Forwarded from D. Apin Tasripin (Indonesia)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tom, et al.

What is important to this is that the People's Democratic Party/PRD is
facing two particular stresses at this point in time.

One is that along with the positive changes of the election law (getting
rid of military dual function, at least on paper), the established
electoral powers (the Suhartoist Golkar, bourgeois-nationalist Megawati's
PDI-P, and a few others) colluded to force parties contesting for national
office fit a criteria that really just fits a few parties that were
organized within the New Order framework; having a certain number of party
offices is one. Thus, PRD will have to join with other parties simply in
order to survive into the next election. One such group that PRD appears to
be courting is Vanguard Party, whose chair is Rachmawati Sukarnoputri,
sister of Megawati, who is more well known for her outspoken anti-New Order
stance.

The other is that PRD has had a number of splits. The Democratic Socialist
Party was first, and this group split further over questions of electoral
campaigns. PRD found itself without a clear agenda after Suharto's
handpicked successor, B.J. Habibe; during the reign of moderate Islamic
party member Abdurrahman Wahid (aka Gus Dur) the PRD were pressing for some
progressive demands (including lifting the ban on communist, Marxist, or
Marxist-Leninist parties), but this was all for naught after Gus Dur proved
to be ineffective in dealing with the various forces acting to bring him down.

Since around the beginning of January, things have picked up for the PRD,
which has managed to do some solid campaigns against price hikes, as well
as work with groups against the war on Iraq. But there is a definite threat
of losing cohesion with counter-insurgency campaigns in Aceh and West
Papua; though the upper echelons of PRD are a bit schooled in ideas such as
self-determination, the masses still carry the weight of
bourgeois-nationalist ideas that Aceh and West Papua "belong" to the
Indonesia, which are taught as part of the history curriculum.

The 2004 elections will definitely be a trying time for PRD. As with her
master in Washington, Megawati understands keenly the ability of a hot war
to cause people to rally-around-the-president, and she is shrewdly
calculating how to siphon off support from Golkar, while abandoning the
goals of the Reformation.

Just some background information.

- D. Apin Tasripin


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