The Anti-Party Reaction in Indonesia: Causes and Implications  

 

Paige Johnson Tan       

University of Virginia    

 

 

Facing impeachment in 2001, Abdurrahman Wahid bemoaned that, all other avenues exhausted in an attempt to save his presidency, he was “lodging a protest with God” against the injustice with which he had been treated.[1]  For Abdurrahman Wahid, it was not his performance in office or his sidelining of other political tendencies in Indonesia, but rather the vicious and unbounded ambition of his opponents which was motivating the attempt to remove him from office.  Even though impeachment could be seen as having been effective in removing a leader who was widely perceived to be ineffective, the months of chaos and the willingness of political party leaders to take the country to the brink of violent inter-communal conflict over the issue seemed to turn many Indonesians off, potentially undermining the legitimacy of Indonesia’s post-Suharto political system. 

 

This article contends that in the short period of time since Suharto’s fall in May 1998, admittedly under trying political and economic circumstances both domestically and internationally, Indonesia’s political parties have spent much of the goodwill bestowed on them by the population as the proper organising principle for a post-Suharto political system; this has led to a strong anti-party reaction.  The parties are strongly embedded in the contemporary political system, but, this very strength has enabled them to operate in ways that are alienating the population.  With parties and elections the most overt feature of Indonesia’s evolving democratic system, delegitimation of the parties presents challenges for the consolidation of democracy in the country. 

 

It is common in Indonesian political discourse for the parties to be derided as power-hungry, selfish, and corrupt.  Commentators, intellectuals, and even party politicians themselves often lament that the country is experiencing a “crisis of leadership” or a “moral crisis”.  The article begins by exploring the reaction against the parties currently underway in Indonesia.  The article then explains the reasons for the anti-party backlash by examining the legacy of anti-party attitudes bequeathed by earlier periods in Indonesian political life, the parties’ behavior since the 1999 elections, the strength of the parties in the contemporary politico-legal framework, and popular attitudes toward the parties as revealed in a succession of opinion polls conducted over the course of the transition.  Finally, the article concludes by considering the implications of the anti-party reaction for the consolidation of democracy.

 

The Anti-Party Reaction

 

Since Suharto’s fall in 1998, many opinion leaders and even members of the general public have been uncomfortable with the sheer number of parties that have arisen.  More than two hundred parties were formed in the period 1998 to1999.  Forty-eight parties qualified to compete in the 1999 elections.  Twenty-one of those parties achieved representation in parliament.   Frustration has also been expressed with the charismatic basis of the parties.  Rather than representing programs or coalitions of interests, the parties were derided as relying solely on the personal charisma of a leading individual, such as Megawati Sukarnoputri for the election’s top finisher, the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia—Perjuangan (PDI-P).  Further, the basing of many of the parties in the country’s socio-religious groupings seemed to heighten the potential for inter-party rivalry to breach the bounds of rule-based, institutionalised competition.  The way in which the impeachment battle in 2001 seemed to turn into a proxy war between the country’s modernist and traditionalist Muslims seemed to confirm worst fears of inter-party, inter-communal violence.

 

Four years into the transition, the reaction against the new parties is in full swing;  this can be seen in a selection of important episodes beginning in about 2001.  The replacement of the party-dominated Elections Commission, demands that high state officials give up their party leadership posts, draft changes to the laws on elections and political parties, and constitutional issues all show a decided trend away from Indonesia’s parties.  The episodes are outlined below.  The reasons for this anti-party backlash are explored in the following sections. 

 

First, in 2001, the party-dominated General Elections Commission (Komisi Pemiliham Umum—KPU) was replaced by a new body, composed entirely of civil society figures and academics.  The KPU was formed in early 1999 and was composed of fifty-three representatives, one from each of the forty-eight election-contesting parties and five government representatives.  This post-Suharto KPU was a specific reaction against government manipulation of elections during the Suharto years.  The presence of party representatives on the commission was intended to ensure that the former government-backed party, Golkar, would be unable to use election administration, as it had in the past, in order to secure victory.  But, as will be explored below when the parties’ behavior across the transition is considered, the party-dominated KPU presented its own array of troubles.  Almost from the time of the elections in 1999, demands were heard for the commission to be revamped and its members replaced with non-partisan appointees.  Finally, in 2001, the official changeover to the new KPU was achieved. 

 

Second, in late 2001 and early 2002, top party leaders, particularly Megawati Sukarnoputri (President of Indonesia and head of the PDI-P) and Hamzah Haz (Vice President and head of the Partai Persatuan Pembangunan—PPP), were repeatedly told by academics and activists to resign from their party posts to concentrate on the “national interest” embodied in their high state posts. [2]  The general reasoning behind these demands was that, as top state officials in their elected positions, these party leaders could no longer represent just the interests of their particular party.  Azyumardi Azra, a moderate Muslim scholar at the Syarif Hidayatullah State Institute of Islamic Studies (IAIN), said that “If they [the top leaders] are really concerned about the problems faced by the country, they should be ready to leave their position in their political parties so that they can focus on their duties as public officials”.[3]  This echoes a view published in an earlier article entitled “National Leaders Putting Parties Ahead of Country, Analysts Say,” in which political analyst Syamsuddin Haris was reported as saying that the people had demanded that those in top state positions who were simultaneously party heads step down from their party posts, but the call had been refused.  According to Syamsuddin, “this shows they are still focusing on their short-term political interests even though they have been entrusted to lead the nation”.[4] 

 

While Amien Rais issued a statement that he was considering the idea of resigning from the Partai Amanat Nasional (PAN) to concentrate on his post as head of the Indonesian MPR, none of the top leaders has at this writing given up a top party post.  In fact, Amien Rais’s proposal may have had more to do with his own maneuvering away from the weak PAN to place himself in a stronger position for the presidential elections in 2004.  In recognition of the central role played by the party leader, normally quiet Megawati Sukarnoputri made a public defense of her need to maintain her party leadership post.  The movement to force top state officials to resign their party leadership positions lost momentum in early 2002, but its existence and its duration reflected deep unease with the idea of “partisanship” on the part of high state officers.

 

Third, non-governmental organisations have pressured the MPR (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat), the highest legislative body, to give up its power in constitutional revision to an independent, non-partisan constitutional commission.  This effort, ongoing since about 2000, experienced its first success in 2002, when the MPR took note of demands for an independent constitutional commission in an MPR resolution.  The attempt to take control of amending the constitution from the party-dominated MPR and to place it in the hands of an independent constitutional commission represents a serious attempt to curtail the power of the political parties, taking away one of the core functions of the legislative body.  While the MPR took note of the idea of an independent constitutional commission, its support for the effort was, not surprisingly, half-hearted.  In the words of the decree establishing a commission under the control of the MPR’s working body (Badan Pekerja), the commission “shall be established with the task of undertaking a comprehensive investigation into amendment of the 1945 Constitution”.[5]  The commission will have the power to investigate amendment but, as yet, no authority to undertake amendment of the constitution.  The parties, thus far, have successfully maneuvered to retain control.

 

Fourth, the country’s laws on parties and elections are currently under revision.  New laws are expected in late 2002 or early 2003.  Dissatisfaction with the operation of Indonesia’s institutions has pushed almost from the beginning for the laws’ revision.  The new laws, as they exist in government-proposed drafts and non-governmental organisation input, have taken a decided move away from strong parties and, particularly, against strong party centers. 

 

Under most future scenarios, the number of parties competing in elections will decrease.  While forty-eight parties competed in 1999, the 1999 laws did envision a winnowing of the field.  A requirement that parties receive at least 2% of legislative seats in 1999 in order to contest follow-on elections appears as if it will be retained in the new laws and enforced;  this is a result of a widespread belief that Indonesia has “too many parties”.  With this stipulation, 1999’s field of 48 parties will be reduced to just six parties.[6]  The government draft election law sets tight requirements on the formation of new political parties as well.  Parties must have leadership boards in two-thirds of Indonesia’s provinces and two-thirds of the regencies within those provinces.  Each of those regency-level party units must demonstrate that it has at least one thousand members (with copies of members’ identity cards) in order to be allowed to compete in 2004.  Some parties from 1999, like Partai Keadilan (PK), should have no trouble meeting this requirement.  However, looking at the requirements broadly and considering Indonesia’s population size and spread, this is a daunting figure for many new parties.  Attempting to circumvent the stipulation, the parties may, instead of collecting dues from members, be paying them to sign up in future. 

 

The other major feature of the revised election laws will be the election system in use.  Indonesia’s party-list proportional representation system (PR) has been strongly denigrated as contributing to the lack of connection between elected representatives and citizens.  It is commonly heard that the system is not democratic because voters choose parties and not representatives in the elections.  While a number of alternative systems have been mooted, the need for a simple, comprehensible system may render many of the proposals naïve dreams.  The likeliest choices now appear to be between the party-list PR currently in operation and a PR system which tightens the relationship of candidate to constituency and voter, one which may even see candidate names used on the ballot.  The government draft proposes the latter, but it is the parties in parliament which will be debating and finalising the bill.  Attempts to control the parties through changes in the election law demonstrate dissatisfaction with their current performance.  The parties’ reticence to give up their prerogatives demonstrates their will to power.

 

The changes of election and party laws are in addition to important constitutional changes put in place in August 2002, which have transformed the institutional framework in ways affecting the parties’ positions.[7]  The creation of a directly-elected presidency has in a sense strengthened the parties as it is only election-contesting parties or coalitions of parties (with a candidate from among their members) which will be allowed to put forward candidates for the presidency and vice presidency.  It was in the spirit of democracy that the directly-elected presidency was first proposed, but the proposal was also a strong reaction against the deal-making (dagang sapi—cow trading) and machinations of the parties in parliament—both in the election of the president in 1999 and the impeachment of Abdurrahman Wahid in 2001. 

 

Mitigating the parties’ power, though, and reflecting strong attempts to control them, is the creation of a new party-less institution, the Regional Representatives Council (Dewan Perwakilan Daerah—DPD).  Parties are specifically disallowed from competition for the seats in this body which will be composed of four members from each of Indonesia’s thirty provinces.  The lower house, the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR), and the new DPD will come together to form the new upper house, the MPR.  On its own, though, it is unclear now what real power the DPD will have.  Thus, it is unclear what real power the parties have ceded to the new body.  The perceived need for the creation of a party-less body represents an intriguing institutional development.  If a party-less body can better represent the regions’ interests in parliament, what does that say about the representation of other interests at the national level?

 

Why is There an Anti-Party Reaction in Indonesia?

 

The selection of anti-party maneuvers outlined above shows a decided attempt to control the political parties’ partisanship and to make representatives more accountable to voters.  The frustration with Indonesia’s political parties can be seen as typical of reactions faced in many situations of transition from authoritarian rule.  How and why this is happening in Indonesia matters a great deal for understanding the country’s contemporary political debate and recent political developments.  The anti-party lens and the parties’ attempts to maintain their power and prerogatives are central features of current politics.  It is vital to analyse the source and nature of anti-party attitudes for what they have to say about the legitimacy of the parties as the central organising principle of Indonesia’s democracy. 

 

The sources of the anti-party movements outlined above lie in the legacy of anti-party attitudes bequeathed from earlier periods of Indonesia’s political life, the parties’ actions over the course of the transition, the strength and unchecked nature of the parties’ legal position in the contemporary political system, and popular attitudes toward the parties. 

 

The Legacy of Anti-Party Attitudes

 

Indonesia’s political system did not start from null with Suharto’s ouster; and this observation applies particularly to attitudes toward political parties.  The 1950s-period of parliamentary democracy (1949-1959) taught certain lessons about political parties to Indonesians.  These lessons were elaborated upon and strongly inculcated in the population throughout the long years of Suharto’s New Order (1966-1998). 

 

During the parliamentary democracy period, chaos in the economy as well as the instability of up-down governments seemed to delegitimate the parties and the wider democratic system.  Sukarno, speaking later, said of parliamentary democracy that it was “debate without end over small points, in which each group fought to achieve victory of its interests and slighted the interest of the nation, the interest of the common people, and the interest of our revolution”.[8]  While debate often focused on important symbolic issues, it did prevent the government from acting in a unified way in addressing the concrete expectations of the population.  It was the parties, and especially the strong polarisation of competition among the parties, that took the overwhelming share of the blame for the government’s failure to deliver in the 1950s. 

 

At the same time that the parties’ reputations were declining, ideologically, Sukarno and others were growing more combative towards the idea of the party system and liberal democracy itself.  Western liberal democracy and its attendant political parties needlessly sundered the harmony of the political community in Sukarno’s view.  Western liberal democracy, or 50% + 1 (separu tambah satu) democracy as Sukarno began to mock it, was not in keeping with Indonesia’s indigenous democratic traditions.  Culture was used (and crafted) by Sukarno to justify moving away from parties and parliamentary democracy. 

 

Sukarno put forth an alternative conception of governance which he asserted was more in tune with indigenous village-level conceptions of democracy.  In the village, everyone was given a say; this was consultation (musyawarah).  After everyone had a say, though, it was the job of the village headman to sum up and guide the consensus (mufakat) of views which had been reached.  Sukarno, the unifier, envisioned himself as Indonesia’s headman, the one individual who could see past particular interest and view Indonesia’s national interest.  These views, as developed under different governmental forms during the Suharto years, have continued to affect popular views of the parties today.

 

During Suharto’s New Order regime, anti-party attitudes were consciously embedded in the political system.  The number of parties allowed to compete was limited. The ruling party of the New Order, Golkar, was not even legally a party at all but rather a coalition of notionally non-partisan functional groups.  While Sukarno emphasized the need for unity in carrying out Indonesia’s revolution, Suharto emphasized the need for unity of all social and political forces in support of economic development. Indoctrination through government-enforced ideological training classes and government control of the media reinforced the regime’s contention that Indonesia was far too heterogeneous a country to allow the unfettered competition of different political parties.  Liem Sioe Liong of Tapol, a Europe-based Indonesian human rights organisation, cites the corporatist ideology of the Suharto era as a prime determinant of contemporary anti-party attitudes.  According to Liem, these contemporary views still reflect “corporatism, that national values are above everything”.[9]

 

It was in this atmosphere of anti-party attitudes that Suharto fell.  Indeed, he was not brought down by the political parties, though certainly the victimisation of Megawati Sukarnoputri and her branch of the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia played a part in discrediting the regime.  No, instead it was primarily students who initiated the process which led Suharto’s authoritarian regime to melt out from under him. 

 

Still, as is the case in many transitions from authoritarian rule, though it was not the parties which brought down the former ruler, it was to them that the nation looked to construct a new political society.  The problem in Indonesia was that democracy, and its attendant system of inter-party competition, was attempting to root itself in an environment of strongly anti-party attitudes.  The country had been told over forty years to adhere to one national interest.  After Suharto, the parties represented a cacophony of conflicting and particular interests.

 

The Play Of Politics and Views Of The Parties

 

The Parties Put on a Successful Election, But . . .

To the legacies of the past, we must add the play of politics across the transition as a factor in shaping the contemporary anti-party reaction.  A brief recounting will show that, through a succession of less-than-flattering incidents, the parties have been instrumental in seemingly trying to delegitimate themselves with their own behavior.  Particularly, the parties’ shallow campaigns in 1999, their participation on the General Elections Commission (KPU), and their machinations to remove Abdurrahman Wahid from office have confirmed a view of the parties as self-interested and narrowly partisan.  Some have questioned, can these parties truly serve as the vehicles of popular representation?

 

In the run-up to the 1999 elections, the behavior of the parties provided pause to thoughtful observers.  The campaign centered on personalities rather than issues, and disagreements among the parties seemed highly polarised: between old and new, reform and status quo, Islam and secularism.  Parties paid for attendance at rallies in the widespread assumption that being seen as a big party improved one’s final vote on election day.  There was also violence between supporters of rival parties, but this was far less than expected and, in fact, less than occurred during the last elections of Suharto’s New Order in 1997.  Campaign rallies rolled through the country’s major cities and blocked traffic, causing annoyance and a very real fear of violence among many members of the public.

 

In the run-up to the election and in its wake, another way the parties were viewed was via their participation on the party-dominated General Elections Commission.  The KPU is important here because the behavior of the parties on the KPU went a long way to confirming everyone’s worst views of the parties:  the parties were seen as unscrupulous, self-serving, and corrupt. 

 

Particularly in the wake of the elections, the KPU seemed to become a national embarrassment, especially over two issues: demands by small party representatives for seats for all parties contesting the elections, regardless of votes earned, and the KPU’s inability to approve the election results.  After the election, as it became apparent that most seats would be concentrated among the top six or seven parties, several spokesmen for the small parties demanded legislative seats for all parties that had participated in the elections, regardless of votes earned.  The small party spokesmen justified this by saying that all the parties had helped to make the elections a success and that there had been too little time for the parties to prepare for the elections after Suharto’s fall.  Western-trained political scientist and government-appointed member of the KPU Andi Mallarangeng described this demand simply as having “no logic”.[10]   The small parties, derided as gurem or chicken-flea parties, were widely perceived as sore losers.

 

Many smaller parties also refused to sign the election results until all reports of election violations had been investigated (and, apparently, rectified through repeat voting if necessary).  This led to a progressive rolling back of the announcement of the vote results in an extremely tense nation until August 4^th, for elections that had been held on June 7^th.  Actually, the KPU never approved the vote results, as they had been rejected by 27 of the 48 election-contending political parties.  The results were eventually approved by an executive order by the president.[11]  While the gurem were correct that election violations had been widespread, all outside observers judged that these did not materially affect the election’s final outcome.  The gurem’s behavior, again, was seen to stem from the fact that the parties were sore losers.  According to political observer Mohammad A.S. Hikam, the gurem’s “refusal to sign off on the results an indication that the nation has much to learn about democracy, especially how to accept defeat”.[12]

 

There were charges, too, in a nation keen to move beyond the Suharto era’s KKN (collusion, corruption, and nepotism) that there had been corruption in the awarding of contracts for election-related supplies, such as indelible ink and hologrammed ballots, both designed to protect the integrity of the vote.  Charges of malfeasance hung in the air over the KPU and encouraged perceptions that the parties were cut of the same cloth as the ancien regime.

 

All of these incidents led to demands that the Election Commission be revamped and made a more neutral body.  The anti-party reaction was outlined above, the creation of a non-partisan Elections Commission inaugurated in 2001.  The party representatives on the KPU had delegitimated themselves right out of a job.

 

After the Elections: the Parties’ Machinations

After the tumult of the KPU and the elections, the parties set about to form the country’s new legislative and executive institutions and to govern.  Many Indonesians hoped that, in contrast to the past under the Suharto regime, now legislators would truly represent the people of the constituencies they served.  Toward this end, the 1999 election law attempted to modify the strict PR system formerly in use with a measure that would tie candidates to their districts.  Voters chose only parties on their ballots, and these were then tallied at the provincial level to determine a party’s proportional share of the seats for the province.  However, in a first-past-the-post twist to the system, candidates were not located on a single party list.  Instead, individual candidates were attached to individual regencies within the provinces, and only the highest-scoring candidates at the regency level were to be chosen to fill the party’s PR quota. 

 

After Indonesia’s election, however, candidates were shuffled wildly by the parties in an attempt to engineer the composition of the parties’ legislative groupings.  Jakob Tobing, head of the Indonesian Election Committee (PPI), under the KPU and in charge of election administration and vote counting, said that, as a rough estimate, 10% of the seats had been juggled by the parties.[13]  PDI-P and Golkar (the top two finishers in the elections), he said, had both forced pre-election letters of resignation from their candidates in order to ensure the parties’ ability to control the composition of their parliamentary delegations.  It is actions like the shuffling of candidates that have caused observers to bemoan that the legislators are “party representatives, not people’s representatives”.[14]

 

One of the most important tasks undertaken by the first sitting of the Indonesian upper house of parliament, the MPR, in October 1999 was the election of the country’s new president.  This was a time of great tension in Indonesia as the opposed forces supporting B.J. Habibie and Megawati Sukarnoputri seemed deeply polarised between status quo and reform (though, of course, this dichotomy was never as simple as it appeared).  In addition, there was the alternative candidacy of Abdurrahman Wahid, put forward by the Central Axis (Poros Tengah) of Muslim parties, to further complicate matters. 

 

Periods of tension such as these have perennially led to the search in some quarters for a non-partisan solution to the nation’s problems.  A prominent name mentioned as a compromise presidential candidate into the second half of October 1999 (the presidential election was October 20^th) was that of Nurcholish Madjid, the rector of the Paramadina Mulya University and a respected Muslim moderate.[15]  In a rare dissent, University of Indonesia political observer Arbi Sanit repeatedly recognised the danger of moves such as these.  Quoting Arbi Sanit,  “They are trying to build democracy while bypassing the parties.  If the parties are considered vile, then what?  The people who are behind the Nurcholish Madjid candidacy are the ones who do not understand the function of parties.  The parties must be made to live again”.[16]

 

Arbi Sanit’s view was a minority one among political observers and Indonesian intellectuals more widely, however.  The independent presidential candidate maneuver was defeated, as it was the parties in parliament maneuvering and voting for their respective presidential candidates.  The nation greeted the election of Abdurrahman Wahid with relief, and the political process appeared to have worked, throwing up a compromise candidate in the atmosphere of tight competition between B.J. Habibie and Megawati Sukarnoputri. 

 

Mere days later, however, upon the formation of Wahid’s cabinet, the same anti-party bias could again be seen.  As a compromise candidate, Wahid was compelled to accommodate a large number of political interests (all the top parties along with the military were represented in his cabinet).  Repeated calls were heard, though, that the politicians should not engage in dagang sapi (cow trading) for political positions.  This sentiment was in great tension with the need to represent the numerous streams in Indonesian politics but was a perfect reflection of the anti-party language of earlier periods.[17]

 

From the time Wahid was elected president in October 1999, the political parties did little to redeem themselves with the public, just cementing the legacy bias against the parties.  The parties were lambasted in the media for spending all their time on political maneuvers designed to bring down President Abdurrahman Wahid and very little on legislation or widely expected extensive constitutional reform.  In the middle of 2001, the chairman of the legislation committee of the DPR admitted that little had been passed by the House.  Out of fifty bills submitted up to that time, thirty were still being deliberated, and only a “handful” had been passed into law.[18]  From January to August 2001 (through the height of the stand-off between president and parliament), only 13 pieces of legislation were passed, most being mere administrative changes to the status of cities and one an agreement with Hong Kong on the handling of fugitives.[19]

 

As the impeachment battle heated up, Abdurrahman Wahid threatened to declare a state of emergency, disband the parliament and call early elections.  His opponents decried this as unconstitutional.  Even the military said publicly it would not support a declaration of emergency.  Outside the buildings of state, demonstrations grew increasingly numerous.  Against Wahid, demonstrators denigrated the President’s incompetence and corruption.  For Wahid, pasukan berani mati (ready-to-die squads) vowed to defend the president against the unconstitutional power-grab. 

 

After the tussle between Wahid and the legislature was concluded in July 2001, many Indonesians greeted the peaceful resolution (after months of seemingly escalating chaos) with relief.  An Indonesian man-on-the-street was quoted as saying, the “politicians in Jakarta have been fighting for so long.  We just wanted it to be over”.[20]  However, the situation was not like starting over because the parties’ reputations had taken a battering.  A common observation was that the parties were simply interested in the machinations of power, rather than in solving the real problems of the people. 

 

Little has improved for the parties since 2001.  Party splits took center stage in 2001 and early 2002 with splits in Abdurrahman Wahid’s National Awakening Party (PKB), Hamzah Haz’s PPP (with the creation of the PPP-Reformasi), and the Partai Bulan Bintang (with the creation of the Partai Islam Indonesia).  In 2001, a significant segment of liberals walked out of Amien Rais’ PAN over the party’s tilt toward Islam and Rais’s motoring of the Wahid impeachment effort.  Megawati Sukarnoputri’s PDI-P has not been immune either.  PDI-P has seen the exit of several highly visible members of parliament, such as Sophan Sophiaan, and the creation of splinter parties by Eros Djarot and Dimyati Hartono.  In the midst of the parties’ splintering, the Jakarta Post ran the headline “Parties in Disarray”.[21]

 

It is worthwhile to examine the parties’ behavior across the transition in some detail.  These are the episodes Indonesians themselves have witnessed and upon which ideas about and attitudes toward the parties have been formed.  One reason the parties have been able to act with relative impunity has been their strong political-legal position in the post-Suharto period.  This is explored in the following section. 

 

The Parties’ Embeddedness

 

Laws on elections and political parties crafted in 1999, along with the work rules of the legislature, ensconced the parties, and particularly the party central leaderships, in positions of strong control in the political system.  This embeddedness, when considered with the legacy of anti-party attitudes and the parties’ behavior, above, suggests reasons why support for the parties has dissipated since 1998-1999 and an anti-party reaction has set in.  Comparisons with the legal position of parties in Russia and elsewhere help to make the strength of the position of Indonesia’s parties more clear.

 

The laws on parties and elections, Laws 2, 3, and 4 of 1999, governing parties, elections, and the structure and composition of legislative institutions, put the parties in a strong position in Indonesia’s evolving political system.  First, Law 3 on General Elections explicitly stated that the contestants in the elections are political parties (Law 3, Chapter 9, Article 46).  This can be distinguished from the practice in famously non-party Russia where political parties, civic movements, and individuals are permitted to compete for office.  Further, in contrast to Indonesia in 1999 where one hundred percent of the seats up for election were taken by the political parties because of the party-list PR system in use,[22] in the parliamentary elections of 1993, 1995, and 1999, Russia’s single-member district system allowed 17% to 31% of deputies to come from non-party-affiliated individuals. [23]

 

Second, in its preamble, Law 2 gave the parties great importance in Indonesia’s evolving political system.  The parties were recognised as “instruments which have a very important meaning, function, and role as the realisation of the freedom to unite, assemble, and express thought in developing the democratic life” (Law 2, Preamble).  Parties’ functions were delineated as political education; absorbing channeling and struggling for the interests of their members; and preparing citizens to serve in the nation’s democratic government (Law 2, Chapter 4, Article 7).  These statements gave the parties a strong legal basis and recognised their important role in Indonesia’s democratic political system.  This is in contrast to Russia’s 1999 Election Law for the Duma (parliament), in which parties were barely mentioned.[24]

 

Third, the elements of a proportional representation system that were chosen strengthened the party central leaderships by giving the parties maximal control over candidate selection and ranking, although the center was supposed to use this power “democratically” by listening to the suggestions of party officials at lower levels (Law 3, Chapter 8, Article 41).  It was not the candidate but rather the party center that was responsible for submitting a candidate’s name to allow him or her to stand for election, and it was the party symbol, not the candidate’s name, which appeared on the ballot.  The party had the authority to replace a candidate who ceased to serve during the legislative term from among those candidates on its permanent list in the same area which the retiring deputy served (Law 4, Chapter 3, Article 14).  All of these stipulations have taken power and maneuvering room away from individual candidates and lodged that power with the party center.  This situation can be contrasted strongly with the relatively weak parties of Brazil, where individual candidates build their own support bases and are little indebted to the national party.

 

Furthermore, according to the work rules of Indonesia’s upper house, the MPR (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat), decision-making in the legislature is to be, “as far as possible,” by consensus (musyawarah) among the various factions rather than by up-down votes on assorted proposals (similar rules could be cited for the lower house as well).[25]  This has had a couple of different effects on the parties.  On the one hand, all party fractions (along with the military and functional groups) are guaranteed a say on pending legislation.  This gives power to small parties and factions to be heard on all national issues.  On the other hand, decision-making by consensus has concentrated a great deal of power in the leadership of the parties in parliament, to the detriment of their members; leaders have the ability to agree to a matter on which individual members have perhaps had a chance to have a say but not to register any meaningful choice.  According to PDI-P legislator and democratic activist Aberson Marle Sihaloho, “Those who have the power in the House are the party leaders, not the people”.[26]

 

The list above is a sampling of ways in which the laws and legislative work rules have enabled the parties, and particularly the party centers, to become extremely powerful.  The power of the party centers has enabled party leaders to move party vehicles at their will, irregardless of the wishes of the population.  It is to popular views of the parties that we now turn.  

 

Examining Attitudes Toward Parties

 

The current reaction against the parties reflects public opinion generally.  Indonesians, from the outset of the transition ambivalent about political parties, seem to have become less enamored of the parties over time.

 

To get at Indonesian views, public opinion must be studied and measured.  But, public opinion polling in a nation emerging from a long period of authoritarian rule is problematic on many levels.  Will respondents answer honestly or attempt to give “the right answer” to “please” the interviewer?  Mahir Mangahas, a top pollster from the Philippines, points to a number of problems in polling in Southeast Asia.  He cites particularly the lack of experience of pollsters and the ability of polls to impact the political process and thus to attract “fakes”.[27]  In this study, data from a selection of methodologically strong polls conducted from 1998 to 2002 are used (Table 1, below, provides information on the polls considered in the discussion).  Occasionally, sound, urban telephone polls are brought in to the discussion (always with a disclaimer); this is necessary because, in some cases, this is the only type of opinion information available.  Additionally, the results of a series of focus group interviews, bearing directly on the parties, is considered.

 

 

Table 1.  Major Indonesian Opinion Polls

 

Poll Conducted by	Reference to Poll in Text	Date Conducted	Sample Size (N)	Scope
Intl Foundation for Election Systems (IFES)[28]	IFES 1998-1999	Dec 1998- Feb 1999	1,507	National
Clearing House-Pendidikan Pemberi Suara[29]	CH-PPS	February 1999	2,593	National
Polling Center[30]	Voice of the People	June 1999	4,100	National
IFES[31]	IFES 1999	August 1999	1,520	National
IRI/LP3ES[32]	IRI 2000	November – December 1999	Unknown	Focus groups, 3 each in 7 provinces.
Indonesian Consortium for Public Opinion Polling, MPR, and DPR[33]	IFES 2001	May – June 2001	3,440	National
LP3ES/CESDA[34]	LP3ES	January 2002	1,236	Urban/10 cities Both Java and non-Java
IFES[35]	IFES 2002	March – April 2002	3,580	National
LP3ES/CESDA[36]	LP3ES II	June 2002	1,250	Urban/10 cities Both Java and non-Java

 

In defense of relying on public opinion research in the Indonesian context, public opinion polling in Indonesia since 1998 appears to provide an extremely consistent, though not unchanging, portrait of Indonesian views.  Survey after survey shows the public’s primary concern to be the economy.  In the February 1999 CH-PPS poll, the country’s biggest problem was identified by 70% as the economy.  This was seconded in the Voice of the People poll, conducted right after the 1999 elections.  Asked what the most important task for the new government was, 64% responded fixing the economy.  Political issues finished a distant second, with only 28%.  The economy was again the top problem in the IFES 2001 poll, with 53% ranking this as the most important issue as compared to its next most prominent contender, conflict among the political elite with 17% (the poll was conducted during the height of the impeachment crisis).  IFES 2002 found the economy back at 70%, with only 11% choosing the next most common response, conflict among the political elite.

 

In addition to the consistency of views on such issues as the economy, polls, like the 1999 elections themselves, confirm the reformist but not radical views of the Indonesian public.  While the sights and sounds of Indonesia’s “People Power” movement in 1998 might cause us to overestimate support for political change, the IFES 1998-1999 poll found that only 57% thought Suharto’s resignation was a good thing.  The IFES 1999 poll found that, in contrast to a clean-sweep reform which would overturn Suharto-era officials, most Indonesians (62%) favored retaining existing governors and regents to the end of their terms.  In perhaps the most surprising finding, IFES 1999 found that 77% of respondents had a very or somewhat favorable impression of the military.  These views may not be in keeping with our ideas about Indonesian politics, but they do seem to be in keeping with the results of Indonesia’s 1999 elections.  The large vote received by Megawati Sukarnoputri’s PDI-P was in some senses a vote for reform.  On the campaign trail, though, the party head was much more ambivalent.  She spoke about the need for national unity, support for the 1945 Constitution, and Indonesia’s heterogeneous population as a brake on political change, all items with which Suharto himself would have had little quarrel.  In important ways, the opinion polls picked up on something that outside political observers, perhaps because of our own democratic blinders and excitement, may have missed.

 

Turning to attitudes toward the parties, awareness of the parties has increased over the transition.  In 2001, 42% of respondents could name five or more of the contemporary political parties.  As reported in IFES 2002, that number had risen to 61%.

 

Are the parties trusted to lead?  The Voice of the People poll, conducted in Indonesia immediately after the elections in June 1999, rated parties last among those trusted as capable or strongly capable in leading the country through change.  Parties ranked behind the students (87% ranking as capable or strongly capable), citizen groups (77%), the media (77%), the president (at that time still Suharto’s chosen successor, Habibie—75%), and the parliament (72%).  However, with a level of trust of 62.8%, Indonesia’s parties compare favorably to those in Russia and elsewhere.  Early polls in Russia (1993-1995) showed levels of trust far below those in Indonesia, ranging from only 4-9%.[37]  This was low, as were levels of trust expressed in parties in other new democracies:  Korea (1997) 20%, Czech Republic 15%, Poland 9%, Hungary 11%, Romania 19%, Bulgaria 13% (all but Korea 1999).[38]

 

The difference between data on trust in parties gathered in Indonesia and elsewhere raises questions as to comparability.  A thorough examination of Indonesian opinion polls shows that Indonesians are, at this point, extremely likely to express trust in any given institution.  So, more germane than the absolute value of trust expressed should be the relative level of trust expressed.  In June 1999, when the supposed “euphoria” of the elections was in full bloom, Indonesians cited parties as the least trusted institution out of a menu of choices. 

 

In a follow-up on the party trust question, IFES 2002 found that only 32% felt that the parties had the ability to support the aspirations of the people, a fundamental function of the parties in a democratic system and consistently cited as important by Indonesians when addressing the question of political parties.  Despite this low figure for overall faith in the political parties, levels of trust expressed in individual political parties were high.  The least trusted party of the five top finishers in the election, Golkar, was still trusted by 50% of respondents.  PDI-P finished at the top of the class, as it often does.

 

Table 2.  Trust in Individual Political Parties, 2002

Party	Trust (percentage)	Do Not Trust (percentage)
PDI-P	72	12
Golkar	50	NA
PKB	61	27
PPP	67	20
PAN	61	26

Note: This table is based on data from respondents who expressed awareness of the given political party, a subset of the total sample.  Parties are PDI-P=Partai Demokrasi Indonesia—Perjuangan, PKB=Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa, PPP=Partai Persatuan Pembangunan, PAN=Partai Amanat Nasional.

Source: IFES 2002. 

 

One question asked in several polls was the degree of acceptance of a multi-party system.  This is extremely important because fatigue with the sheer number of parties and chaos of democracy was complicit in the delegitimating of Indonesia’s earlier democratic experiment in the 1950s.  In several of the IFES polls, Indonesians were asked about the ideal number of political parties.  The results, as shown in Table 3 below, show more acceptance over time of the existence of a multi-party system, albeit not a hyper-party system as Indonesia currently possesses. 

 

Table 3.  The Ideal Number of Parties

 

Number of Parties	IFES 1998-1999 (December 1998- February 1999) (percentage)	IFES 1999 (August 1999)   (percentage)
0	--	--
1	1	2
2	3	3
3-9	66	84
Many 10+	6	6
Don’t Know/No Response	24	5

Sources: IFES 1998-1999.  IFES 1999.

 

As the table makes clear, from 1998 to 1999, large numbers of Indonesians became increasingly comfortable with a multi-party system of 3-9 parties as “ideal” for the country.  Few supported one- or two-party systems.  Similarly, few supported ten or more parties as ideal.  These results, taken with Indonesia’s election results, in which only seven parties finished with sizable support, show that the system is evolving thus far in line with Indonesian perceptions about the ideal party system, at least as far as the number of strong competitors is concerned.  As mentioned above, the government’s draft of the revised election law, with its tough requirements for parties to compete in the elections, is in keeping with these popular perceptions.

 

Unfortunately, the ideal number of parties was not followed up in subsequent national-level polls.  An urban telephone poll, conducted by LP3ES/CESDA (LP3ES II) in mid-2002, found that 66% of respondents favored a system of from one to ten political parties.  Only 24% favored a system of more than eleven parties or a system without a limit on the number of parties.

 

Do parties make things better?  Are they positive?  Here we have little data with which to work.  The IFES 1998-1999 poll asked a question in this area, but the post-election polls did not follow up.  In the IFES 1998-1999 poll, asked whether parties make things better, worse, or do not have much effect, Indonesians answered as follows: make things better 34%, make things worse 28%, do not have much effect 9%, don’t know/no response 28%.  These views represent strong ambivalence to the parties, already early in the transition.

 

IRI 2000, the focus group study, dealt with the parties specifically.  Speaking to groups of individuals across seven provinces, the International Republican Institute found that people expect the parties to represent their interests but that the parties are seen by the population as not yet “ready to serve the people”.  As stated in the focus group report, the parties are seen to advocate their particular interests more than those of the people.  Damning the parties, they are seen now as behaving like those of the New Order.   Similar sentiments were picked up in IFES 2002 in which only 27% of respondents thought the parties were interested in popular participation.  This answer was beaten by 37% who believed the parties were more interested in pursuing their own political interests.[39]

 

Most damaging for the parties was the LP3ES poll conducted in February 2002.  This was an urban, telephone poll, but it did stretch from Java to the Outer Islands. It presents an alarming level of dissatisfaction with the parties, at least in urban areas.  Pollsters asked: which party puts the people’s interests first?  The results are presented in Table 4, below, as broken down by self-described party affiliation.

 

Table 4.  Party That Emphasizes the People’s Interest by Self-reported Party Affiliation of Respondent, LP3ES

Party That Emphasizes The People’s Interest	Party Affil PDI-P	Party Affil Golkar	Party Affil PPP	Party Affil PKB	Party Affil PAN	Party Affil PBB	Party Affil PK	Party Affil Other
PDI-P	39	11	7	4	7	-	-	46
Golkar	2	11	2	4	1	-	-	-
PPP	2	4	17		-	-	6	-
PKB	3	1	2	48	-	-	6	-
PAN	1	4	5	4	22	-	6	-
PBB	1	-	-	-	-	38	-	-
PK	1	-	-	-	8	6	35	-
None	44	62	67	37	57	31	35	27
Lain	1	3	-	-	-	-	-	18
DK/NR	5	5	-	4	6	13	12	-

Note: Party acronyms are: PDI-P=Partai Demokrasi Indonesia—Perjuangan, PPP=Partai Persatuan Pembangunan, PKB=Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa, PAN=Partai Amanat Nasional, PBB=Partai Bulan Bintang, PK=Partai Keadilan.

Source: LP3ES poll.

 

The poll shows a tremendous lack of faith in the parties.  Ignoring supporters of “other” parties for the moment, PKB voters were the most likely to say that their party puts the people’s interest first (48%).  Breakdown of party supporters as reflected in opinion polls has shown that PKB supporters are among the least educated, least well off, and least interested in politics.[40]  Therefore, it is little surprising that they would be relatively more satisfied, or perhaps complacent.  PDI-P was the next most highly rated by its own supporters as putting the people’s interest first.  Yet, we should not be too impressed.  PDI-P markets itself as the party of the Indonesian common man, but only 39% of party supporters actually think the party puts the people’s interests first.  This is shocking and important.  PBB and PK supporters were only a hair less likely to say that their parties put the people’s interests first, with 38% and 35% respectively.

 

Machinations certainly seem to have taken a toll among PAN supporters (did this include former PAN supporters? We do not know).  Only 22% of PAN supporters said their party put the people’s interests first.  Golkar and PPP were even lower, with just 11% and 17% respectively.

 

Of course, the most striking aspect of the table is the large share of respondents saying that no party puts the people’s interest first.  Results varied but were overall startlingly high.  Among PDI-P supporters, 44% said no party put the people’s interest first, among Golkar supporters 62%, PPP supporters 67%, and PAN supporters 57%.  Results were lower for PBB (31%), PK (35%), and PKB (37%).  Supporters of smaller parties, the “other” in the table, seem relatively more satisfied.  Unfortunately, we do not know how many respondents were in this category.  A small number of respondents may have skewed the results.

 

Summing up on the poll results, one can see that Indonesians entered the post-Suharto period already ambivalent about the political parties, divided as to whether parties make things better or worse.  The parties were seen as capable of leading change but, importantly, less capable than a slew of other actors.  Awareness of the parties has increased over the transition as has acceptance of a limited multi-party system.  But complaints against and disaffection from the parties are confirmed in the IRI focus groups and the urban LP3ES poll. 

 

Conclusion

 

This article has shown that the anti-party reaction currently observed in Indonesia is a result of the legacy of anti-party attitudes from the past, the parties’ own actions during the transition period, the parties’ strong legal position which has allowed them to behave impervious to popular censure, and contemporary public attitudes toward the parties.  Those carrying out the reaction, acting against the parties, claim to be acting for the people to bring the political system more under popular control.   Anti-party attitudes could be observed almost immediately from the time of Suharto’s fall.  It is only since 2001, though, that those attitudes have crystallized into concrete steps to “roll back” the parties’ power.  The impeachment of Abdurrahman Wahid seems to have been a turning point in allowing the anti-party reaction to proceed.

 

But what does the anti-party reaction mean?  Certainly, it has become an important lens through which contemporary Indonesian politics is considered.  Non-governmental organisation activists and academics push institutional reforms they hope will rein the parties in and make them more responsive to constituents.  The parties themselves have acted to protect their positions, while at the same time responding in small ways to the anti-party movement.  The quintessential example of this was the MPR’s taking note of the push for an independent constitutional commission in August 2002, while at the same time failing to create an independent commission with any teeth.

 

The anti-party reaction will likely continue through the creation of new political laws expected in late 2002 or early 2003.  The Interior Ministry under former military official Hari Sabarno has been keen to rein in the parties, and it was Interior that oversaw the production of the government’s draft version of the new elections law.  But, it will be the parties in parliament that will hammer out final versions of the new laws.  The degree to which the new laws respond to popular anti-party attitudes will depend greatly on active oversight of a heretofore opaque political process. 

 

Anti-party attitudes and the anti-party reaction are important because they carry within them the seeds of delegitimating the political parties in time.  This is a vital issue.  Political parties are the core of Indonesia’s evolving democratic political society.  Along with other arenas such as legal and civil society, a legitimate political society must be in place in order for democratic consolidation to proceed.  An anti-party reaction that leads to healthy curbs on the parties’ power will be conducive to democratization in the longer term.  An unrestrained anti-party reaction could contribute to delegitimating the parties and democracy.