By Max Lane
Two days after the elections in Indonesia, interim official results are giving President Suharto's Golkar party 74% of the vote, the Islamic United Development Party (PPP) about 23% and the puppet Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) an extremely low 3%. No official figures on how many people boycotted the elections have been released and the accuracy of the government's vote tallies are highly suspect.
Green Left Weekly's sources in the Indonesian opposition report widespread intimidation of voters. Public and private sector workers were forced to vote in their workplaces, supervised by management. Surveillance was extremely tight in the villages, where 50% of the population live. Documents leaked to the Indonesian press indicate that some district officials had already worked out the results for each party in the kampungs (hamlets) before voting even started.
The PPP is protesting — as it did after the last elections — that there has been cheating in the major cities where the huge rallies that mobilised in its support have not been reflected in the vote tallies.
Defiance
The most important aspect of the election campaign has been the massive escalation of defiance by Indonesians. There was increasing mass defiance before the election campaign even began, manifested in the size, militancy and political demands of workers' demonstrations led by the Indonesian Centre for Worker Struggles (PPBI).
A series of mobilisations that started in mid-1995 climaxed in 20,000 workers demonstrating in Surabaya on June 8, 1996. This was met by a declaration of war from the Indonesian regime which accused the PPBI and the party to which it is affiliated, the People's Democratic Party (PRD), of being a reincarnation of the Indonesian Communist Party.
The next wave of defiance centred on the defence of Megawati Sukarnoputri, who was ousted from the leadership of PDI to prevent her from participating in the 1997 elections. Demonstrations took place throughout Indonesia during May and June, 1996. On June 20, 20,000 protesters confronted the military in Jakarta. There were more demonstrations, street fighting and rioting on July 27 after the military attacked Megawati's headquarters.
Since June-July, the political energy of the discontented masses has been concentrated on the elections and the activities of the long-established electoral parties, the PDI and the PPP.
All the available evidence indicates that the majority of PDI members boycotted the elections. At the beginning of the campaign, Megawati called for non-participation. and the puppet PDI rallies became a shadow of past election rallies. Even in its strongholds, the puppet PDI could hardly muster 100 people. The PDI colour, red, was virtually absent from the city. In some cases, PDI leaders were chased off the stage.
The boycott was implemented in the face of an unprecedented government campaign urging people to vote. The government-backed Islamic Mullahs Council also urged people to vote.
PPP day mobilisations
The defiance shown by PPP supporters was much more visible than the boycott campaign. During election campaigns, each of the three recognised parties is permitted to mobilise on a particular day. However, the government did all it could to discourage open air mobilisations. There was an initial ban on open air rallies and the military carried out major exercises in the middle of Jakarta. In spite of this intimidation, huge numbers of people came onto the streets on PPP mobilisation day. These were mostly spontaneous mobilisations of hundreds of thousands of urban poor who flooded out of the kampungs of the major cities and towns.
Many of the demonstrators never made it to the main PPP rallies after being blocked by military and police. Militant protesters fought with the security forces each time they were obstructed or harassed. In some cases, police stations were attacked and sacked.
In Banjarmasin, Kalimantan, large numbers of people attacked Golkar supporters and burned down the main shopping centre after a Golkar motorcade disrupted Friday prayer meetings. The crowd burnt down the hotel, where it was reported that Indonesia's chief official Muslim ulama was staying. The ulama had earlier read a prayer at a Golkar rally.
The political focus of the PPP day mobilisations was clearly aimed at the Suharto dictatorship, collusion between officials and big business, and against corruption. Demonstrators chanted "Hang Suharto!", "Down with Suharto!", "Hang corrupters!", "The army is our enemy" and the "Army are killers".
There was a positive response to a call for the PPP and the Megawati PDI leadership to form an alliance. Large numbers marched behind "Mega-Star-People" banners and protesters distributed 500,000 leaflets which echoed the demands of the outlawed People's Democratic Party: Unite to replace Suharto!; Investigate the wealth of the Suharto family; Repeal the five political laws; End the role of the military in political affairs; For a minimum wage of 7000rp per day; and Lower prices!
There was a stark gap between the political stance of the mass mobilisations and lower level PPP leaders and that taken by the government-installed national PPP leadership. Solo PPP head, Mudrich, campaigned strongly for an alliance with Megawati, implying an eventual challenge by Megawati to Suharto for the presidency. Some of the biggest mobilisations took place in Solo, where Megawati also has significant support.
Chairperson of the PPP, Ismael "Buya" Metareum, distanced himself from the calls for an alliance and the attacks on Suharto, however. He told the media that a united front to replace Suharto was naive, that the PPP would never form an alliance with anybody and that he would ask the military to investigate who distributed the leaflets.
Limitations of elite politics
The election period exposed the limitations of the two main elite-based opposition parties, the Megawati PDI and the PPP. Although the Megawati leadership has been the most defiant in defence of the organisational integrity of the PDI, she has not stepped beyond this framework to attempt to speak for or lead a broader spectrum of people. She has not taken up the question of the political repression of other groups, of workers' rights to organise, or peasants' right to land. Her manifesto and program have remained vague. Her defiance of Suharto in her struggle to defend the PDI has won her solid support and loyalty from the PDI's traditional following, but she has not been able to broaden the impact of her leadership.
There is little doubt that Megawati's strategy is to win support from sections of the establishment by reassuring them that she will not let the situation get out of hand. She has kept her political moves strictly within the law and gone out of her way to restrict her followers to taking only small militant actions. Only once did Megawati allow a mass mobilisation — on June 20. The potential for galvanising a broader movement was shown by the many people who mobilised on PPP day with Megawati pictures.
The national PPP leadership made only enough criticisms of the Suharto dictatorship to maintain a minimal credibility. The big mobilisations on PPP day were an indication of the depth of anti-government feeling among the urban poor, who identify with Islam rather than support for the PPP leadership.
The manipulation of the PPP vote to ensure that, even in PPP support areas, it lost the elections leaves a large section of the population angry and frustrated with the elections. On May 31, the secretary-general of the PPP, Tosari Widjajya, held a press conference to call for new elections. It is not clear whether this statement has the support of Metareum who said on Indonesia television on election day that the elections had been more orderly than in the past.
The call for new elections may be supported by the PDI Megawati and could become the focus of a new campaign. However, only another wave of mass mobilisations, or a split within the military away from Suharto, could actually force new elections.
After some initial huffing and puffing by Metareum, the national PPP leadership will probably accept the election results. Nevertheless, outbreaks of unrest in some Muslim areas over the election results may push some lower level PPP leaders who are linked to the rural and urban poor to consider an extra-parliamentary strategy.
It is likely that the focus of political activity in Indonesian will now swing back to building a united front of the anti-dictatorship forces that includes the PDI-Megawati supporters, the Muslim urban and rural poor, militant students and workers organised by the PRD and middle-class democrats in the Uni Democracy Party.