John McBeth, Jakarta – When Golkar painted the town yellow, Indonesia's opposition finally saw red. It happened in early January in the historic Central Java city of Surakata, where overzealous loyalists from Indonesia's dominant political party splashed large tracts of the city in Golkar's trademark canary yellow. Incensed, rival politicians of the Muslim-oriented United Development Party (PPP) armed themselves with brushes and painted everything they could find back to a basic white.
"All we want is fair treatment from the local government," fumes Amin Sulthoni, deputy chairman of the PPP's Solo branch. He wasn't placated by Central Java Governor Soewardi's explanation that he was merely promoting the province's mascot, a yellow-plumed bird called a kepodang. "If they paint a public area it should be in a neutral colour," Amin insists. "If there's a political motive behind it, then there should be all three colours-green, yellow and red."
That's green for PPP, yellow for Golkar and red for the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). The three shades will be seen widely across Indonesia ahead of the May 29 parliamentary elections. But the polls could also sport an important fourth colour-white. Why? White is the colour of golput, an acronym which also means "invalidated ballot." There's a strong sense that disenfranchised Indonesians may use this method in May to voice their protest in the election.
Ever since the government engineered the downfall of Megawati Sukarnoputri from the PDI's leadership, analysts have been predicting either a smaller turnout among the 124 million registered voters or a larger percentage of spoiled ballots. These are the only two practical ways for constituents to express their dissatisfaction in an election where Golkar has already pronounced it will win 70.02% of the vote to choose 425 members for the 500-seat House of Representatives.
But staying away from the polls presents significant hazards. "Voting is seen to be an obligation," says political researcher Syamsuddin Haris. "In the villages, people are afraid not to vote because they can get into a lot of trouble"-even tarred with the communist brush. Syamsuddin doesn't expect turnout to drop from the 90.4% recorded in 1992, but he believes there could be an increase in invalidated ballots from the 8%-9% thought to have been cast in the previous election.
Most of the disillusioned are likely to be young urbanites with strong political awareness. But there are indications the golput concept is also being embraced by people from lower income brackets who have grievances against the government or who feel their MPs-securely ensconced in Jakarta-don't really represent them.
To be sure, spoiling ballots won't do much to dent Golkar's dominance. And because the Home Affairs Ministry keeps the golput vote as close to its chest as the management of the election itself, it will be almost impossible to determine the real extent of the dissenting vote.
The Independent Electoral Monitoring Committee has considered establishing informal sampling centres away from the official polling stations as a way of analyzing voting trends. But Chairman Goenawan Mohamad says it may be asking too much of voters to use such centres under the watchful eyes of local officials. Goenawan's committee is not recognized by the government and has already been warned it can't directly monitor the polls.
Golkar's predicted 70.02% majority is two percentage points more than it took in 1992. "It's not a prediction based on nothing," says Abdullah Alatas Fahmi, a member of Golkar's central executive committee. "It's a scientific calculation." Party officials say it's based on 11 different variables, ranging from Golkar's 36 million members to local political and economic issues.
At Golkar headquarters, the head of the quaintly named Department of Winning the Election, Rully Chairul Azwar, produces a province-by-province breakdown of how the party is likely to do in the May elections. Rural provinces top the list: Golkar expects 97% of the vote in Central Sulawesi and 91% in East Nusa Tenggara and the Sumatran provinces of Lampung and Jumbi. At the other end of the popularity scale, the party doesn't expect to do so well in Jakarta (61%), East Java (62%) or once-rebellious Aceh (63%).
"Golkar's campaign is a dialogue campaign," says Rully. "It's not a show of power, it's a sale of ideas." But there might be disagreement from Central Java, where the local administration's unabashed Kuningisasi-or yellowization-campaign has covered everything from fences and tree trunks to private homes, public buildings and street curbs. The media might also disagree: Many reporters have been bluntly told to cover only Golkar activities in the lead-up to the official 27-day campaign period.
In an electorate where 60%-70% of the voters are under 40, the younger generation is what concerns Golkar the most.
"The younger people are saying things have to change, that they want to be heard and they want to be asked," says South Sulawesi MP Marwah Daud Ibrahim. "We're told we have to approach them differently. We have to win their hearts and minds, we can't just promise more bridges." Or paint their town yellow.