On Tuesday June 3, around 50 youths from the Megawati Supporters Group (Gerakan Pendukung Megawati, GPM) held an action at the national headquarters of the United Development Party (PPP). The banners reading "Mega prevented from winning, PPP cheated, the people deceived, reject the 1997 election results" invited the PPP leadership to reject the results of the 1997 elections and demand a re-run on a national level.
After a free speech forum they held discussions with PPP staff. The PPP responded positively to the youths.
According to GPM, the results of the elections cannot be accepted because they are full of fraudulence. They were of the view that the ousting of Megawati Sukarnoputri from her official position as the chair of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) was one part of Golkar's fraud in winning the elections. Golkar also carried out a number of other fraudulent acts, especially with regard to the PPP. The banning of [the slogan] "Mega-Star-People" in the campaign was part of this. Because the unity of Megawati supporters within PPP during the elections truly threatened Golkar's ambition for a "sole majority".
The demand for an election re-run by GPM is not just partial, in the region where elections could not be held because of rioting by large numbers of people. But must be national, because it was not just a failure of the count, but fraud.
A national election re-run, if fulfilled would certainly have significant consequences for Golkar. Because the re-run must be done on the condition that the elections are honest and fair, without cheating. This means there can be no banning of the "Mega-Star-People" coalition. If there is still fraudulence, the results of the election re-run must again be rejected and re-run again. If this is applied, according to estimates, Golkar will loose in Java and Jakarta. Because Golkar's basis to date has come from the outer regions [small/isolated villages], which do not get sufficient information.
Certainly the government, Golkar and the armed forces will not want to re-run the election. Because their aim has already been achieved, that is to legitimise the authorities. But PPP still has a great opportunity to exert pressure so that their demands are fulfilled. PPP's weapon is the support of the people, so the PPP – officially or not – must carry out protest actions which involve mass support, or carry out mass actions. Let the people themselves see, how bit the peoples' support is for demands that the elections be re-run.
It is rather difficult for the official PPP leaders to hold a mass actions. Because, for the official leaders of the party they are caught [lit. snared] by a bureaucratic network. It would be best for the PPP, with regard to mass action, to learn from the pro-Megawati PDI. The pro-Megawati PDI [leadership] never organised a mass action. The mass actions were held by Megawati support committees, of so many different names and types in each region. This is to avoid repression. When the regime carries out repression it has never been able to repress the main organisations, it only able to repress these committees. In the same way if they take the leaders to trial, the regime is only able to try the committee leaders, certainly not all of them, because they total so many, and others will take their place. The official leaders of the party cannot be tried, because they are not involved. So in this case, the job of the party leaders is to make statements of support for these actions though the mass media. Thus when the PPP cadres truly want to seize their rights, their victory which was corrupted by Golkar, they must quickly form support committees for the PPP leadership. It is these committees which will carry out protest actions and demand a national election re-run.
The PPP cadre do not need to be afraid of threads by the authorities. Because the authorities who are evil and have stolen the peoples' voice. It was proved, that the evil actions of the authorities against Megawati became a weapon against themselves. After the authorities expelled Mega, the number of sympathisers grew even more. If the authorities act the same towards the PPP, certainly it will be the same. But if the PPP continues to be silent, while in reality the PPP and the people know that the elections were full of fraudulence, the result will be that the sympathy of the people toward the PPP will decrease. They are afraid of the risks in just struggling for their rights, furthermore struggling for the rights of the majority of people has a heavier risk, that is their logic.
[Translated by James Balowski]