Enemies of the Indonesian people
By Max Lane
The first week of the Indonesian election campaign has been characterised by mobilisations of the hundreds of thousands of people organised by Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-S), Abdurrahman Wahid's National Awakening Party (PKB), the United Development Party (PPP) and Amien Rais's National Mandate Party (PAN). The PDI-S mobilisations have been in the tens of thousands.
The People's Democratic Party (PRD), mobilising in the thousands in several cities, and the Justice Party (PK) have ranked next in mobilisations. Golkar mobilisations have been pathetic; there have even been revolts of Golkar "supporters" when they have not been given T-shirts and money when they turned up at rally points.
The campaign has been surprisingly peaceful so far. Golkar, the party of the regime, was threatened by the official Elections Supervisory Commission with disqualification from campaigning in Jakarta after its security people were photographed carrying machetes at a rally. A PRD film showing in a medium size central Javanese town was banned.
The PDI-S mobilisations have been large not only in Jakarta but also in other cities, including Bandung which has not traditionally been a Sukarnoist base. The huge PDI-S Jakarta mobilisation on May 23 occurred without Megawati as a speaker. The party will undoubtedly aim for an even larger turn-out at its next rally, which she will address.
The PDI-S mobilisations have been drawing in predominantly urban poor people from the kampung, the main support base for Megawati since the early 1990s.
The rallies have so far been extremely apolitical in so far as there have been virtually no banners, placards or posters expressing political demands. All have carried only pictures of Megawati or the party symbol, the buffalo head. Like at most of the "opposition" parties' rallies, the PDI-S has not promoted its political program in a significant way at its mass rallies.
Discussion of policies has been largely confined to the pages of newspapers catering to the middle class, although PDI-S supporters have responded positively to calls by the PRD, for the abolition of the military's role in politics, for example.
Breaking illusions
The PRD faces a huge task in breaking the illusions of the vast majority of the urban poor, including workers, in high-profile figures such as Megawati, Wahid and Rais, as well as their province level and local equivalents. Achieving this task will make up a big part of the PRD's political activity after the elections.
During the election campaign, the PRD is seeking to reach out to the mass bases of all the so-called reform parties and to address the mass sentiment for a united movement to crush all remnants of the Suharto New Order system.
In the last fortnight, several of the reform parties have declared anti-Golkar coalitions. First was PDI-S, PKB and PAN coalition. This was followed by a separate declaration of anti-Golkar unity by PAN, PPP and PK. Both moves were intended to appeal to the mass sentiment for a united approach to defeating Golkar and Habibie.
The PRD has responded in its own way, continuing its efforts to convince people to fight together with a more specific focus and a mass action strategy. The PRD leaflet appeals to the supporters of all these parties to take the unity beyond the symbolic, and always very vague, declarations by the leaderships of anti-Golkar unity.
The PRD has been distributing hundreds of thousands of leaflets in many towns and cities entitled "Our 10 mutual enemies and how we should fight them". It lists:
"1. The Suharto-appointed Habibie government.
2. Do the Golkar Party and other parties of the old regime deserve to be re-elected?
3. The People's Consultative Assembly, the House of Representatives and the Provincial House of Representatives, which were formed as a result of the corruption-ridden elections organised by the Suharto regime.
4. The Armed Forces/Indonesian National Army (ABRI/TNI), which still defend the political role of the military.
5. The corrupt bureaucrats, who are the supporters of the Habibie regime, and the parties that defend the Suharto Old Order regime.
6. The cronies of Suharto, who have robbed the economic rights of the people.
7. The 1999 law on politics, law on expression of opinions in public, law on elections, which retain colonial and anti-democratic stipulations.
8. The attorney general, the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice, which still work as instruments of those in power.
9. The political forces who use issues of race, ethnicity or religion to divide and rule the people.
10. The political forces who do not condemn the military operations in Aceh, West Papua and East Timor."
The leaflet then lists 10 ways to fight these mutual enemies:
"1. Form joint command posts or secretariats in the kampung, mosques, churches, campuses, factories and villages.
2. Be open to joint actions, rallies and campaign activities.
3. Carry out joint political education with the people.
4. Have joint security.
5. Oppose any racial, ethnic or religious provocation.
6. Jointly demand distribution of the nine basic commodities and jointly monitor the distribution of state social welfare money at the neighbourhood level.
7. Help form more people's organisations.
8. Jointly support pro-reform student actions.
9. Jointly monitor the locations where election cheating may take place (offices of the governor, district head, mayor, sub-district head, village head and neighbourhood head, as well as all military command centres down to the village level).
10. Form a united democratic government."