Political Parties and the Consolidation of Democracy in Indonesia

 

by Paige Johnson

 

Abstract:

 

It is little surprise that the 20^th century has been referred to as “the century of party democracy,” to reflect parties’ importance in the proper functioning of modern democratic systems.  Parties present candidates at elections, organize and mobilize citizens, aggregate diverse interests, recruit leaders, formulate public policy, and provide a crucial linkage between the citizen and the state.  Parties play key roles in legislative institutions as well: facilitating coalition building and accountability of the elected to the electors.  Indonesia’s political parties are both strong and weak, presenting challenges for democratic consolidation and stability.  The year-long struggle between the president and parliament is reflective of Indonesia’s weakly institutionalized party system.  Continuing instability risks discrediting the legislature, the executive, and, potentially, the entire democratic experiment.

 

 

Political Parties and the Consolidation of Democracy in Indonesia

 

 

According to Geoffrey Pridham and Paul Lewis, “new democracies are by definition ‘fragile democracies.”[1]  Though the authors did not have Indonesia in mind when they wrote of democracy’s fragility, clearly the quotation seems apt in the Indonesian context.  The seeming euphoria of the transition has passed for many into frustration, anger, impatience, and disappointment.  Contrary to the hopes of millions, democratization is not instantaneous.  In Indonesia’s case, Suharto’s absence does not the nation a democracy make; nor do the changes currently underway unambiguously promise democracy for the future.  Indonesia has few of the political, social, cultural, or economic foundations on which to build a liberal democracy.

 

In May 1998, after Suharto was ousted, protesting students were cleared from the parliament grounds and the nation watched as Habibie’s Reform Development Cabinet dictated a transition that would proceed according to constitutionally prescribed rules.  Elections were scheduled for the middle of 1999.  This turned the focus of reform efforts, previously driven by the words of political notables and the muscle of student protests, to the development of political parties through which to take part in the elections.  Like the reformers, pro-status quo groups also joined in the frenzy of party organization and party renewal.  By June 1999, at least 181[2] political parties had been formed, 48 of which were deemed sufficiently national[3] to take part in elections.  Today, Indonesia’s leadership is largely drawn from the political parties, and it is the parties in parliament, in trying to exercise oversight over the nation’s executive, that have led to the on-going crisis over the impeachment of the president.

 

In much of the literature on transitions from authoritarian rule, the role of parties is seen to be key.  To Linz and Stepan, the development of political parties is part of the development of “political society,” by which they mean, “that arena in which the polity specifically arranges itself to contest the legitimate right to exercise control over public power and the state apparatus.”[4]  For it is in political society that a transition can be turned into a consolidation of democracy.  As Linz and Stepan as well as O’Donnell and Schmitter recognize, often it is not the political parties which bring down the old regime (this is typically brought about on the backs of human rights campaigners and students, among others), but it is to the political parties that one must look to observe the kernel of consolidation apparent in the transition.  Consolidation requires political parties to build a new system of competition for political office.[5]  O’Donnell and Schmitter see the founding election as “provoking parties” into action for the “party is the modern institution for structuring and aggregating individual preferences.”[6]   Observers of areas as diverse as Russia, Portugal, and Chile have seen the role of parties as key to understanding the progress (or lack thereof) of the transition.[7]  For Mair, “the twentieth century is not only the century of democratization, and hence of democracy, but it is also the century of party democracy.[8]

 

Considering Party Systems

This study will consider Indonesia’s political parties from the framework developed by Mainwaring and Scully in their 1995 volume on Latin America, Building Democratic Institutions:  Party Systems in Latin America.  Mainwaring, working alone, has gone on to develop further the ideas first presented in the 1995 study with his 1998 article, ”Party Systems in the Third Wave,” and his 1999 book, Rethinking Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization:  The Case of Brazil.[9]  

 

According to Mainwaring and Scully, past work on parties and party systems has focused almost exclusively on Giovanni Sartori’s classic measures of the party system:  the number of parties and the degree of polarization.[10]  These are, to the authors, more relevant to a discussion of Western European politics.  Latin American and Western European party systems might both be multi-party.  Why, then, do the political systems operate so differently, the authors ask.  To Mainwaring and Scully, the answer lies in different degrees of party system institutionalization.  Although the authors’ work has focused on Latin American systems, they hope to explain political outcomes in many “third-wave” democracies—in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union—by virtue of the institutionalization of the party system.  I will use the framework to consider Indonesia’s evolving party system.  As will be shown, Indonesia’s simultaneously strong and weak parties explain much of the country’s current political tumult.

 

For Mainwaring and Scully, an institutionalized party system is one in which there is stability in inter-party competition, parties have somewhat stable roots in society, parties and elections are accepted as the legitimate means to determine who governs, and party organizations have relatively stable rules and structures.[11]  To the authors, institutionalization of the party system is key, not so much in and of itself, but for what the absence of an institutionalized system of party competition (what Mainwaring and Scully call an “inchoate party system”) can tell us about a country.[12]  Historically, holding politicians accountable has been difficult, legislatures weak, and government legitimacy low in countries with weak party systems, such as Ecuador, Brazil, and Bolivia.[13]  In these systems, “politics has a patrimonial flavor, as individual interest, political party, and public good are fused.”[14]  Sound familiar?  To observers of Indonesia’s politics, it should. 

 

What is a political party and what functions do parties serve that make them so important in situations of transitions from authoritarian rule?  “What is a party” is a harder question than it might on the surface appear.  Scholars disagree over whether the same generic term “party” ought to apply to groups as diverse as France’s Rally for the Republic and the Communist Party of China.  Borrowing from Sartori, I will define a political party as “any political group that presents at elections, and is capable of placing through elections, candidates for public office.”[15]  This open definition focuses on what parties do rather than how they might be structured or define themselves.  According to Peter Mair, traditional political science literature regards what parties do as organizing and mobilizing citizens, aggregating diverse interests, recruiting leaders for public office, formulating public policy, and serving as an essential link between the citizen and the state.[16] 

 

To Mainwaring and Scully, the political party is a natural focus for research because it is difficult to sustain modern mass democracy without parties.[17]  Parties are crucial for representation because voters need parties in order to make sense of the choices presented to them in elections.  How will a given individual perform in office?  A party label simplifies the choice.  How will a voter hold those in government accountable for the policies enacted?  Without parties, voters would not have symbols and packages of policy options from which to choose, and the information costs of political participation would be high.

 

In the absence of political parties, legislators might be forced to build new coalitions on every issue in order to create laws.  A system of party competition in which rules are generally observed and behavior is shaped on the basis of the expectation that those rules will continue to be observed in the future would be significantly different from a system in which there was little or no agreement on the rules of the game, in which every agreement had to be negotiated anew or one in which politics takes place on the streets (parlamen jalan), outcomes based solely on the muscle of rival groups.  Sound familiar?  It should.

 

Institutionalization of a system of inter-party competition is also key to enhancing the legitimacy of government.  This is important because among the important tasks for the transition are institutionalizing conflict between status quo and reform actors as well as institutionalizing conflict among reformers for the future.[18]  It is common in the early stages of a transition for broad coalitions of reformers to come to power (like Solidarity in Poland, for example).  Subsequent experience teaches, though, that absent the unifying factor of being “against” the old regime, these movements have a tendency to break apart and recombine in new ways in the new era of political competition.  It is important that the conflict among the democratic forces be institutionalized for the future.  For Hofferbert in his volume on transitions in Eastern Europe, “the structure and performance of political parties [is] among the most, if not the most, significant part of the road to democratic consolidation.”[19] 

 

So, what are we looking for in an institutionalized party system?  Institutionalization of the party system requires that wild swings in support for the various parties should not be seen from election to election.  The number and nature of relevant political parties should also be relatively constant.  Parties and elections should be accepted as the normal way of competing for political office.  For the party system to be institutionalized, the component parts of the system must be institutionalized as well; this means parties rooted in society and parties with relatively stable rules and structures.  Institutionalized parties can be distinguished from populist (often anti-institutional) or charismatic movements. [20] 

 

Considering Political Parties in Indonesia

In the wake of B.J. Habibie’s announcement that reform would follow a constitutional path and that elections would be held in mid-1999, Indonesia’s political change took a course seen elsewhere. As observed by O’Donnell and Schmitter, “the prospect of elections brings parties to center stage in the political drama, a position of prominence that they are subsequently likely to occupy for some time.”[21] 

 

In Indonesia, parties began to organize feverishly in order to contest in the 1999 elections.  Megawati Sukarnoputri’s branch of the Suharto-era Partai Demokrasi Indonesia (PDI) became Partai Demokrasi Indonesia—Perjuangan (PDI-P—Indonesian Democracy Party—Struggle).  Amien Rais, lauded as “Father of Reform” for his role in the protests which brought down Suharto, working with other reformers, developed Partai Amanat Nasional (PAN—National Mandate Party).  Leader of the Javanese traditionalist Islamic group Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), KH Abdurrahman Wahid, “declared” the Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (PKB—National Awakening Party).  Golkar, the ruling party of the Suharto era, attempted to re-present itself to the public as a reformist political party, New Golkar, under the leadership of Akbar Tandjung, a former Suharto-era minister and State Secretary in the Habibie government.  The United Development Party (PPP—Partai Pembangunan Persatuan), a Muslim-oriented party and legacy of the Suharto era, attempted to take advantage of its “established” opposition credentials to score well in the elections.  The Partai Bulan Bintang (PBB) tried to resurrect the legacy of one of the most prominent political parties of Indonesia’s 1950s-era parliamentary democracy, Masyumi, and presented itself as the choice for the nation’s modernist Muslims.  These are just six of the more than 181 parties which formed (or reformed) in the wake of Habibie’s announcement of elections.   Together, though, these six parties snapped up 88.5% of the vote in Indonesia’s June 1999 elections and 92.9% of the 462 parliamentary seats up for election.[22]  If we are interested in understanding the evolution of Indonesia’s party system, we need an introduction to these six political parties.

 

An Introduction to Indonesia’s Major Political Parties

Partai Demokrasi Indonesia—Perjuangan (PDI-P)

Indonesian Democracy Party—Struggle

PDI-P, headed by Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, comes out of the secular-nationalist tradition of Indonesia’s political parties, like the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI—Partai Nasionalis Indonesia) during the 1950s-era of parliamentary democracy.

 

PDI-P is the quintessential personalistic party: PDI-P is Megawati Sukarnoputri.  Her followers are devoted to her.  Attempts to challenge her leadership of the party, if only for the idea that there should be choice of leader in a democratic party, have been obliterated by the party faithful.[23]  She is viewed by some followers as the long-awaited ratu adil (or just ruler) of Javanese tradition.  Modest in contrast to the massive greed of Suharto and his family, Megawati earned much goodwill from the people.  Further, PDI-P has stood in the past for democracy, and earned a reputation among voters as a reformist but not radical party. In 1996, when ousted as head of the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia in a government-managed coup, Megawati vowed to carry out her struggle through the courts rather than leading a revolution in the streets.  It is clear that PDI-P’s leaders see themselves as victims of past injustice and themselves as the nation’s only pure democrats.  This psychology of victimisation, lack of trust, and belief in PDI-P’s superiority likely hurt the party in its dealings with others in the coalition building that preceded Indonesia’s October 1999 presidential election.

 

PDI-P was often accused in the campaign of being long on symbol and short on substance (that is, program). Still, Megawati was in a difficult position, as are many other political leaders in times of transition.  Vagueness can help to avoid inviting a military backlash by hard-liners opposed to change.    In an interview published on election day, Megawati stressed that Indonesia was far too complex and fragile to handle radical change.  Things would have to be done gradually.[24]  Megawati was no revolutionary.

 

PDI-P was the largest party to emerge from the elections, with 33.7% of the vote in a field of 48 parties.  Further, the party took 153 (33.7%) of the 462 seats up for election in the new Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR—House of Representatives/Parliament).  The party’s electoral support is widely characterised in the popular media as arising out of the urban and rural lower classes, with its support concentrated on the island of Java.  Analysis of PDI-P voters suggests, though, that PDI-P garnered vote support from all income and educational levels relatively evenly; this suggests a broad base of support for the party.[25]  Indeed, the party is most strongly based in Java and Bali but scored well in many parts of Indonesia.

 

The party attempted to spin its “victory” in the elections into a mandate for Megawati Sukarnoputri to be elected president in the subsequent October 1999 session of the Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat (MPR—People’s Consultative Assembly).  However, unable to build a coalition with parties beyond the National Awakening Party (PKB) and smaller parties like the Justice and Unity Party (PKP—Partai Keadilan dan Persatuan, 4 seats in the parliament) and criticised for its inactivity and arrogance,[26] the party was confounded by the coalition-building efforts of Amien Rais of the National Mandate Party, supported by a phalanx of Muslim parties loosely grouped in an alliance called the Central Axis (Poros Tengah); the Central Axis parties were united in their unwillingness to see a woman and a secularist become the nation’s next president.  PDI-P’s consolation prize was the vice presidency which Megawati assumed in October 1999.  In government, Megawati has kept a relatively low profile, though there are signs she is merely biding her time for a chance at the top spot.[27]

 

Partai Golkar (Golkar)

Functional Group Party

 

Golkar, begun as an anti-Communist front of army-linked functional groups (of youth, women, veterans, etc.), was adopted as Suharto consolidated his power in the mid-to-late 1960s and turned into the electoral vehicle of the New Order.  Not technically a party in the New Order years, the organisation functioned as a well-oiled machine in securing the government consistent majorities of the vote (ranging from 62% to 75% in the elections from 1971 to 1997) through a combination of controls on opposition and use of the bureaucracy and the military to assure favourable votes. 

 

In the period since Suharto’s fall, Golkar has attempted to re-make itself as a reformist party operating under a “new paradigm” with a new “spirit of reform.”[28]  Akbar Tandjung, a minister in both the Suharto and Habibie governments, came to head the party in July 1998 and confirmed the party’s reformist intentions, all the while scrapping to maintain many of the party’s previous advantages.  Going into the 1999 elections, Golkar was the only organisation that could potentially reach into all the inhabited islands and scattered villages of the diverse Indonesian archipelago.  Although the party spoke in new ways about reform, it hoped to draw on the continued support of bureaucrats, who had formed a mainstay of the party throughout the New Order.[29]

 

During the elections, the party stressed that it was thinking in new ways but that it was a sensible choice for voters because of its moderation, experience, expertise, commitment to a law-based state, and pluralism.  Although Golkar figure Marzuki Darusman was active in calling for investigation of former President Suharto, the party as a whole tended to attempt to put off any investigations of the past, perhaps fearing how widely the net might be cast. 

 

Given Golkar’s past reliance on the military, it is not surprising that the party was not in the forefront of calls to see dual function (that the military has both a security and socio-political function) removed, though the party recognised that the military’s socio-political function had led to a slighting of its “primary function—defence” in the past.[30]  Golkar supported the military’s internal review and re-orientation of its roles and procedures (that the changes should come from within the military rather than be imposed from the outside).[31]  As it happened, later, the party decided on General Wiranto, then Head of the Armed Forces and Defence Minister, as its official candidate for the vice presidency in October 1999, demonstrating the party’s continued close links with (and need of) the military.[32]

 

The party placed a heavy dose of its campaigning on its abilities to lead the country out of the economic crisis (ignoring that it was under Suharto and Golkar that the nation became one of the hardest hit of all the Asian economies through the crisis).  The party’s election slogan, “New Golkar, Together for Development” (Golkar Baru, Bersatu Untuk Maju), stressed this pragmatic focus. 

 

Golkar did well in the elections, coming in second behind Megawati’s PDI-P and achieving 22.4% of the national vote and 26% of the seats up for election in parliament.  From a strategic point of view, this was probably an ideal result for the party.  Had the party attained a higher share of the vote, there might have been a rejection of the vote results entirely amidst charges of Golkar manipulation.  Had the party attained less of the vote, it might have been locked out of a power position in the following regime, a probable death knell for a patronage-oriented party.   Supporters of Golkar were concentrated most strongly outside of Java.  Why and by whom Golkar was chosen in the elections is still not well understood and merits further research.  It is clear, though, that those in the “family” of the bureaucracy no longer support the party exclusively.[33]  Golkar’s party head Akbar Tandjung was elected Speaker of the Parliament (DPR) in October 1999.

 

 

Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (PKB)

National Awakening Party

 

PKB was launched in July of 1998 as the official political vehicle of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the Rise of the Islamic Scholars, Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation.  NU, with probably at least thirty million members, was founded in 1926 by the grandfather of Abdurrahman Wahid, former head of the NU and now Indonesia’s President.  The organisation, tending to favour traditional Javanese forms of Islam (in opposition to modernist Islam), is strongest in rural areas and in Central and Eastern Java.  Its supporters include students and intellectuals coming out of the rural religious school (pesantren) tradition, along with small traders and landowners.

 

For a party arising out of an Islamic organisation it might be surprising that PKB is not based on Islam.  Rather, the party is open to members of all faiths and is based on the nation’s Pancasila ideology.  The party is tolerant of Indonesia’s pluralism and stresses the importance of moderation.  Gus Dur has been a long-time supporter of inter-religious understanding and accepts that a majority of Indonesians do not want the state to take on a more Islamic cast.[34] 

 

PKB finished as the third strongest party in the elections in terms of share of the vote, with 12.6%.  Despite that showing, the party was beaten by the PPP (below) in terms of the number of seats earned, for PKB’s seats (51/11%) were earned in densely populated Java and PPP’s (58/12.6%) in the more sparsely populated islands outside Java.  PKB’s greatest strengths in the election were Abdurrahman Wahid’s charisma and legacy of support for reform, the party’s moderation and tolerance, and the organisational strength of the NU.  Despite earning only 12.6% of the votes in the elections, through astute coalition building and the support of the Poros Tengah coalition of Islamic parties and Golkar, Gus Dur became Indonesia’s fourth president.

 

 

Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (PPP)

United Development Party

 

PPP was formed in 1973 as a result of the fusion of four Islamic-leaning parties by the New Order.[35] Suharto correctly recognised that, ostensibly united, the Islamic parties were little threat, hopelessly divided as they were.  Despite years of quietude when it was easily manipulated by the regime, PPP showed signs of life in 1997, taking advantage of disillusionment over Megawati’s sacking as head of the PDI, to up its vote total.

 

Despite its long years as often a lapdog of the regime (in March 1998, PPP was even the first party to nominate Suharto for president!) and despite the re-emergence of parties drawing on the inspirations of PPP’s component parties, the party survived into the reform era, finishing the June 1999 parliamentary elections with the fourth highest vote total and third highest seat total.  PPP advantages included name recognition, voters habituated to choosing PPP, a national organisation, and some reform legitimacy given its position as the most dynamic opposition party in the latter New Order.  The party also had a national platform in the parliament in late 1998 and early 1999 through which to demonstrate its reform credentials.  Freed from New Order-era strictures, the party returned in 1998 to a basis of Islam and adopted its old symbol of the Ka’bah (which it had been compelled to abandon under Suharto).  The constituency of the party is not as yet well understood.

 

In its materials for the 1999 election campaign, PPP stressed its moderation.  It says that it is in favour of reform, but not radically so.  It says that it is pro-Islam, but party head Hamzah Haz assures that the party is not fanatical in its approach to Islam.  It does not favour implementation of Islamic syariah law, for example.  In a majority Muslim country, though, according to Hamzah, the “quality of the policies adopted should be in line with Islamic principles.”[36]  The party favours more religious education in schools, compulsory Arabic language studies for Muslim students, and repeal of a New Order law requiring civil servants to have only one wife.[37]  This, according to the party, is plainly contrary to Islam.

 

PPP finished the elections with a very respectable 10.7% of the national vote.  Due to distortions caused by the electoral system, the PPP’s 10.7% earned the party 12.6% of the elected seats in parliament, making it the third-largest party.  The support of the PPP was essential in shifting the tide in the October 1999 presidential race from B.J. Habibie to Abdurrahman Wahid.  PPP parliamentarians and officials, though, have been active in the attempt to unseat Wahid since 2000.

 

 

Partai Amanat Nasional (PAN)

National Mandate Party

 

Amien Rais, the head of PAN, gained national prominence as a leading Muslim intellectual, head of the Muhammadiyah modernist Muslim organisation, and as a member of the Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI).  During the student protests of early 1998, Amien was one of a number of prominent intellectuals who gave support and guidance to the student movement.  For his role in the protests, he was widely proclaimed “Father of Reform” (Bapak Reformasi). 

 

PAN was begun as more than a one-man show, however. The party grouped a number of prominent reformers and attempted to present itself as a new, modern, “post-stream”[38] political party.  Given Amien’s background in Muslim organisations, however, the party drew heavily on Muhammadiyah support.  The party could not unify all modernist Muslims, however.  Given its “open” basis (the basis of the party is Pancasila rather than Islam), many other modernists opted to form a separate party, the Partai Bulan Bintang (below), with a more explicitly Islamic focus.

 

Reformers had high hopes for PAN.  It presented one of the clearest platforms of the campaign.  It sought to be a programmatic rather than a personalistic party and one that was willing to re-think many of the shibboleths of Indonesian politics.  The party was among the most strident on removing the military from politics but from November 1998 when Amien Rais accepted the Ciganjur Declaration, he was committed to a more gradual pace of reform.[39]

 

The party has been severely factionalised, composed of two souls.  One soul, represented by top party official A.M. Fatwa, is the modernist Muslim PAN, one that would come out more explicitly in favour of Islamic values.[40] The other soul, exemplified by former Secretary-General Faisal Basri, is that of a typical “liberal” party familiar in many other countries’ political systems.  Amien, leaning this way and then that, attempted to balance the factions and hold the party together.  This move was not successful as Faisal and much of the liberal wing of PAN walked out of the party in late 2000.  Primarily at issue were the personalization of the party around Amien Rais and Amien’s political machinations through parliament.

 

PAN did not perform as well as many had expected in the elections, attaining only 7.1% of the votes in contrast to expectations which ran from 20 to 30%.  Hypotheses abound as to why PAN performed as it did.  Some speculate that Amien’s background in Islamic organisations and his sometimes strident pro-Muslim views in the past had alienated non-Muslims, the attraction of which would have been key to PAN’s assertion of itself as a new, post-stream political party.  Analysis of opinion poll data suggests that this is correct.  PAN attracted few supporters from outside its historic Muslim stream.   Even among Muhammadiyah supporters, not all went to PAN.[41]  For some voters, PAN was too Islamic, and for others not Islamic enough.  PAN, too, did best only in urban areas, where perhaps many voters were ready for the kind of post-stream politics discussed by prominent party figures.  PAN’s performance, that most of its voters came from the Muslim community (mostly urban modernists)—and not enough of those voted for the party, strengthened the hands of those in the party who would increase the party’s commitment to Islam.

 

 

Partai Bulan Bintang (PBB)

(Crescent) Moon Star Party

 

PBB was the last of the “Big Six” parties, finishing with just under 2% of the national vote and more than 2% of the elected seats in parliament.  Parallel with the process of party formation that created PAN (PBB was declared in July 1998), some modernist Muslim politicians sought to re-create the spirit and vision of the 1950s-era Masyumi party.[42]  Although PBB did not call itself Masyumi (at least two other parties did use Masyumi in their names), PBB did hark back to the Masyumi symbols of the crescent moon and the star and even named its newspaper Abadi, after the old Masyumi paper.

 

Like Masyumi before it, PBB paid prime attention to the importance of constitutional arrangements as the basis for politics.[43]  The party argued that the country’s 1945 Constitution had allowed Suharto to accumulate excessive power.  According to PBB, “If the system is not changed, every president will govern in the same manner [as Suharto], which will cripple the MPR as the highest institution of the state and leave it powerless to keep a check on the president.”[44]  The party has stressed repeatedly its attempts to get away from personalistic politics.  One slogan used in the campaign and printed on everything from posters to cigarette lighters was that “PBB supports a system which does not make a cult of the individual.”

 

The party is based on Islam and believes that the state should be “based on Islamic principles.”  PBB, though, has vowed to work through parliament to achieve its objectives—like Islamic banking, etc.  Learning from Masyumi’s experience in the past, PBB has been careful this time around to stress that it hopes to make sure Islamic alternatives exist, not that Islamic forms should replace all other forms.[45]  According to PBB Secretary-General M.S. Kaban, the party is not bringing back the idea of creating an Islamic state.[46] 

 

PBB was a prime mover in the Central Axis coalition of parties that brought Abdurrahman Wahid to power.  Party head Yusril Ihza Mahendra became Minister of Law and Legal Affairs (later Minister of Justice and Human Rights) in Abdurrahman Wahid’s first national unity government.  Because of PBB’s enthusiasm for censure of the president, however, Yusril was eventually removed from his ministerial post in early 2001.

 

Indonesia’s Political Parties in Action

With the introduction of the top six parties, readers are familiar with the major inhabitants of Indonesia’s contemporary party system.  It is important to take a look at the roles the parties have played and are playing in the current system, for the parties’ actions now are establishing the rules and norms of the evolving party system.

 

It was with amazement that Indonesians watched the Suharto-era MPR begin to dismantle the rules under which it had been elected by rewriting the rules of the political game at its Special Session in November 1998.  Golkar attempted to cast itself as a newly reformist party by supporting initiatives on changes to MPR rules; cleaning the country of collusion, corruption, and nepotism; limiting the power of the president; encouraging human rights; devolving power to the regions; and holding elections.  The PPP was particularly active in the January 1999 session of the DPR in which the new laws on political parties, elections, and the structure of legislative institutions were hammered out.  The PPP threatened to walk out to protest the inclusion of the armed forces in the proposed parliament and succeeded in having the number of armed forces representatives reduced to 38 from 75 in 1997/1998.  After the screening of political parties under the expert Panitia 11, 48 political parties were approved to compete in the elections. 

 

The largely peaceful election campaign, too, was dominated by the political parties, joined by an army of citizen and international election observers.  In the election contest, the parties served their functions of organizing and mobilizing citizens, aggregating diverse interests, recruiting potential leaders, and serving as a link between the citizen and the state.  The substance of the parties’ policy offerings was relatively weak during the elections, but this is likely to be expected in a transition from authoritarian rule, as parties focus on the important symbolic issues of the new system: the role of religion in the state, the fate of the former ruling elite, and the role of the military under the new system, for example.

 

After the election, and with their new electoral mandates, the parties began the long process of negotiations to precede the election of a new president and the sitting of a new legislature at the General Session of the MPR in October 1999.  Heads of the top-finishing parties met in advance of the session to attempt to set the schedule for the session as well as other basics such as how voting would be conducted.  Simultaneously, parties in the regions were selecting the five representatives per province to come out of the newly elected regional parliaments to join the MPR.  Political parties dominated the General Session of the MPR.  In setting constitutional change; in deciding to accept the release of East Timor; in electing the president, vice president, and heads of the legislatures; the parties were the primary actors. 

 

This pattern of party dominance has continued through the administration of President Abdurrahman Wahid.  As described above, Wahid came to power on the back of a grand coalition of parties in the legislature, primarily the Central Axis (Poros Tengah) parties—PAN, PPP, Partai Bulan Bintang (PBB), Partai Keadilan (PK)—in coalition with Golkar.  Wahid’s first cabinet was described as a National Unity Cabinet, and it included representatives from the President’s own PKB, the Central Axis, Golkar, and PDI-P.  PDI-P was included, and Megawati Sukarnoputri elected to the vice presidency, for the sake of national stability.  It was believed that chaos would result if Megawati’s PDI-P, which won 33% of the vote in the June 1999 elections, more than any other single party, were shut out of power entirely.

 

In contrast to the quiescent legislatures of the Suharto years, the parties in parliament have not faded into the background in the wake of the selection of the new president.  In fact, there were but a few brief months of honeymoon after Wahid’s election before the legislature began to make noises over its power to “oversee” the president.[47]  The emotional battle between president and parliament seems to have broken out in the wake of Wahid’s April 2000 suggestion that the nation’s ban on Communism be lifted.  While Wahid likely believed he was merely carrying through on the nation’s new promise of democracy, modernist Muslim parties (and military circles) reacted vigorously against the proposal; these were some of the same parties that had ushered Wahid into the presidency only a few months before. 

 

While the ban-on-Communism incident represents the symbolic rift between Wahid and the parties in parliament, the split had been brewing for some time and would continue to widen as time passed.  The fundamental problem dealt with the distribution of power in Indonesia’s new political system.  Abdurrahman Wahid was elected to the presidency on the basis of support from a multi-party coalition, as described above.  Even the members of his cabinet were guaranteed by respective political party leaders (and by General Wiranto, representing the military).  Once elected, though, Wahid perceived that he then possessed the full authority of the presidency in his own right.[48]  His coalition “partners,” the parties in parliament, grew increasingly marginalized.  Coalition-party ministers began to associate themselves more with Wahid than with their respective party lines.[49]  The parties in parliament have sought to redress the power imbalance and demonstrate the fact that they cannot be avoided in policy-making and national agenda-setting by the President.  According to Laksamana Sukardi, a former minister ousted by Wahid and prominent leader of the PDI-P, Gus Dur, as “everyone’s second choice” for president, should reach out to other parties, rather than attempting to exercise complete governing power on his own.[50]

 

The chaos that has resulted from the power tussle between Wahid and the parties in parliament is well known.  In August 2000, at the annual session of the MPR, Amien Rais reports that in a private meeting with Wahid, he told the President he faced censure by the legislature because he had “left behind the togetherness” (telah meninggalkan kebersamaan) that had characterized the early part of his presidency.[51]  This confirms the view of the power struggle expressed above.  To avoid censure at the annual session, Wahid was forced to concede to a power-sharing arrangement whereby daily governing duties would be taken over by Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri.  There was little change in the operation of government as a result of this tactical maneuver,[52] however, and, armed with the scandals of Bulog-gate and Brunei-gate, wherein the President and those close to him were charged with misappropriating millions of dollars, the parties in parliament began to demand even more vociferously Wahid’s impeachment.

 

In February 2001, Wahid was officially censured by the parliament for, according to the memorandum, “it could be suspected that [Wahid] played a role” in the scandals.[53]  The power struggle has continued to reach a fever pitch; pro- and anti-Gus Dur demonstrations have been near daily occurrences, and they have grown increasingly violent.  As during the final days of Suharto, parliament again has been occupied by demonstrators (pro-Wahid, anti-Wahid or the dangerous mix of both).  Partisans on both sides swear fealty to their cause to the end.  For those demonstrating against the president, he has become an immoral leader and a criminal.  According to Akbar Tandjung, leader of Golkar, “the longer [Wahid] stays in power, the more damage he will do to this country’s economy and politics.”[54]  Amien Rais, a prime mover behind the drive to tame the President, has said that Gus Dur should learn from the fall of Philippines’ President Joseph Estrada in early 2001 as their “mistakes are more or less the same” (masalah lebih kurang sama).[55]  On the other side, the leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, Hasyim Muzadi has vowed his organization’s ability to mobilize one or two million people to protect the President, warning of the chaos that would result from clashes between pro- and anti-Wahid forces (and the potential for a military intervention that would ensue).[56]  Muhaimin Iskandar, Secretary-General of the NU-affiliated PKB, has cited Amien Rais as the “provocateur” of the moves to unseat the President and has requested that Amien return to his elected job as Assembly Speaker.[57]  Secretary of the PKB fraction in Parliament, Abdul Khaliq Ahmad, has stated that Amien has chosen his own ambition over the fate of the nation.[58]  Pro-Gus Dur groups in East Java have threatened Muhammadiyah[59] and Golkar property; they have also threatened to kill and kidnap top leaders (including, but not limited to, Amien Rais and Akbar Tandjung) of the move to unseat the President.[60]  The military has weighed in, too, as Army Chief of Staff (Kasad) Endriartono Sutarto extolled the “elite to settle the political conflict that has been dragging on and causing the people to suffer.”[61]

 

From the above, we can see the strong role of the political parties in determining important features of the current political system.  In this founding moment of the post-Suharto system, it is the parties which have come to move and shape events, establishing their important role as part of the free pattern of politics, the paradigma baru (the new paradigm).  Whether the party system is ultimately accepted or rejected, whether democracy is able to consolidate or is overthrown, the roles established by the parties now are shaping possible futures.

 

Party System Institutionalization

As described above, Mainwaring and Scully have asserted that the key feature in understanding politics in various “third-wave” democracies is the institutionalization of the party system.  I would assert that party system institutionalization is key for understanding Indonesia’s evolving politics—as it is the simultaneous breadth of the parties’ reach and the weakness of the overall party system that explains much of the nation’s contemporary political travails.

 

First, let us examine the classic measures of the party system: the number of parties and the degree of polarization in the system.  Indonesia’s party system has changed since 1998 from a system inhabited by three political parties under the Suharto regime (Golkar, PDI, and PPP) to one inhabited by 181 parties by the beginning of 1999.  Not all of those 181 parties qualified to participate in the elections, however, and the field was winnowed again to 48 parties in March 1999.  Of the 48 political parties that competed in the June elections, six (those introduced above) attained an overwhelming share of political representation, with 93% of elected parliamentarians between them.[62]  A further fifteen parties achieved representation of from one to seven seats, but given the overwhelming strength of the top six parties, these parties have not played a decisive role in the operation of the current party system. 

 

One parliamentary group that does not come from the parties but that cannot be ignored is the military.  The military was awarded 38 seats (of 500) in the 1999 legislature.  Given the dispersal of power among the various major political parties, 38 seats made the military the fifth largest parliamentary delegation, with 7.6% of seats.  The military has used its strong position (read, leverage against other political players in times of need) to maintain a guaranteed role for itself in the political system through 2009.  The military’s indispensability in parliament has also allowed the institution to avoid trials of its top leaders for past human rights violations.

 

Of the parties which contested the elections, only the top six were technically qualified to remain in the system to compete in the next elections scheduled for 2004; this is because a minimum of five percent or ten seats in parliament needed to be earned to be guaranteed the right to further participation, according to Indonesia’s January 1999 law on political parties.  Still, it should not be expected that the rest of the political parties will simply disappear.  Small parties have protested the two-percent rule since 1999.  Further, the electoral law is under reconsideration.  Lastly, even under the current law, there seems to be room for parties to re-organize, re-name themselves, and re-apply to participate in follow-on elections.

 

So, it is an obvious, but nonetheless meaningful, observation to say that the number of parties inhabiting Indonesia’s party system has experienced wild fluctuation over the past three years.  Currently, the system is inhabited by two strong political parties, PDI-P and Golkar, with an additional four parties (PPP, PKB, PAN, and PBB)—as well as the military—as key players in determining political outcomes.  There have been and will continue to be smaller parties at the margins of the system (anywhere from ten to fifteen should be expected).  Some of these minor parties might be take on a bigger role in the future, especially if disappointment with the current regime sets in.

 

Polarization in the system is perhaps the more interesting phenomenon, as the current instability, from the one side vitriolic attacks on the President’s capability and honesty as well as from the other side suicide squads threatening to protect him to the death, suggests a highly polarized political party system.  However, this is not really the case.  Frankly speaking, the parties have not sufficiently programatized to have developed significant and sustained ideological differences.  Most parties (whether out of volition or necessity) agree on the fundamentals of the new democratic system.  All the top parties have spoken of the need for understanding of Indonesia’s diverse population, though in the Annual Session of the MPR in August 2000 there was some push by the Islamic parties for a greater role for religion in the state.  This was easily handled by the much broader coalition favoring tolerance of the nation’s ethnic and religious pluralism.  All of the top parties have also taken a moderate line as regards the role of the military in the political system.  None of the parties has acted to eject the military in toto from the political process (though the President has moved to re-populate its command structure), and the military continues to be represented in both cabinet and parliament.  It is impossible, too, to detect a “reform” versus “status quo” ideological split among the parties.  Each party has elements of both trends within.

 

However, polarization still “feels” strong in the current system.  As Faisal Basri wrote in Berpolitik.com, absent long-term vision, ideology, and program, the only constant in the current political process is the party leaders’ perceived political interest.  That is, of necessity, always changing and the logical result of a “bad process.”[63]  The result of the bad process is a system in which political interest, inter-party machinations, and exploitation of communal sentiments for political purposes dominate.

 

It seems difficult to look for stability in inter-party competition in such a new system.  Stability in inter-party competition is generally measured through volatility—that is, an index of voters’ shifts in support from party to party from one election to the next.  Since we only have the 1999 election to use as a point of reference, we can evaluate stability in inter-party competition several ways.  First, have voters expressed a relative constancy in preference from opinion polls through the June 1999 vote totals?  Table 1 below shows party preferences as expressed in opinion polls taken both before and after the elections, along with the actual vote result. 

 

Table 1.  Party Preference as Expressed through Opinion Polls and the June 1999 National Elections

	Pre-election (12/98-2/99)	Actual Vote (6/99)	Poll Self-reporting of Vote (8/99)
PAN	7	7.1	7
PKB	12	12.6	10
PBB	1	2	2
PDI[64]	--	.6	not a choice
PDI-P	20	33.7	34
PPP	9	10.7	5
Golkar	17	22.4	18
PK[65]	1	1.4	1
None/other	5	N/A	2
Don’t know/no response	27	N/A	17
Did not vote	N/A	N/A	4

 

Source: Steven Wagner,  “Summary of Public Opinion Preceding the Parliamentary Elections in Indonesia – 1999.”  Survey by the International Foundation for Election Systems.  1999.  [ONLINE] Available from http://www.ifes.org/indonesia/survey.htm  [accessed October 1999].  Poll conducted December 1998 to February 1999.  Also, Steven Wagner, “Survey of the Indonesian Electorate Following the June 1999 Elections.”  International Foundation for Election Systems.  August 1999.  [ONLINE] Available on the website of the Indonesian MPR.  http://mpr.wasantara.net.id  [accessed December 16, 1999].  Poll conducted August 1999.  Also, Biro Humas Komisi Pemilihan Umum.  Pemilu Indonesia Dalam Angka dan Fakta Tahun 1955-1999.  Jakarta:  Komisi Pemilihan Umum, 2000.

 

It is apparent from Table 1 that, despite the newness of the democratic system and the sheer numbers of political parties inhabiting it, party preferences have been more consistent than perhaps might have been anticipated.[66]  The 1999 elections were not a blank slate, as had been guessed, because the parties already had cores of supporters among the population.  The consistency in preferences expressed for PAN, PKB, and even PK is indeed striking.  Further analysis of the post-election poll suggests that PDI-P scored 33% of the vote across income and educational levels.  Although it scored best in Java, it scored consistently well throughout the nation, except in staunchly devout-Muslim areas. 

 

A second way to get at volatility in the evolving system is to look at whether voters chose a strict party line in their voting.  Voting a complete party line suggests commitment to a given party and thus some degree of stability in preference.  A preliminary analysis comparing vote results by party from the national and provincial levels suggests an extremely high level of party-line voting, at least among voters for the top six parties included in the study.[67]   Despite the newness of the system, and the inevitable ups and downs that we will see in the coming years, there is certainly some reason behind patterns of voter choice, thus underlying an element of consistency political scientists see as stability in inter-party competition. 

 

In evaluating party system institutionalization, in addition to low levels of volatility in voters’ party preferences, which suggests consistency from election to election, Mainwaring and Scully cite the importance of parties with stable roots in society.  In one sense, this phenomenon is related to stability in inter-party competition above, for if political parties are deeply rooted in the population, there will not be wide swings in voting from one election to the next. 

 

From the birth of the new party system in May 1998, it seemed as if observers of Indonesian politics were watching history repeat itself.  The new parties being born harked back to Indonesia’s historic parties, and to the nation’s historic party streams.  There were New Masyumi and PBB harking back to the legacy of the powerful 1950s party Masyumi—and representing modernist Islam.  There were no less than four parties recalling the great Partai Nahdlatul Ulama of the 1950s and 1960s, the most prominent of these being Abdurrahman Wahid’s Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa—representing traditionalist Islam.  Megawati Sukarnoputri (and her Partai Demokrasi Indonesia—Perjuangan), through her direct lineage from her father, Sukarno, called up the memory of the Partai Nasionalis Indonesia (PNI).  PDI-P, through successions of mergers and schisms, was a direct child of PNI.  Golkar, too, grew out of the nationalist stream of political parties, with its emphasis on pluralism and its strong military background.  There were Christian parties, too, representing the traditional stream of Christian/minority interests.  Christian parties did not make the big six this time around, though some scored surprisingly well, like the Partai Demokrasi Kasih Bangsa (PDKB—Love the Nation Democratic Party), coming out of nowhere to win five seats in parliament.  Analysis of opinion poll data, albeit incomplete, suggests that Christian votes primarily were directed to PDI-P and, to a lesser extent, Golkar in 1999. 

 

Despite all this apparent continuity with earlier streams, one stream from the 1950s did not reappear again in the 1990s—Socialist/Communist parties.  With the destruction of the Partai Komunis Indonesia in 1965-66, the outlawing of Communism, and the tight control exercised on labor movements by the Suharto regime, it is little surprising that this stream had been “cleansed” from the population. 

 

What do these continuous “streams” tell us about parties’ roots in society?  They tell us that society’s basic cleavages have changed little over the past fifty years.  Political scientists have pointed out that parties form along society’s “fault lines.”  Indonesia’s fault lines are over the role of Islam in the state (Islamic parties v. secular parties), the type of Islam that should be supported (modernist Islamic parties v. traditionalist Islamic parties), the state’s attitude toward pluralism and nationalism (nationalist parties, the military, and Christian parties support the pluralist-nationalist outlook).  A fault line that seemed to be new in the political system as a result of Suharto’s long rule and ignominious fall was “reform” v. “status quo” parties.  However, this distinction rapidly became meaningless as all parties became a confusing mix of both interests. 

 

So, there is continuity in the nature of streams from earlier periods.  Parties can be said to have general “policy receptors” in the population.   Modernist Muslims do tend to favor a certain type of political party, traditionalist Muslims another, with nationalist abangan (less pious) Muslims and minorities favoring yet another. 

 

If we could observe consistency in the share of the population voting in the various streams across time, that would suggest strong rooting of the parties (at least the streams) in the population.  Unfortunately, Indonesia has had few democratic elections by which to judge.  Table 2, below, shows the share of vote earned by stream in 1955, 1971 and 1999.  Of those elections, 1955 and 1999 could be considered the freest—1971 was the first New Order election and was heavily manipulated.  It is included for reference only.

 

INSERT TABLE 2 HERE

 

As can be seen from Table 2, the share of the vote by stream has fluctuated significantly from 1955 to 1999.  Islamic parties (combined) lost only about 5.7% over the forty-four years—still earning 38% of the vote in 1999.  Nationalist parties (with Golkar and PDI-P leading the way) gained dramatically, rising 32.4%, from 27.4% in 1955 to 59.8% of the vote in 1999.  Socialist/Communist parties, reflecting the destruction and banning of the Communist Party of Indonesia, declined 19.7% from 1955.  Christian/Minority parties, too, declined over the period.  Their decline from 5.1% to 1.4% represents a significant reduction.  From real players in Indonesia’s parliamentary governments of the 1950s, Christian and minority parties have been pushed to the fringe of the current system.

 

From the available evidence, we can say with some certainty that there are groups in the population culturally receptive to and supportive of different types of political parties.  There is consistency in expressed party preference despite the newness of the system.  Preliminary studies also suggest low levels of ticket-splitting, further suggesting commitment to one party over another.  But, the share of the vote by stream has fluctuated significantly since 1955, reflecting changes in the population and elite-engineered alterations of the party system (such as the creation of Golkar and the banning of the Communist Party). 

 

Beyond looking at the rootedness of parties in the population, another way to evaluate the institutionalization of the party system is to consider the degree to which parties and elections are accepted as the means for determining who governs.  This is a difficult criterion to evaluate presently.  There has been little systematic public opinion polling since the time of the elections—when support for democracy ran high, in line with the experience of other countries.  Now that the trials and tribulations of democracy-a-la-Indonesia have become apparent, we have little comparable polling data.  It is often in the weakening of public support for democracy and elections that the public invites democracy’s overthrow by the military or an anti-party politician, promising an end to “the chaos.” 

 

Still, at the time of the June 1999 elections support for the new political system was extremely high—86% in the IFES post-election poll saying they favored a democratic system for Indonesia.  The parties, too, have behaved as if committed to Indonesia’s new democratic system.  The prospect for the discrediting of democracy is very real, however.  The chaos and venality of the present tussle between the President and parliament (whichever side one is on) will take its toll on the population.  Jakarta’s intellectuals consistently lament their power-mad politicians (see the Faisal Basri essay cited above).  If George Aditjondro’s March call in the Jakarta Post for the legislature to be dissolved is any indication,[68] frustration with Indonesian democracy has begun to mount. 

 

Also, there is a fundamental disconnect between the desires of the population and the operation of Indonesia’s current system.  In polling surrounding the elections, citizens routinely cited economic recovery as the chief task of the new democratic government.[69]  Since June 1999, Indonesia has failed to recover from the prolonged economic crisis.  In fact, while the country has returned to economic growth, political instability continues to drive away foreign investment and drive down the rupiah.  A failure of the system to address the people’s expressed prime concern invites disappointment with democracy and potentially its overthrow.

 

Finally, in considering party system institutionalization, one must examine the party organizations themselves, whether they are developing stable internal rules and structures.  A prime indicator of lack of internal routinization is the existence of personalistic political parties, and these Indonesia has in abundance. 

 

PDI-P, as discussed above is the quintessential personalistic political party.  Megawati has inherited her father’s charismatic following (despite the fact that she is not a particularly charismatic individual herself).  Party supporters love “Ibu Mega.”  They shout “Megawati or Revolution.”  Attempts to inject competition into contests for the party leadership of PDI-P (if only for the idea that there should be competition in a democracy) are destroyed with extreme prejudice. 

 

But, PDI-P is not the only personalistic party.  PAN, begun as a broad coalition of reformers, has turned into the personal vehicle of Amien Rais, thus resulting in the departure of the party’s liberal wing.  PKB, under its head Matori Abdul Djalil, hoped to get away from the personalism of the past, but the weight of Abdurrahman Wahid’s personality and lineage bear strongly on the party.  This was strongly in evidence during the October 1999 presidential election as PKB was compelled, despite its institutional commitment to support “the party with the most votes in the election,” to follow the machinations of Gus Dur into the presidency.  The fire of PKB loyalists is also apparent in their current effort to defend Wahid.  The threat of millions of Nahdlatul Ulama partisans descending on Jakarta is very real.  One need look no farther than the “Movement Brave Enough to Die Defending Gus Dur” to understand the verve and commitment of PKB supporters.  Of the smaller parties populating the political system, many are one-man (or, less often, one-woman) shows as well. 

 

Of the big six, less personalistic parties are Golkar, PPP, and PBB.  Golkar is a machine, and its long incumbency has given it institutional advantages not enjoyed by any other party.  PPP, too, relies on its organization and the general pull of Islam for its support.  PBB consciously cultivated itself as a non-personalistic political party from its founding.  Still, the party is ideological without being particularly programmatic.

 

Conclusion

This essay has attempted to delineate the important features played in a democracy by political parties.  Parties present candidates at elections, organize and mobilize citizens, aggregate diverse interests, recruit leaders, formulate public policy, and provide a crucial linkage between the citizen and the state.  The paper has introduced Indonesia’s big six political parties and tried to go behind the parties to understand the meaning of the evolving party system for the operation of politics.

 

Scholars of transitions from authoritarian rule have pointed to the importance of political parties in the consolidation of democracy.  But, Indonesia’s evolving “political society” appears to be fragile indeed.  Participants have failed to institute a “healthy” competition among themselves.  Inter-party competition (as evidenced by the tug-of-war between the President and parliament) brings the nation ever-closer to the brink of disaster.

 

From the Suharto era in which parties were merely a vehicle insuring continued authoritarian rule, parties have risen to play a strong role in the current system.  The parties have been the primary actors in the design of contemporary politics: from the elections to constitutional change to the battle between President and parliament.  But, the essay has suggested that the new party system is relatively weakly institutionalized.  Weakly institutionalized systems typically are associated with low levels of governmental legitimacy and effectiveness.  They also tend to be unaccountable and unresponsive to the electorate. 

 

Arising out of Indonesia’s historic cleavages, parties have some stability in population groups on which they can depend for support.  There is also a consistency of party preference in the current incarnation of the party system, as demonstrated through opinion polls and suggested by preliminary analysis of party-line voting.  But, these strengths do not make the parties themselves strong—often it is the primordial attachments drawn upon by members of the political elite that ratchet up the tension in Indonesia’s political system.  Further, Indonesia’s political parties are primarily vehicles for charismatic personalities with little internal programatization or routinization. 

 

The current battle between the President and parliament is reflective of Indonesia’s weakly institutionalized party system.  As Faisal Basri said, the only constant in Indonesia’s current system is the political interest of the elite.  Political interest changes day-by-day and even hour-by-hour.  The parties, through lack of attention to the nation’s problems—and particularly the issue of the economy which people have consistently expressed as their top priority for government action, risk discrediting the legislature, the executive, and the entire democratic experiment.