DENPASAR, Bali - Golkar's presidential
nominating convention on Tuesday indicated how
thoroughly party chairman Akbar Tanjung has sought to
distance the party from its authoritarian roots.
Although it was hardly an exercise in grassroots
democracy, the ruling vehicle for disgraced autocrat
Suharto held an unprecedented open vote to choose its
candidate for the president of Indonesia.
The
convention featured five candidates presenting
themselves to party officials from across the
archipelago and then a secret ballot to select a
candidate. The tally, telecast live across Indonesia,
developed into a first-round photo finish, with
partisans cheering each tally as the runners thundered
down the home stretch.
Golkar partisans have
plenty to cheer about. As vote counting from the April 5
legislative elections drones on, Golkar's lead over
President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic
Party of Struggle (PDI-P) at the top of the polls widens
daily. When the counting is done, perhaps next week,
Golkar will comprise the largest faction in the new
legislature, with up to 200 of 550 seats. The
presidential election will take place in July.
About halfway through the Golkar convention
count Tuesday night, business tycoon Aburizal Bakrie and
retired armed forces chief Wiranto held the top two
spots. In the likely event that no candidate got an
outright majority, the top two finishers would meet in a
second-round runoff to determine the party's candidate.
Scion of Bakrie & Brothers, Bakrie stands
out among Indonesian tycoons because he is a) not ethnic
Chinese; and b) not one of Suharto's children. Though
not nearly as rich as Bakrie, Yusuf Kalla also shares
both qualities, as well as roots outside Java - Bakrie
is from Sumatra, Kalla from Sulawesi - plus the added
advantage of a rare record of achievement in Megawati's
cabinet featuring his work to quell violence in central
Sulawesi. But Kalla withdrew from the Golkar race - and
resigned his cabinet post as coordinating minister for
people's welfare - less than 48 hours before the
convention to run as vice president on the Democratic
Party ticket with Susilo Bambang Yudhuyono. That news
broke while Bakrie was hosting a weekend getaway for 320
supporters at Bali's Grand Hyatt.
Bakrie likely
attracted some voters that had previously leaned toward
Kalla. But there are significant differences between the
two businessmen. Kalla didn't enter the political stage
until Suharto left, while Bakrie is an intimate of the
former president and a welcome visitor to the Cendana
complex (Suharto's residential spread on Jalan Cendana
in Jakarta). So while Kalla symbolized a Golkar ready to
turn the page on the New Order, Bakrie carries SARS
(sindrom aku rindu Suharto - I miss Suharto
syndrome).
Wiranto boasts a full-blown case of
SARS. He ran Suharto's armed forces and is under United
Nations indictment for crimes against humanity in East
Timor. Indonesian military forces failed to prevent,
supported or participated in massacres of thousands of
independence supporters, depending on how charitably you
wish to view the armed forces' role in the carnage.
Closer to home, Wiranto was conveniently absent from
Jakarta during the May 1998 riots that, like the Timor
killings and sectarian violence in the Malukus, bore the
stamp of military complicity.
As the vote
counting progressed from district level officials to
provincial party bosses, who have three votes instead of
just one, Tanjung closed on the front-runners. Speaker
of the House of Representatives as well as party
chairman, Tanjung won praise for rescuing Golkar, saving
its priceless organization down to the village level
throughout the nation. That party infrastructure gave
Golkar its second-place finish in the 1999 election and
the apparent top spot in the April 5 voting. Pundits
expected the party faithful who owe Tanjung their
continued relevance to reward him.
Tanjung had
preserved the party by publicly distancing it from
Suharto, to the reported dismay of Cendana. While
shedding that baggage, he picked up his own, a
conviction on corruption charges. The Golkar convention
was seen as a device to delay the nomination process
until the Supreme Court had a chance to overturn the
verdict against Tanjung, which it did in February (see
Tanjung acquittal: Verdict against
reform, February 14).
With strong support
from the top of the party pyramid, including 18 votes
from the central committee, Tanjung finished the first
round with 147 votes, Wiranto got 137, Bakrie had 118,
distancing outspoken media magnate Surya Paloh (whose
Metro TV disappeared from the airwaves in my
neighborhood a couple of months ago as if it were being
jammed like Voice of America broadcasts to China) and
former Suharto son-in-law and commando Kopassus special
forces General Prabowo Subianto with 39 votes.
With no candidate garnering an outright
majority, the voting moved to a second round with clear
battle lines. A vote for Tanjung was a vote for the new
Golkar, the Golkar that thrives under democracy - in
national elections and party conventions. A vote for
Wiranto was a vote for the Golkar that served the
strongman at the top.
The second-round voting
lacked the drama of Round 1. Wiranto's youthful good
looks, winning smile and military bearing make him a far
more appealing candidate than insider Tanjung, who packs
the inspirational punch of an accountant. Moreover, as
party leader and House Speaker, Tanjung failed to build
a legislative record or articulate what the reinvented
Golkar stands for. The final count was 315 for Wiranto,
227 for Tanjung, with four spoiled ballots and one
abstention.
For all Tanjung's work to save the
Golkar brand, the party succumbed to SARS at its first
exposure. Despite its status as the most effective
national political organization, Golkar failed to lure
any candidate that generates double digit support in
presidential polls. It's no accident that, in the end,
party delegates faced the choice of an accused thief
whose conviction was overturned on grounds of
incompetence and an accused human-rights criminal who,
like his former mentor, refuses to face the music.
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