Between 10,000 and 15,000 PDI supporters massed on the streets of Jakarta outside the parliament on April 15, demanding that the elected leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), Megawati Sukarnoputri, be allowed to participate in the May 29 general elections.
According to Media Indonesia daily, the deputy chair of the pro-Megawati PDI, Soetardjo Soerjogoeritno, had a heated exchange with security forces, asking them to open up the gate to let the crowd in. In the end, members of the PDI fraction of parliament came out and met the crowd.
The delegation led by Soetardjo read out an appeal to the MPR, the upper chamber, calling on it to remind the government to respect the people's sovereignty and restore the political rights of the PDI members and the Megawati leadership, and urging the government to conduct the elections honestly.
Among those signing the statement were 20 PDI functionaries who are still members of parliament.
The Indonesian media reported the crowd to be around 5000, while the Jakarta military commander, Major-General Sutiyoso, stated that it was 2000.
Question: A Jakarta underground leader who was a part of the action told Green Left Weekly by telephone:
I saw about 5000 people at 10am at parliament house. But by 12 noon there were more than 10,000. The masses filled all the left side of the Gatot Subroto toll road, from the cross-over bridge to the parliament right down to the Mandala Wanabhakti building. So the masses were packed in about 70 metres by 3 metres deep. The toll road had to be closed because it was packed with people. People had come from all around the country.
The military appeared "groggy" in the face of such a large crowd. There were six water cannon, several platoons of troops and nine helicopters in operation.
People's Democratic Party (PRD) members also participated in the action, starting up an open forum and raising the election boycott. The boycott issue received a very positive response.
While some of the PDI leaders were nervous about the issue being raised, they did not ban election boycott chants. Indeed, several banners from PDI chapters carried the slogan "Elections without Megawati are not legitimate".
After the action, the East Jakarta PDI carried out a march and rally along the Gatot Subroto toll road, causing a total traffic jam. The crowd kept up "Boycott the election" chants. The military wasn't able to do anything because any attack on the masses would have surely led to an anarchistic response by thousands of people.
The masses had already clashed once with the security forces when they had been blocked from entering the parliamentary compound. They tore down the metal gates and passed them up onto the toll road and used them to block the road. The barbed wire fence along the toll road was also torn down.
The PDI officials issued a statement declaring that the elections were legally flawed, politically flawed, morally flawed and a violation of human rights. They indicated there would be more legal challenges. I think these legal challenges are also being used as arenas for mass mobilisations.