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Web-only Exclusives
November 30, 2000

From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War
A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix

From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead
Bad news for the Philippines - and some others

From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies
Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights?

Asiaweek Time Asia Now Asiaweek story

'SUKARNOISM' AGAIN

A familiar figure fires the ideals of Indonesia's now leading party

By Jose Manuel Tesoro/Blitar


the    P D I - P ' s    p l a n s
POLITICS

  • Maintain separation between religion and state
  • Decentralize authority and regional development
  • Strengthen checks and balances among government branches
  • Restore rule of law
  • Maintain freedom of the press, of association, assembly and opinion
ECONOMICS
  • Have a balanced budget without foreign borrowing
  • Place people at the center of development
  • Promote industry to support agriculture
  • Use market forces to encourage efficiency
  • Limit government intervention
  • Eliminate corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN)
  • Abolish monopolies
  • Eliminate barriers to both domestic and international trade
DEFENSE & FOREIGN POLICY
  • Raise military professionalism
  • Strengthen the navy and air force
  • Reduce the military's role in day-to-day government
  • Reject "superpower domination"
source: first draft of the PDI-P's Broad Outline of National Direction (GBHN)

THE ANSWER TO WHAT Indonesia would look like under Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle might best be found not in the buzzing capital, Jakarta, but in the modest East Java town of Blitar four hours' drive south of Surabaya. The place to look would be in a whitewashed house on Sultan Agung Street where, once a year for over a decade, tens of thousands of people from all walks of life crowd into its banyan-shaded yard to hear all-night Koran readings, poetry recitations and speeches honoring Indonesia's founding president. The house is in Sukarno's family name, and his nearby grave is on a list of national monuments. Yet the growing throngs at the annual June 20 commemoration of his death show that "Bung Karno" belongs not to a family or state but to a significant number of Indonesians who think his nationalism, even his mercurial temperament, are as valid today as they were for his freshly freed republic.

It's safe to say that the vast majority of the faithful voted for Sukarno's second daughter Megawati and her PDI-Perjuangan (as her party is called in Indonesian). And if the PDI-P's 36% grip on the slow count of votes cast June 7 is any guide, its supporters number in the millions. By June 22, the ruling party Golkar had overtaken the National Awakening Party (PKB) to be in second place, with over 18% of half the estimated total vote. Indonesia's complex electoral laws will narrow further the gap between the delegates PDI-P and Golkar can send to the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), which chooses the president later this year. (With the counting delays, final tallies may only be released by mid-July.) But the PDI-P's hold on the popular vote makes it less publicly palatable for Golkar to obstruct Megawati's path to the presidency - should she and her party overcome questions about her gender and her ability to govern.

Then, Sukarno believers may well witness in the months to come what amounts to his resurrection. "Ibu [Mother] Mega will continue that which was put in place by Bung Karno and which was seized by [Suharto's] New Order," says Wiwas, a 27-year-old part-time laborer from Malang, East Java, with the deep conviction of the converted. In this vast, diverse, populous and still largely rural archipelago, only two philosophies have strong and widespread roots: the religious world-view of Islam and the nationalism of Sukarno. Megawati's PDI-P would not have won as many votes as it did in the June polls had its image not already been familiar. "I read Sukarno before I read Albert Camus," says Hotasi Nababan, a U.S.-educated professional who recently joined the party.

"For a fighting nation, there is no journey's end," Sukarno once said. The image of an eternal revolutionary is but one of his many faces. Another is that of a die-hard nationalist who believed in a united Indonesia blind to race, religion and ethnicity, and free from foreign influence and domination. Still another is that of an eclectic thinker who tried to meld nationalism, religion and communism. Megawati, in these pages, once called him "a romantic humanist." He believed in the common folk. "We miss a leader who can protect all of us," says Usman Ismail, a member of the Sukarno Education Foundation. "We miss a leader who can again give Indonesia bargaining power."

One doesn't need to go far to find Sukarno in Sukarnoputri's party. In April the party's research division, headed by economist Kwik Kian Gie, prepared the first draft of a proposed "Broad Outline of National Direction" (GBHN). Aside from selecting the president, the MPR's other significant duty is to debate and approve an acceptable GBHN; both parliament and president are constitutionally bound to implement it. Though the PDI-P's GBHN, a copy of which was obtained by Asiaweek, has yet to be approved by the party's leadership, the document essentially suggests what the PDI-P could do if it takes power.

On nearly every page the GBHN's language recalls Sukarno, from phrases like kedaulatan politik ("political sovereignty") to gotong-royong, which connotes mutual help and cooperation. Its preface speaks of freedom not only from fear and oppression but from "manifestations of colonialism and imperialism." It rejects forming divisions between majority Muslims and minority non-Muslims, and says religious matters should be separate from those of government. It states that people should stand at the center of economic development, and demands that future budgets be balanced without foreign borrowing.

The PDI-P's critics wonder if the party will repeat the first president's rejection of foreign assistance in the 1950s. (After all, Sukarno once famously said: "Go to hell with your aid.") But the PDI-P's GBHN also nods to the realities of the '90s. It rejects monopolies for two reasons: they take advantage of ordinary people and they make markets inefficient. On the eve of her father's death anniversary, Megawati met with the International Monetary Fund's first deputy managing director, Stanley Fischer. (She did not attend the commemoration on June 20.)

The party's plans also show the influence of another figure:Suharto. Its GBHN is a scathing critique of the former strongman's New Order, which had gone all out to prevent Megawati's ascendancy - and, ironically, only hastened it. "There will not be one class or group that will enjoy the benefits of development while the rest are neglected and marginalized," it says. The document calls for a restoration of the rule of law and a strengthening of the institutions of justice, and wants the legislative and judicial branches to balance the power of the president. It demands clean and accountable government almost as often as it recalls Sukarno. Still, explains a party chair, Mochtar Buchori, "The lapse into Sukarnoism is a temporary thing. Sukarno made many mistakes. We live in different times. Now nationalism is inseparable from regionalism and globalization."

Who will implement all these ideas? Megawati relies far more on trusted advisers and aides than her father ever did. The merchants who blare recordings of her speeches and sell her party's paraphernalia on the road to Sukarno's grave give the impression of a seamless fusion of daughter and father in a cult of personality. But her followers appear to know her better. "As president she will not be alone," says Istono, whose left his home at 2 a.m. to be at Sukarno's grave by morning. His wife chimes in:"Her advisers are capable."

But perhaps divided. There is talk of friction within Megawati's party, though officials close ranks in public. "Before the party was small and existed under a lot of pressure," explains another party chair, Dimyati Hartono. "There were those strong enough to resist, and those that weren't." Hence the resentment from longtime loyalists against newcomers. One fairly fresh member is Theo Syafei, a retired general and East Timor veteran who only joined shortly before its congress last year yet is now one of its nine chairpersons.

Megawati's opponents, both Muslim politicians and Golkar officials, have tried to use the backgrounds of her advisers and aides against her. (Kwik is Buddhist, Syafei a Christian.) Muslim figures accuse the PDI-P of proposing too many non-Muslim legislators. "Imagine a country where more than 90% are Muslim run and supervised by non-Muslim people, in the government and in parliament. Where is the voice of Islam here?" fumes Akhmad Soleh, a kyai (Islamic preacher) in South Jakarta. "Our problems are that she is a woman and that her level of religious belief is still in question."

Suharto, in his reorganization of party politics, had fused secular and Christian parties to form the original PDI, of which Megawati's party is an offshoot. (The United Development Party gained all the Muslim-linked parties.) Hartono dismisses the criticism as without basis: "The people are not foolish; they choose according to their conscience."

The irony is that these attacks help perpetuate Megawati's status as a quiet victim, which only enlarges her appeal to the masses. So her opponents are fighting on a battlefield she has already conquered. By emphasizing that current President B.J. Habibie, a Megawati rival, is a good Muslim and not Javanese, his allies are also tapping into the very religious and ethnic fault lines that Sukarno and his supporters rejected. "The most important thing is to unite the nation," says a 25-year-old man from Jember, East Java. "Anyone can be president." In a way, the complex translation of the popular vote into MPR seats is still scoring the PDI-P points, by making the party and its allies look like underdogs - even though together they have won over two-thirds of the tallied vote and are preparing for power.

Sutarjo Suryoguritno, also a PDI-P chair, says a government under Megawati will take its leaders from across the political spectrum. "Gotong-royong must be enacted," he says. Inclusion could blunt but not necessarily eliminate the attacks on Megawati. On many PDI-P posters reads a quote from Sukarno to Indonesia's younger generation: "Your struggle is more difficult than mine because mine was against foreign invaders, and yours is against your own people." So far, his daughter is winning that struggle.


This edition's table of contents | Asiaweek home

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JAPAN: Japan's ruling party crushes a rebel ì at a cost

SINGAPORE: Singaporeans need to have more babies. But success breeds selfishness


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