The current editions of Gatra (3/2) and Forum Keadilan (12/2) have leading stories on an effort by Megawati loyalists within PDI to start a popular movement to ask her to candidate as President in 1998. Parliamentarian Aberson Marle Sihaloho, assisted by SGP Tampubolon and Marwam Adam, are circulating thousands of sample forms to be filled in and returned via the party branches around Indonesia. He expects so many signatures to come in that the party board will be unable to ignore them. Her charisma is derived almost entirely from her father, first President Sukarno. However, she has also shown great skill in hanging on this far. Like Gus Dur of NU, she makes her opponents look like hired killers simply by maintaining the appearance of tranquility.
If PDI does candidate Megawati, it would mean they do not support Suharto for President. If she accepts, it would be the first time that someone within the system has challenged the incumbent. So far Megawati has not commented. 'Hidang', an anonymous commentator on apakabar, reports a senior PDI member as saying that her silence is itself a sign of her approval, adding that her predecessor Soeryadi would have rapidly put paid to speculation of presidential ambitions, and would perhaps even have offered an apology to President Suharto.
The government evidently regards Megawati and Gus Dur, chairman of NU, as an opposition duo who must not be allowed to be in charge of their respective groupings by the time the parliamentary elections come round next year. It is dealing with both in the indirect way traditional within Indonesia's corporatist political system, namely by stimulating rival groups to oppose them from within. Gus Dur has until now not been given an audience by President Suharto, and faces a rival central board set up by Abu Hasan - even though at present Interior Minister Yogie Memed has said the rival board is illegal. Gus Dur recently came under extraordinary attack by Research and Technology Minister Habibie, who was supposed by many commentators to be acting for President Suharto's daughter Tutut and Army Chief of Staff Gen. R. Hartono. Habibie, leader of ICMI, said it would probably be best for NU if Gus Dur resigned. Megawati meanwhile faces a rival provincial board blessed and protected explicitly by the (former military) governor of East Java, Basofi Sudirman. The rival board is led by inveterate gambler Latief Pudjosakti. PDI's only weapon, which may be a significant one, has been to refuse to join two electoral committees formed in East Java ahead of the national election, until the government recognizes its provincial committee. Basofi Sudirman has been strongly criticized in the press, but appears to enjoy the full backing of Abri.
Most commentators doubt Megawati can win this one, and they fear that by raising the stakes she (or her supporters) risk a greater downfall. Gatra, often close to the government on political issues, quotes Assistant to Abri's Chief of Social and Political Affairs, Syarwan Hamid, as comparing Suharto and his challenger to 'an elephant versus an ant'. Academic Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin doubts Mega's organizational talent. Forum, more sympathetic to Megawati, nevertheless quotes academic Amir Santoso as doubting Mega has proven herself, and observer Cornelis Lay as saying the attempt is unrealistic. Interior Minister Yogie Memed says this kind of direct action is a bad development for Indonesian democracy, since Presidential candidates are determined at the MPR session just before the election early in 1998.
Gerry van Klinken, editor, 'Inside
Indonesia' magazine.
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