WEEKLY SUMMARY SPECIAL REPORT INDONESIA: THE ARMY'S FIRST ELECTIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-00927A008900010002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
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• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
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• Content Type: SUMMARY

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Special Report
Indonesia: The Army s First Elections
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Secret
WEEKLY SUMMARY
Secret
N2 16
25 June 1971
No. 0376/71A
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INDONESIA: THE ARMY'S FIRST ELECTIONS
On 3 July Indonesia will hold its first national elections since 1955. At stake are over three
fourths of the seats of the 460-member Parliament, which.has nominal legislative authority. Those
elected to Parliament will also sit in the 920-member congress; this body formulates national policy
and in 1973 will choose the next president and vice president. The government's immediate aims,
therefore, are to ensure both a responsive parliament and a congress that two years from now will
re-elect President Suharto for another five-year term. The army-dominated government agreed only
reluctantly to hold elections and is working through its unofficial political party, SEKBER GOLKAR,
to ensure a strong government return.
The government, viewing economic improvement as the nation's primary task, has insisted that
neither the conduct of the elections nor their outcome should divert the country from the major
reconstruction effort made necessary by the economically exhausting Sukarno era. It is equally
emphatic that there be no return to the extreme nationalism and pro-Communism that characterized
the final years of the Sukarno period. Candidates have been carefully screened, and members of the
banned Communist Party and its affiliated organizations are denied the vote. The campaign has been
conducted under fairly stringent government restrictions and under close observation. Besides the
government-sponsored SEKBER GOLKAR, the chief contestants in the election are the secular
National Party and two Moslem parties. They have been waging a moderately active campaign, but
one well within the constraints imposed by the government. The parties are under no illusion about
their chances of winning a clear-cut victory, but they view participation in the election as necessary to
maintaining their status as political entities.
In holding the elections, the government sees itself as satisfying the demands of the political
parties; by winning the elections-and it has every intention of polling at least a plurality-Djakarta
apparently feels it will have put the final stamp of legitimacy on the "new order," i.e., the
army-dominated political forces that between 1965 and 1967 ousted and supplanted the Sukarno
regime. The government also has an idea, still only vaguely formulated, that the development of its
party, SEKBER GOLKAR, will be a step toward restructuring the political party system.
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Party Symbols
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The major aspects of Indonesia's sociopoliti-
cal life today are a highly centralized government
and the dominant position of the military, which
distrusts political parties and is convinced that it
should continue in a political role for another
eight to ten years. Underlying these is the basic
fact of Indonesia's ethnic, regional, and religious
diversity, which has created cleavages in the na-
tion's society and is reflected in the political
party system.
Since mid-1966 when it began to consolidate
its take-over from President Sukarno, the Suharto
administration has given the country the most
effective and progressive government it has had in
its 22 years of independence. The army, alone
among Indonesian organizations, is nationally
focused and, by the nature of its long-held secu-
rity and political role, is a force for national unity
rather than divisiveness.
President Suharto and his colleagues believe
the army must continue the political mission of
guiding and shaping the Indonesian state during
these still formative years. They have been willing
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to give the political parties some voice in govern-
mental affairs, but they have made sure that the
parties do not endanger the general policy lines
that have been established. They believe that a
return to civilian government in the near future
would be tantamount to a return to the insta-
bility that characterized the seven and a half years
of parliamentary government during the 1950s.
The Suharto administration maintains, however,
that one of its major goals is the eventual develop-
ment of a government that is both representative
and politically stable. It speaks of the restruc-
turing of the political party system as a step in
this process.
For the time being and for the foreseeable
future, the army plans to operate under its "dual
function" doctrine, which maintains that the mili-
tary is not only a defense and security organiza..
tion but also a full participant in the political,
economic, and social life of the nation.
In conducting the business of government,
Suharto and the army have continued what now
seems to be an established Indonesian political
tradition, i.e., a strong reliance on improvisation.
This improvisation is, however, partially deter-
mined by a general structure of legality and a
respect for legal forms. The present basis of gov-
ernment is the "1945 constitution," a hastily
written and provisional document prepared im-
mediately prior to Indonesia's declaration of
independence to support an emergency govern-
ment. It was set aside in 1950 but reinvoked on
Sukarno's orders in 1959 to justify his imposition
of "guided democracy" and his assumption of
virtually unchallenged power.
The constitution provides for a strong execu-
tive empowered with both legislative and judicial
functions and imposes few formal restraints on
executive powers. It calls for a president, a presi-
dential cabinet, a parliament that shares legislative
and veto power with the president, and a congress
that sets the "guidelines of national policy" and
elects the president and vice president for five-
year terms. The Suharto regime has sought to
2- 25 June 197 1
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restore to these institutions their constitutional
functions. It has carefully retained and employed,
however, the sweeping executive authority pro-
vided by the 1945 document. The lack of a clear
blueprint of government in the constitution per-
mits considerable flexibility and could assist the
nation in its search for an appropriate political
system.
Geographically, Indonesian political life is
centered in Java, where 65 percent of the nation's
120 million people are located. Other population
centers are the island of Sumatra (16 percent),
Sulawesi (7 percent) and Kalimantan (4 percent).
The electorate is estimated at 57 million, or ap-
proximately 48 percent of the population.
The government's decision to hold elections
fulfills a promise made in 1966 during the long
period of maneuver between the so-called new
order and President Sukarno. During that time a
major rallying cry used by Suharto and his col-
leagues was the "return to a rule of law." When
the Indonesian Congress, the nation's highest
policy-making body, convened in mid-1966 to
begin the task of realigning foreign and domestic
policy, one of its first accomplishments was the
passage of a resolution calling for national elec-
tions within two years. Army and political party
representatives in the provisional parliament,
however, were unable to reach agreement on an
election law within that time, and elections were
postponed until July 1971.
The government, however, remained appre-
hensive lest elections promote religious and re-
gional disunity, deflect national energies from the
government's priority economic improvement
program, and provide a forum for criticism of the
army. Therefore, in 1969 it put out feelers to the
parties for another election postponement. With
only one exception, the nine parties insisted that
elections be held as scheduled. President Suharto,
who is more moderate than many of the other
military leaders, apparently felt the more prudent
course would be to uphold the 1966 congres-
sional resolution; he therefore agreed that plans
for elections should go forward. Once the deci-
sion had been made, the government pressed
forward with diligence. The election laws were
passed in November 1969, and the necessary
administrative procedures were implemented on
schedule.
The election laws provide for the election of
all but 100 members of the 460-member Parlia-
ment and of the preponderance of each of the 26
provincial legislatures. Although there will be no
direct election of the 920-seat congress (which
formulates national policy and elects the presi-
dent and vice president), this body nevertheless
will be indirectly affected because Parliament
makes up half of its membership.
The government has a considerable initial
advantage over the political parties in that it will
appoint the 100 members of Parliament who are
not elected directly and one fifth of the member-
ship of the provincial legislatures. These ap-
pointees will come from the military and from
nonpolitical civilian groups-chosen in the ratio of
three military members to one civilian. Despite
the disparity in population between Java (65 per-
cent) and the outer islands (35 percent), elected
parliamentary seats are so allocated as to make
the two areas nearly equal in representation. This
is an effort to appease the non-Javanese, who
have traditionally complained that the govern-
ment is too Java oriented.
Indonesia's political parties had their be-
ginnings in the prerevolutionary, anti-Dutch na-
tionalist movement, and some of their leaders see
themselves as having played a formative role in
nation building. Most of today's parties began as
pressure groups for self-government or inde-
pendence. Over time, each party gradually
gathered the support of such groups as youth,
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labor, women, and farmers with whom it held
ethnic, religious, or other interests in common.
Theoretically, the parties and their associated
groups stand for a political point of view, but in
reality they represent ethnic or religious interests.
For the most part, the parties are incapable of
defining demands beyond asking, in effect, for
favored treatment.
As the parties see it, their finest hour was
the 1949-57 era of parliamentary government
that in seven and one half years was marked by
seven coalition cabinets. This period of political
instability ended when Sukarno imposed the con-
cept of "guided democracy," a system that
became steadily more authoritarian and con-
siderably reduced the role of the parties. In the
1965-67 period, the parties supported the army,
in part because of genuine anti-Communism, but
also because they were eager to reassert them-
selves politically. For a brief time, at least, they
viewed the army as an instrument for returning
them to national power.
It did not work out that way. The govern-
ment retained the 1945 constitution under which
the legislature is relegated to a subordinate posi-
tion. The Suharto regime furthermore has clearly
exhibited a preference for technicians rather than
politicians. The parties still exert some leverage,
however, and Suharto takes civilian political views
into consideration to the extent he deems advisa-
ble in determining policy. The government pub-
licly rationalizes that a de-emphasis of party
politics is necessary until further progress has
been made toward economic recovery, and that
economic stabilization, in turn, is a prerequisite
for political stability.
Seven representatives of political parties
hold eight of the 23 cabinet portfolios, but four
of these posts are largely sinecures that were
deliberately established to give the appearance of
party participation. At least two of the other
posts are held by men who serve because of their
technical know-how rather than because they are
party members. The portfolios of religion and
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social welfare, held by representatives of the
Moslem Nahdatul Ulama (NU), are partial excep-
tions. Even here, however, the government has
curtailed the patronage and other levers of power
through which the NU might normally be ex-
pected to exercise its influence.
Political organizations make substantial use
of the press to express their views, and every
major organization or bloc has its own daily. The
non-Communist press enjoys relative freedom
largely on the sufferance of Suharto and a few of
the more moderate high-ranking officers. Govern-
ment moves in preparation for the election, how-
ever, have been keenly felt within this sector
during the past year.
The major division within organized politics
in Indonesia today is between those who express
themselves politically through religious groups or
parties and those whose allegiance is to secular
organizations. Although 85 percent of Indonesia's
120 million people are classified as Moslem, Islam
infiltrated the country over the centuries (from
the 13th Century on) in varying degrees of in-
tensity. For this reason, and not because of any
recent secularization, only some 40 to 45 percent
of the population are political Moslems in the
sense that they identify with and loyally support
Moslem organizations. These Moslems or "san-
tris" are themselves split between modernists,
who are represented by the Indonesian Moslem
Party, and traditionalists, who are represented by
the Nahdatul Ulama.
The nonsantri Moslems or secularists may be
religiously devout or nonreligious or tied to pre-
Islamic religious observances, but all are opposed
to Moslem-inspired organizations. Many secular-
ists greatly fear Moslem political domination. In
addition to their disdain for what they perceive to
be santri self-righteousness and puritanism, they
believe politically victorious Moslems would at-
tempt to rid Indonesian culture of non-Islamic
elements that the nonsantris hold precious.
The army too harbors a special distrust for
the Moslem parties, an attitude based partly on
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the involvement of various Moslem elements in
armed dissidence during the 1950s and partly
stemming from the assumption-similar to that
held by the nonsantris-that any faithful Moslem
whether moderate, traditional, or extreme wants
to replace Indonesia's official secularism with a
Moslem state.
The secularists, like the santris, can be said
to be divided between traditionalists and modern-
ists with the former gravitating to the Indonesian
National Party. The modernists have tended in
the past to join the small, elitist Socialist Party if
they were well-educated; if not, they moved into
the ranks of the large and expanding Communist
Party or its many affiliated groups. Both of these
organizations are now banned. The Socialists were
proscribed by Sukarno in 1960, the Communist
Party by the Suharto government in 1966. Today
their former followers have no recognized organi-
zation of their own.
The Indonesian political . party can be
likened to a pyramid with most political action at
the apex. Only when the party leadership wishes
to develop some leverage in Djakarta does it prod
its broad base of followers out of their inertness
into some form of political activity. Under
normal circumstances the Indonesian population
is passive and accepts and adapts to firm author-
ity, such as that demonstrated by the Suharto
government, but there have been instances when
the public has proved highly susceptible to
agitation.
There is little mutual trust among Indo-
nesian political parties, a major factor contrib-
uting to past instability. The parties tend to be
ingrown and to harbor basic doubts and dislike
for other regions and ethnic groups which, al-
though overlaid by nationalism, can be surfaced
fairly readily. The narrow particularism of the
parties has contributed heavily to the govern-
ment's concern that the elections could excite
and reinforce at the grass-roots level some of the
very divisions that the administration hopes ul-
timately to de-emphasize.
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The Three Large Parties
Indonesia's three major political parties are
the secular National Party, the orthodox Moslem
Nahdatul Ulama, and the modernist Indonesian
Moslem Party. Although none of them expects to
win a plurality in the July election, at least two
have hopes of getting a significant vote.
The National Party (PNI), which in the pre-
1965 era identified with Sukarno and cooperated
with the Communists, has-at army insistence-
considerably purged itself. The purge, however,
was far from complete, and the PNI is unlikely
ever to assume a complexion entirely suitable to
the army. It still tends to be pro-Sukarno, and
because its greatest strength is in densely popu-
lated Central and East Java-areas that were
formerly the major bastions of Sukarno and the
Communists-it finds Sukarnoism (i.e., the em-
ployment of the late president's name and a
tendency toward xenophobia and extreme na-
tionalism) a tempting campaign tactic. The
moderate wing of the PNI has supported the
Suharto government although it wishes to be rela-
tively independent of the army and to pursue its
own role as a political party. Elements of the left
and larger wing are suspected of still knowingly
permitting Communist infiltration. The party as a
whole, however, serves army purposes as a secular
counter to the Moslem parties.
Much of the leadership of the PNI comes
from the old aristocracy which, under the Dutch
and even more after independence, moved into
the bureaucracy. The party's mass support has
come largely from the nonsantri, ethnic Javanese
peasants who continue to follow the political
direction of their "betters"-the village headmen,
government officials, and schoolteachers.
The army toyed briefly with the idea of
developing the PNI as a political:ally. To this end,
it put pressure on the party to elect a chairman
last year who, despite his leftist support, seemed
amenable to army direction. This stratagem
divided the PNI leadership, sowed confusion in
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the ranks, and temporarily halted the party's ef-
forts to organize its election campaign. These
developments pleased the army more than its
initial idea of a political alliance. Despite its dif-
ficulties with the army, the PNI, which is the
largest party in the present provisional parlia-
ment, should still do reasonably well in the elec-
tions in Central and East Java and parts of
Sumatra.
The Nahdatul Ulama-Moslem Scholars
Party (NU)-the larger of the two major Moslem
parties and the second largest party in parliament,
is traditionalist, rural, opportunistic, and long at
odds with its fellow religious party. In prein-
dependence years, the NU's leaders, who came
from commercial life in East Java, were Moslem
traditionalists who regarded the Moslem reform
movement with considerable misgivings. They
continue to derive their sociopolitical ideas from
a group of traditionalist educational institutions.
During the Sukarno era, the Java-centered NU did
not become involved in the provincial rebellion of
the late 50s, and its pliable leaders publicly en-
dorsed Sukarno's "guided democracy" and his
philosophy of "Nasokom"-a blending of Com-
munism, nationalism, and religion.
In contrast with the harmony between the
NU and Sukarno in Djakarta, however, friction
developed in the 1960s at the local level between
the NU's fervently Moslem followers and ad-
herents of the PNI and the Communist Party.
After the abortive Communist coup of October
1965, it was the NU's militant youth group,
Ansor, that took a leading role in the extensive
killings of Communists in East Java.
The NU had little difficulty in making the
switch from Sukarno to Suharto, and as a reward
it received a hitherto unprecedented political pre-
eminence in East Java. More recent government
efforts, first on behalf of the PNI and later in
support of the government party, SEKBER
GOLKAR, have reduced the NU's influence to
something approximating former levels. The
army's intention evidently was to cut the NU's
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provincial representation to a level more in line
with Moslem grass-roots strength.
The NU is still interested in the idea of
making Indonesia a theocratic state, but it has not
pressed this point hard in recent years. Aside
from its principal following in the villages of East
Java, it has further support in West Java and parts
of Sumatra and Kalimantan. Despite the effects
of proselyting by SEKBER GOLKAR, the NU
should still do fairly well in both Java and the
outlying areas.
The modernist Indonesian Moslem Party
(PMI) is the political heir of the once large
Masjumi, a Moslem party banned by Sukarno in
1960. The core of the Masjumi was a group of
men who were at one and the same time Western-
educated, devout Moslems, and ardent national-
ists. Although they regard themselves as strugglers
against Sukarno who should be refurbished and
restored to national prominence, the government
has remained totally unsympathetic. The govern-
ment agreed in 1968 to the formation of the PM I
to replace the Masjumi, but it has repeatedly
obstructed the new party's development. Like
Sukarno, the army has never forgiven the partici-
pation of some Masjumi leaders in the 1958 pro-
vincial rebellion, and it seems unable or unwilling
to distinguish between the Masjumi's moderate
leaders and Masjumi fringe elements who assisted
the fanatical Darul Islam movement in its 13-year
military effort to establish a Moslem state. Fur-
ther, the army may be apprehensive about the
organizational talents of former Masjumi leaders
who, aside from the Communists, probably have
excelled over other Indonesian civilians in this
respect.
The PMI now draws its leadership from ur-
ban and Western-educated sectors of the Moslem
community and from elements engaged in trade,
manufacturing, and cash cropping. Its greatest
concentration of support is in West Java and in
the Moslem regions of non-Javanese areas, es-
pecially Sumatra.
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The PMI's leadership has been divided be-
tween those,willing to cooperate closely with the
government and those who propose to develop a
definite identity. It was further split last October
when the army encouraged an unsuccessful intra-
party "coup." The present chairman, imposed by
the government a few months ago, is unpopular
with his party and is only now beginning to
receive reluctant pledges of loyalty from organiza-
tional components. By its own admission, the
PMI expects to win. only a small portion of the
popular vote.
The July elections may well mark the
demise, for all practical purposes, of some of the
six small parties in Indonesia. In its paternalistic
way, however, the government has provided some
recognition even for failures, and 10 seats have
been reserved in congress for groups that are
unable to elect a candidate to Parliament.
The six include a declining nationalist party
that formerly received significant army support-
Association of Supporters of Indonesian Inde-
pendence (IPKI); two Moslem parties-the Islamic
Union Party (PSII) and the Movement for Ex-
pansion of Islam (PERTI); Murba-the so-called
national Communist party which is also in a
marked state of decline; and two Christian par-
ties-the Christian Party, which is Protestant and
tends to align itself with the PNI, and the Cath-
olic Party, which is close to the government and
to SEKBER GOLKAR. Of the six, the PSI I, the
Catholic Party, and the Christian Party have the
best chances of winning a few seats in non-
Javanese areas.
The once large Communist Party (PKI),
which was crushed and banned after the abortive
coup of 1965, barely has a working organization.
The vote is denied to former members of the
party and its affiliated front groups who, accord-
ing to the Communists, totaled from 12 to 16
million in 1965. Some party and front group
members reportedly have joined other parties
over the course of the last six years. Their natural
home would be the left wing of the PNI, but
there have been reports of small numbers joining
other parties as well, including SEKBER
GOLKAR, either for safety's sake or as a delib-
erate penetration. In any event, at this point in
history, those Communists that do vote must vote
for non-Communist candidates. Their preferences
may swell PNI returns, but because untoward
gains by political parties will, by all odds, be
countered in some way by the government, the
addition should have little significance.
When General Suharto, then still commander
of the army, assumed the presidency in March
1967, the Indonesian Army achieved greater and
more effective participation in government than
ever before in its 22-year role of nation building.
Although Suharto has since relinquished com-
mand of the army, he remains the minister of
defense and as such is commander in chief of the
armed forces. In the 23-man cabinet, the army
holds three other portfolios, and the navy and air
force hold one each. The army and the other
services are well represented in all departments at
subministerial levels and in industrial and agricul-
tural state enterprises. Army officers serve as
governors in 14 of the nation's 26 provinces, and
junior officers and noncommissioned officers
hold a substantial proportion of positions in local
administration. Military appointees constitute 18
percent of the membership of Parliament and
hold approximately half of the nation's ambas-
sadorial posts. Although civilian participation is
considerable and effective, particularly in the
economic sector, both specific and ultimate gov-
ernment control is in the hands of the army.
Moreover, the inefficiency of the bureaucracy is
such that Suharto relies.considerably on the army
hierarchy for administrative assistance.
Since the election law stipulates that no
member of the military can either vote or run for
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office (although members of the military may be
appointed to administrative or parliamentary
positions), the government began casting about in
early 1970 for a vehicle through which it could
dominate the elections without violating the let-
ter, if not the spirit, of the law. It seemed to face
one of two choices: to come to terms with one of
the political parties, logically the secular National
Party, or select a heretofore nonpolitical "func-
tional" group, as its undeclared standard bearer.
The army must have reasoned that it would be
risky to reach terms with a political party inas-
much as there would be no assurance of con-
tinued support once the party was elected and
there would also be the question of division of
the spoils. It therefore decided that the better
choice lay in developing a "functional" vehicle,
and it settled on the army-affiliated Joint Secre-
tariat of Functional Groups (SEKBER GOL-
KAR).
Ostensibly nonpolitical, functional groups
such as students, laborers, women, and farmers
have long been a feature of the Indonesian politi-
cal scene. Former President Sukarno at one time
used them as a means of diluting the power of the
political parties in Parliament, and both the army
and the PKI developed their own groups to rein-
force their respective political positions. The
functional groups have acquired a largely un-
deserved mystique as the untainted voices of the
"real" Indonesian people.
When SEKBER GOLKAR was tapped in
1970, it was a loosely coordinated mass of some
269 organizations including army-affiliated labor
unions, rural credit associations, veterans',
women's and student groups, a few scattered pro-
fessional organizations, and one or two personal
vehicles of enterprising generals. Although it has
been refurbished, given a military superstructure
and considerable funds, it remains a hodgepodge
of disparate elements. Its greatly expanded mem-
bership has been achieved largely by proselyting
among groups attached to regular parties and by
the wholesale enlistment of national and pro-
vincial government employees. Its steam-roller
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tactics and its accumulation of numerical strength
and political prestige spring not from its innate
appeal and organizational drive but basically from
army muscle and financial and administrative as-
sistance from the Ministry of Home Affairs. Its
goal is half-180-of the elected parliamentary
seats which, with the 100 appointed members,
would give the government a 60-percent majority
in the new Parliament. If the parties do better
than anticipated, SEKBER GOL.KAR may have
to be content with merely a plurality, in which
case it will have to rely on developing further
support from among party contingents within
Parliament.
SEKBER GOLKAR is active at all political
levels and in a variety of ways-~-igning up entire
organizations, gaining the endorsement of a single
influential person who then calls on the public to
follow his lead, staging sometimes elaborate, of-
ten corny theatricals. It has tried to cut a broad
swath through organized Indonesian life and to
include under its banner groups of all non-Com-
munist political and religious or secular persua-
sions.
It counts on making itself chiefly felt, how-
ever, at village and district levels, where local
officials are essentially father figures. In areas
where military personnel hold local jobs, SEK-
BER GOLKAR's job is relatively easy; the mili-
tary officials simply instruct the people in their
districts how to vote. When civilians who are
more or less loyal to political parties hold these
local posts, strategy requires that these individuals
be converted to SEKBER GOLKAR; the govern-
ment then assumes that the local population will
follow suit.
Methods of persuasion range from straight-
forward physical threats to relatively subtle forms
of intimidation. One tactic being used in Java is
to threaten the village headman with the loss of
his right to use communal land unless he re-
nounces party ties, professes loyalty to
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GOLKAR, and enlists additional support for
GOLKAR from among those in his jurisdiction.
He is told his efforts will be closely observed.
Faced with economic ruin, the hapless headman is
likely to use his considerable influence to stimu-
late a pro-GOLKAR vote.
Another tactic has been to obstruct the cam-
paigns of the contesting parties. Both GOLKAR
and army personnel have pre-empted premises
where parties planned to rally, harassed gather-
ings, arrested party officials on real or flimsy
accusations, and prevented busloads of followers
from entering areas where meetings were to be
held on the basis of some official technicality.25x1
Party reaction to SEKBER GOLKAR be-
havior ranges from capitulation and despair to
anger and bitterness. Most of the parties have
openly criticized the government's pressure tac-
tics in behalf of GOLKAR and, surprisingly, the
Indonesian Catholic Church in early June ap-
pealed to the government to eschew intimidation
and conduct a free and secret ballot. The PNI and
NU have been particulary bitter in attacking
GOLKAR methods and have indulged in what
must be extravagant tales of intimidation. The
NU, for example, has reported that aged Moslem
priests have been told to dig their graves unless
they registered with GOLKAR, and that engaged
couples have been denied marriage licenses unless
they agreed to vote for the government party.
In some parts of Java, PNI and NU officials
are reported to have told their followers to regis-
ter with GOLKAR but to vote on 3 July for their
own party. (In several straw votes held in Java, in
which the secret ballot was observed, the PNI
won.) How successful a tactic this may be remains
to be seen. Although the election law calls for a
secret ballot, there is no guarantee that this will
be enforced. The common expectation is that the
farther away from Djakarta the more open the
polling booth will be. Still, the possibility remains
that GOLKAR's tactics may be counterproduc-
tive, and that it will register a lower vote on 3
July than it anticipates.
The Campaign
Substantive issues have had little impact on
the campaign, in part because the government has
dictated the subjects to be discussed, to wit, the
1945 constitution, the five-year economic
~X1
velopment plan, and Indonesia's Five Principles
(nationalism, internationalism democracy, social
justice. and belief in God).
Although the formal campaign did not begin
until 27 April and lasts until 26 June, all parties-
particularly GOLKAR and the PNI-were active
by the beginning of the year. In Java, the PNI's
references to Sukarno have been curbed repeat-
edly by the government. The NU, which felt the
depredations of SEKBER GOLKAR later than
the other parties and may have suffered least, has
been the loudest in its criticism of government
tactics. The PNI and the NU have resisted GOL-
KAR as firmly as they dare without provoking
significant government action against them, but
the other parties generally have just gone through
the motions of campaigning.
Of the ten slates of competing candidates,
GOLKAR's is by far the most impressive. Of its
539 candidates, 100 are bona fide "new order"
leaders. They include five cabinet ministers and
the wives of several governors, army territorial
commanders, and of at least one minister. The
most colorful and energetic GOLKAR campaigner
has been Foreign Minister Adam Malik, who by
all accounts has been quite a success in non-
Javanese areas.
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nesian Government intends to win the elections,
freely if possible, but with more questionable
In the sense of effecting significant change, means if that proves necessary. A flagrantly rigged
Indonesian elections are unlikely to make any election could promote student demonstrations
difference. It seems fairly obvious that the Indo- and an unfavorable press campaign, but it is not
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likely that there would be any real trouble. An
administration tarnished by the public knowledge
of a manipulated vote would make for increased
resentment, but the political parties would still
have no effective way to translate their frustra-
tion into action. The election will simply confirm
the present government in office, and its policies
will continue.
Beyond this confirmation of the status quo,
the government apparently harbors the hope that
elections will be of assistance in the task of re-
structuring the political party system. It hopes
that the exercise will weaken the political parties
and will encourage additional defections from the
parties and their affiliated organizations to SEK-
BER GOLKAR. GOLKAR strategists apparently
are now thinking in terms of one government-
Special Report
sponsored party that would enlist support from
all the significant groups in Indonesian society.
The present parties would presumably remain in
existence and would continue to have some
peripheral influence, but they would become
completely overshadowed by a large and vigorous
GOLKAR.
It seems unlikely, however, that any rapid or
major moves will be pushed. Rather, once elec-
tions are over, the government will watch the dust
settle and will interfere only in the event of
unfavorable reactions. In any event, a move seems
to be afoot toward at least experimentation with
a single mass party. How or whether it develops
will depend on how much attention the govern-
ment is willing to continue to divert from its
priority
ac-
tion. 25 fl
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