Vaudine England, Jakarta – A lawsuit seeking to dissolve former president Suharto's political party, Golkar, was thrown out by the Supreme Court yesterday. The move comes amid growing fears that President Megawati Sukarnoputri's tenure will see a resurgence of groups and individuals linked to Suharto's New Order regime.
Efforts by pro-democracy activists to ban Golkar were supported by Ms Megawati's predecessor, Abdurrahman Wahid, as part of his attempts to threaten opponents into dropping impeachment moves. Golkar was accused of fraud in the 1999 elections, raising money beyond legal limits and illegally siphoning of millions of dollars from an insolvent bank and the state-run food agency.
Judges trying the class-action suit said there was inadequate evidence the party had breached the limit on election campaign funds. "The judges were not trying to find the truth. This is not an honest trial. Suharto's people are still in charge of Indonesia," said Sri Bintang Pamungkas, a political prisoner during Suharto's era and one of the plaintiffs.
Outside the Supreme Court, police fired tear-gas to break up pro and anti-Golkar protesters who clashed briefly when party chairman Akbar Tandjung left the building.
The claim that a revival of the New Order is under way has exercised analysts and reformists in the wake of Ms Megawati's rise to power, which some diplomats maintain was constitutionally dubious. The armed forces and the police both disobeyed orders from their commander-in-chief, Mr Wahid, to support Ms Megawati's takeover. Far from being chastised for insubordination, they were applauded for their intervention, the observers noted.
In contrast to Mr Wahid's efforts to weaken the military, Ms Megawati is seen as more amenable to a larger role for the armed forces, especially given her desire to quash unrest in separatist provinces with military help.
The way Ms Megawati rose to power offers more doubt about her reformist credentials, analysts argue. They note a loose alliance of figures aligned to New Order – such as the parliamentary faction leader of her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, Arifin Panigoro, and the People's Consultative Assembly deputy chairman, Ginandjar Kartasasmita – were key to her parliamentary support.
Leading members of Ms Megawati's personal staff also have links to the old regime, such as her spokesman Bambang Kesowo, a New Order bureaucrat.
However, the few people in the political elite with the necessary skills to run offices and implement policy are perforce from the New Order. Suharto either co-opted or eliminated the best and brightest of a generation.
Ms Megawati remains an elusive political actor and may yet surprise observers by being more stubborn than expected towards the military and a long line of greedy politicians.
One sign of independence on her part may be the delay in naming a cabinet, one source suggested. The assumption implicit in the blanket support she received from parliament last week was that she would have to pay back the favour through the distribution of cabinet posts.
That assumption is undergoing revision in some quarters as the days stretch out with no cabinet in sight. No announcement is expected before the weekend at the earliest.
One of Ms Megawati's closest aides said she did not now want to appoint a coalition cabinet and preferred to pick her own people. If true, this might indicate her strength of mind – and also raise fears about the cabinet's stability.