations,
strikes and so forth. This spectrum is far broader and must be united and
influenced by the first spectrum of the movement. (more)


The PRP, KPRM-PRD, ABM and a range of other
organizations established the National Liberation Front (FPN) in May this year.
They organized a series of protest actions through late May and into early June
against the fuel price increases. This was undoubtedly an important step in the
experimentation that will take place if these groups commit seriously to the
unity that Ariane mentioned above. The ideological divisions between the FPN
groups and the FPR appear to block serious, ongoing collaboration – at the
moment at least.

***

Realpolitik contradictions

The perspective being pursued by those working
through the political parties of the bourgeois establishment, among whom there
are no serious policy or ideological differences, now stand in strong
counter-position to those trying to unite and radicalize the myriad of struggle
groupings into a political force, independent of and which can therefore
struggle against the dominance of the political and business elite. In the
context of almost forty years of monopoly of politics by the parties of the
elite and its factions and the culture of dependence that has developed, the
decision to call on the masses to continue to work through on or other of these
parties, rather than build an alternative will stand in a very sharp
counter-position to those trying to build an independent alternative.


The campaign is just beginning and so it is not
possible yet to identify just how this counter-position might be manifested in
political conflict. The PRP and the trade union based ABM have called for a
boycott of the elections. But it is not clear yet whether they have a proposal,
or the resources, to attempt lead an active campaign to struggle for a major
boycott election or to link it to concrete campaigns for political demands. I
have not seen a KPRM-PRD or an FPN statement on this issue yet either. It is
likely that the next 1 or 2 months will see more discussion and debate on how
these groupings will finalise electoral tactics, especially given they are not
standing in the elections, and how they analyse what priority they should give
the elections.


It is perhaps difficult to identify yet what
precise forms conflicts and contradictions might develop between those claiming
to be on the Left (if they still do) advocating support for the elite parties
and those trying to build a force or forces counterposed to those parties.
However, it is already clear that a fundamental way that electoral politics is
already starting to be framed will be challenging the ex-radicals cleverness in
formulating justifications for their decisions. In the absence of genuine and
serious policy and ideological differences between any of these parties (at
least the ones in the parliament and mentioned in the media), their real
concern – how close can they get to the centre of power - is quickly revealed.
Seats in parliament are all well and good, but the real question of power in
the current Indonesian system is who will be President (or lower down Governor
and Bupati). Already (in fact for along time now), the jockeying for alliances
that could assure one or other party or parties the presidency has been
publicly underway. It is in this process, that all the other posturing is
revealed as just that posturing.


The PDIP may try to pose as an opposition, but
the series of high profile joint events with GOLKAR where the idea of a
PDIP-GOLKAR alliance has been floated, deflates that pose very effectively.
Similarly, when the PDIP or other parties ally with GOLKAR, Demokrat, their
pretence of having serious policy or ideological differences disintegrate. The
same applies for the PBR. When PBR chairperson, Bursah Zarnubi, says only
positive things about the head of GOLKAR, Vice-President Jusuf Kalla, or makes
no criticism of former head of GOLKAR and Suharto cabinet member, Akbar
Tanjung, when discussing Tanjung’s possible presidential candidature, or
campaigns for GOLKAR governorial candidates, it is an effective statement to
the public of the absence of any serious policy or ideological differences.


Progressive or left activists developing
justifications for working through such parties such as the PDIP, PBR or any of
the others, will no doubt work out ways to justify calling on the people to
support political leaders who can contemplate alliances with GOLKAR. They may
face still more difficult predicaments. If Wiranto and/or Prabowo gather even
5-10% of the vote they too will be in the game of gathering together alliances
to nominate themselves as president; or enter in alliances where they are
vice-presidential candidates. In neither case, can you rule out any combination
as impossible.