[Response to the slander by ABRI Social and Political Affairs Chief Syarwan Hamid, that the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD) has masterminded the riots and unrest during the election campaign.]

We, the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD), are once again accused by the New Order regime of masterminding rioting and also of infiltrating the election campaign by pushing for the formation of a Mega-Star-the People Coalition. According to the New Order regime, the PRD has been systematically planning the replacement of the Suharto regime through the formation of a Peoples Democratic Coalition using the momentum of the elections. The New Order regime says that this is proved by the fact that leaflets have been distributed in Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang, Bandung, Medan, Lampung, Yogyakarta, Solo, Semarang, Purwokerto, Surabaya, Palu, Manado, and Ujung Pandang.

The PRD, whose leaders have been imprisoned by the New Order regime, wishes to respond to the statements by the regime that have been published in the mass media.

Firstly, we reject all accusations that we have masterminded the rioting that has occurred during the campaign. But we will show why the rioting has occurred. Secondly, we do not deny that we circulated leaflets calling for a boycott of the election and the formation of a Peoples Democratic Coalition and that we sent them to other opposition groups. Thirdly, we do not deny that we are planning the constituioonal replacement of Soeharto. Fourthly, we reject being identified as the organisational producers of the leaflet Mega-Star-the People Coalition that has been widely distributed in the election campaign. But we support the contents of that leaflet. Indeed we will show that the people do not reject the program presented in that leaflet.

On the peoples democratic coalition and the replacement of Suharto

As stated above, we do not deny that the PRD had circulated a letter calling for the 1997 Election Boycott and a call for opposition groups to form a Peoples Democratic Coalition and for the replacement of Soeharto as president through the momentum of the elections and the 1998 Plenary Session of the Peoples' Consultative Assembly. This letter (No. 15/STA/KPP/A/III/1997 25 March, 1997) was sent to 15 pro-democracy figures in Indonesia. This was an open letter and so it was printed in large numbers in several major cities. Why did we do this? As we all know, the elections are manipulated so that they are not an instrument for channelling the aspirations of the people. This is even more the case with the pushing aside of Megawati Sukarnoputri of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). There is no way that the elections will be a real "festival of democracy" as in the New Order's slogan.

For us the basic problem is the 5 Political Laws of 1985 and the dual role of the Armed Forces. This is what makes the elections such a cause for concern. These laws and regulations have opened wide the doors for criminal acts by those in power, while shutting tight the doors to democracy. The 1997 election offers no hope for improving the lives or of progressing democratisation. The 1997 elections are just a means for those in power to consolidate their position. It is as if they do not hear, do not see, do not know that society has changed and that the demands for democratisation grow louder and louder. The statement by the dictator Suharto before the Indonesian Coucil of Islamic Preachers (MUI) that the elections are not an instrument for maintaining the status quo was just old and stale political chit chat.

We, the cadres of the Peoples Democratic Party, say that it is time for all the democratic forces to unite in action to strengthen the struggle to establish full and genuine democracy. The demands of the democrats are more widespread, more tumultous, growing in size, heightening, and growing sharper and sharper just as the credibility of the New Order dictatorship crumbles in the eyes of the people and the world. Yet we still face the problem of lack of unity among the pro-democratic forces. We worry that without unity in action the democratic forces will have difficulties in responding to the changing suituiation of the country and the people and will hestitate in responding to new and unpredictable developments. It will be a political sin that history will never forget, if we are not able to quickly respond to and understand the billowing desire of the people for change - even more so, if the tide of change that comes forth for the people ends up in creating waves of rioting and destruction.

In that leaflet, the PRD called on the opposition groups and the people to unit in boycotting the elections. An election boycott, besides delegitimising undemocratic elections, could also be a platform for uniting the democratic movement. We all know that the Uni Democracy Party (PUD) headed by Sri Bintang Pamungkas has a program of boycotting the election. The Marhaen Peoples Movement, headed by Sukmawati Soekarnoputri, has also taken the same attitude. So has the PRD.

The boycott of the election was one of the steps that was necessary to oppose the New Order regime. The demands that we put forward were for the repeal of the 5 1985 political laws and the dual role of the Armed Forces. Because there will never be a democratic election that will be useful for the people while the 5 political laws and the dual role of the Arned Forces continues.

The New Order regime will not fulfill these demands. Because these two things are the most valuable of the New Order's political assets. If these two things are repealed then the military-capitalist New Order dictatorship will be easily overthrown by the democratic movement. But this is not important. What is most important is that we convince the people that the two greatest obtsacles to democratisation are the 5 political laws and the dual role of the Armed Forces.

So that it will be the people themselves who pull down these two pillars of the New Order dictatorship. Apart from this, from this moment, the pro-democratcy movement must be preparing a democratic political order. There needs to be a platform that can be the basis for all popular forces to unite for democratic political change. Such a democratic political order will require the repeal of the 5 political laws and the dual role of the Armed Forces. The political order that we desire is a Popular Multi-Party Democracy, while the government that we want to replace the New Order is a Popular Democratic Coalition government.

Popular multi-party democracy will return freedom to the people to participate in politics, especially the freedom to form parties. Nobody's rights to political participation should be stolen, no matter what the ideology, no matter what the political line, no matter what the political ideals, no matter what the political program. This, in principle, is full liberal democracy but with a strong popular nuance. In this case, liberal democracy is not meant simply to glorify individual freedoms, but more to take things in the direction of freeing political instruments from the grip of a dictatorship so that they become the property of the people. While a Democratic Coalition government would be a coalition of different social classes, sectors and political forces that each represented some part of the people from the village to the national level. This is the character of a democratic government.

We all see that Dictator Retired General Suharto must be replaced. He has been in power too long and stole too many of the peoples' rights. During the last 31 years there has been fatal steps backward, especially in the area of democracy. General Suharto's commitment to the people has not been proven. Rather we all know that during his reign he has expanded his family and his cronies' business dynasties while tens of millions of people live under the poverty line in misery. The 1997 election has also closed the door to the emergence of a new president, especially a president from the pro-democracy movement. There is no way we can win a presidency from the democratic movement under a system like this. Only a democratic system, a multi-party system, that provides an opportunity for a president from the democratic movement. The Dictator Suharto always uses constitutional rhetoric to save himself from the political demands of the people. And using the same excuses, he has always smashed any open democratic opposition that has emerged outside his grip. Threat of prison, terror, kidnapping, torture or even murder are often used techniques of the dictatorship's agents to secure the status quo. Should the democratic opposition retreat because of this? No! The democratic opposition need not fear the threats of the Dictator Suharto and his followers.

The objective political situation demands change. Because all the demands for change have never been responded to by the state, so they have accumulated and now emerge in the form of riots and social unrest. So both the frequency of the recent riots and social unrest has not been an immediately spontaneous phenomena but the result of a structural process. A great social gap within society, impotent representative institutions and a repressive stance by the Armed Forces are the source of the problem.

The collapse of the reputation of the New Order, the Armed Forces and the presidential family also need to be considered. Given these things, the opposition movement will easily win the support of the people. The repressive acts of the authorituies simply exposes them before the people. The people become surer and surer in their knowledge of the regime as a cruel, dictatorial and anti-democratic regime.

Why do we support a People-Star-Mega Coalition?

From the beginning we have always supported a political coalition to pressure the New Order Regime. This is the case too with the Mega-Star-People Coalition. But the Mega-Star-People Coalition is also a specific thing. The Mega-Star-People coalition represents the spontaneous demand of the masses for unity, a demand flowing from their discontent. These demands emerged from a situation where there is a gap between the progressive consciousness of the masses and their political actions. A political leadership is needed which is capable of taking advantage of the openings that emerge. In the preceeding months, these openings could only have been seized by the Megawati-PDI. But the absence of any clear statement by Megawati, as a person in a position to lead politically, has meant that the potential of the PDI-Megawati to respond to the objective conditions created over the preceding several months has not been realised (if we don't actually want to say failed.) In this uncertain situation, the majority of Megawati's supporters as well as many other critical minded masses have sought there own way forward. They found their way to the PPP. In these times of rapidly changing conditions, the PPP filled this golden opportunity, separate from the question of whether the PPP leadership is doing this consciously or not.

It is true that this "coalition" is not based on a formal agreement between the national elite of the PPP or of PDI Megawati. The offer by Moedrick Sangidoe of PPP Solo, followed up by the Banjarmasin PPP, to nominate Megawati as President never received any clear response. Megawati answered them with just a smile, so there has been no de jure bonds, but just a de facto "smile coalition" between Megawati and Moedrick. In other words, the party leaderships have not discussed a formal coalition that would accelerate and expand the national mass mobilisations.

Indeed such a coalition has the potential to absorb the critical energy of the masses and unite it in an effort to get rid of the Soeharto dictatorial regime if the leadership of the two parties wanted it. But there is a real issue related to the question of whether they want to do this or not, as political will is a general question for the opposition as a whole in Indonesia.

Each the day the Mega-Star-People Coalition expands and shows its potential for radicalisation. It is the specific radicalism of the urban poor. We see this coalition emerging in the towns, whether provincial or district towns. For the New Order these are very unsettling developments. At first the government did not band the coalition, seeing it as a better option than people boycotting the election. Biut finally they did ban it. There were three reasons for the ban. Firstly, the potential for the coalition further radicalising and expanding the mass mobilisation of the urban poor in the cities. Secondly, the unification and coming together of the peoples discontent (from all sectors and streams) in the one vehicle. Thirdly, an explosion of votes for PPP in the cities which threatened and endangered the GOLKAR majority that the government has targetted.

PPP President, Buya Ismail Hasan Metareum and the PPP leadership seem to relish primarily the prospect of an increase in their votes. Buya and the other PPP leadership are only interested in gaining an increase in seats. To put it crudely, the PPP wants to use the split in the PDI to increase the votes for the PPP. When the Mega-Star-People leaflets started to circulate with their seven demands, Buya appeared frightened, pale and reactionary. Buya should not feel slandered. The leaflet was not issued in the name of the PPP, but in the name of a coalition. Buya was also too extreme -perhaps because he was frightened - in interpreting the demand "Unite to replace Suharto" as a call for a coup. In all countries, and especially at election time, a call to change a president and nominate another candidiate is a normal thing. A struggle to replace a president should not be interpreted to mean a coup. On the contrary, such a struggle is a constitutional and democratic struggle because it has been proposed in the context of an election.

Buya and the PPP leadership should rather look upon the leaflet as an aspiration of the people that has been passed on to or left with his party. If Buya does not struggle for these aspirations, then as a peoples leader, he must be said to have failed. And he would have failed too as a democrat. There are criteria for assessing whether somebody passes or fails as a democrat. The program put forward by the coalition is a democratic program. There is not one element of this program that stands outside the conventional democratic framework that operates in democratic countries. Buya and the PPP leadership have no grounds to reject this program. These are the changes that the people want.

In reality, the Indonesian opposition has often disappointed the people. Don't be suprised if the majority of the people and the Indonesian youth view Buya, and the majority of other opposition figures - including Megawati and Gus Dur - as hesitating and failing to see the desire of the majority of the masses who want change. The lateness in response of these politicians has resulted in them adopting a confusing stance. They carry out more and more unpopular acts. It is not impossible, for example, that the people turn their backs and shift their support somewhere else.

The PRD and the People support the program in the Mega-Star-People Coalition

The PRD has been accused of producing the Mega-Star-People Coalition leaflets that contain the seven political demands. Organisationally, we reject this accusation. But the PRD is not going to waste time on the question of whether it was the intelligence services who made the leaflet or a group outside the PPP. The question for the PRD is whether the demands are correct and represent the interests of the majority of the people. The PRD supports 100% the Mega-Star-People demands. Its up to the government if it wants to point out that these demands are the same as those always put forward by the PRD. According to the mass media more than 200,000 of these leaflets were distributed and were handed out by the people themselves. All reports indicate that the people photocopied and distributed the leaflets themselves. The PPP elite and the government can reject the leaflets. But on the ground, the people could not get enough of them.

The May 14, 17 and 20 mass actions showed that the mass participation was no longer 100% spontaneous and confined to enjoying the 1997 "festival of democracy". The people understood the risks involved in joining the rally. This is especially the case after the Armed Forces had carried out exercises right in front of the nose of the people in the middle of Jakarta just a few weeks before. The demands that the masses chanted and the posters they carried were themselves reminders of the risks involved in participating in the actions. Look at the demands in the leaflets and the demands chanted by the people; the need for a coalition to oppose the Soeharto regime repeal of the 5 Political Laws end the dual role of the Armed Forces [i.e. in politics as well as defence] end corruption, monopolies and collusion raise wages and lower the prices of basic necessities investigate the wealth of the presidential family and other high officials

None of this stopped the people of Jakarta from joining the campaign rallies. The increasing size of the march with every step forward of the ranks shows how a genuine consciousness among the masses to reject the continuation of the Soeharto regime has developed. This is an aspect of the objective situation that cannot be denied any more.

On the riots and unrest during the campaign

The PRD has been accused of masterminding the roting during the camapaign. We reject this accusation. But the PRD has a responsibility to explain why this unrest has occurred. Many of the political developments, both organised and spontaneous, are a part of an ongoing tension that is developing into a confrontation between the dictatorship and the people. July 27 has been the maximum point in this confrontation to date. That incident not only led to changes in the configuration within the broad political elite [Megawati vs Soeryadi, for example], but also contributed to the development of conditions that the dictatorship fears most: the outbreak of political confrontation by the masses and the rise of extra-parliamentary political forces as a source of new political radicalisation.

The 1997 elections are of great significance in the history of the New Order dictatorship. The continuance of the oligarchy as the basis of a crony business empire is at stake now. Even so, as a political force, the Soeharto dictatorship will work hard to maintain these beneficial conditions. During the last 30 years, the dictatorship has piled up untold wealth, distributed economic and political power nepotistically, controlled parliament and stunted the political parties and developed a loyal military to defend its political and economic interests.

As we know the ovethrow of Megawati was a means to smooth the way for the dictatorship to steal popular legitimacy through manipulation of the ballot box. The PDI under the leadership of Megawati was always an irritant factor for the success of the elections, elections that the dictatorship always needs to win with an absolute majority for its party: Golkar. The dictatorship responded in a bloody and brutal way because Megawati has slowly but steadily attracted great sympathy of the masses and had absorbed the aspirations of the masses for change.

The unrest after unrest since July 27, in Tasikmalaya, Situbondo, Sanggau Ledo, Rengasdengklok, and even Tanah Abang in Jakarta is evidence of how the people have manifested their energy of resistance. In the midst of heightening repression, the radicalism of the masses has also increased. The Soeharto dictatorship appears increasingly unsure as how to anticipate the widening social unrest. It has no effective political strategy to halt the trend towards confrontation by the angry and fed up masses.

The Soeharto dictatorship appears unsure in facing this situation. The populist sentiment is clearly very dangerous for the crony business cliques and their families. The success of the election is one way that the business cronies of the Soeharto dictatorship can safeguard their situation in a "legal" and "constitutional" way. As election day approaches, the dictatorship faces the choice of more violnece or letting the Mega-Star-People alliance flowering through the vehicle of the PPP. Both approaches impose costs for the regime. A violent response will provoke more widespread and even more extreme social unrest as well as attract international condemnation.

Yet to allow the rise of the Mega-Star-People alliance at this moment is the same as the dictatorship piercing its own heart. Because such a coalition would draw together all the suppressed aspirations of the oppressed sectors of the people and would become a fertile vehicle for opposition to the dictatorship. The experience of oppression is bound to develop a new political character bring a new radical populism onto the Indonesian political stage.

The intensifying anger of the people must be channelled though organised political forces. The dictatorship must also consider this. If not, then the people will answer in their own way. The unrest that has ripped through Jakarta and other cities during the campaign must be understood in this context. The naive seeking of a scapegoat in order to hide the impotence of Soeharto's dictatorial regime is no answer. Indeed the PDI predicts that if the peoples' political discontent continues to rise and become more exacerbated, while the Soeharto regime stubbornly resists change, even greater social unrest will take place. If the 5 political laws and the policy of the dual role of the Armed Forces that suppress all organised democratic politicval forces are maintained, then it will be the Soeharto dictatorship that will be the "mastermind" of the explosions of unrest that are bound to happen in the coming period.

[Translated by Max Lane]