Jakarta – The only Indonesian political party leader behind bars, Budiman Sujatmiko, was allowed to campaign Wednesday inside the walls of Jakarta's high-security Cipinang jail.
The 29-year-old leader of the once-banned People's Democratic Party (PRD), who is serving a 13-year term for subversion handed down when Suharto was still Indonesia's strongarm leader, had a limited audience for his views on the June 7 general election.
Allowed in were two wardens, two other jailed PRD officials and party supporters who negotiated their way past the guards throughout the day in groups of 30 or so at a time.
Outside the jail, Sujatmiko's followers draped the prison's metal gates with the party's red flag. The guards also screened journalists wanting to get in, allowing some in but barring foreign TV crews and most cameras.
The former student democracy activist, appearing as vigorous as ever despite two years in Cipinang and a week-long hunger strike which ended after he was hospitalised, outlined his party platform in a prison hall.
Also sitting in for part of the rally was Abdul Latief, a former jail-mate who served three decades behind bars for his involvement in an attempted coup in 1965, blamed on the communists.
Sujatmiko, whose party was banned under Suharto's rule, launched the PRD campaign platform by saying it championed a democratic state and parliamentary government.
He also came out strongly against the long-standing political role of the Indonesian military.
"There are only few parties that put heavy stress on immediate elimination of the military's dual function. And we can begin with them," he said.
"Civilian supremacy is a minimum prerequisite to democracy. If we failed to uphold this, democracy fails," he added. "The parliamentary system is important so that the executive becomes flexible and responsive." he said.
Commenting on a possible coalition with other parties, Sujatmiko said his party would only join parties that reject the political role of the military and support self-determination for East Timor.
He said among his party programs was the empowerment of a people's economy through cooperatives, and encouragement of foreign investment "as long as they don't control 100 percent of the ownership." Sujatmiko also blasted popular opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, of the Indonesian Democratic Party for Stuggle – one of the strongest contenders for the presidency – for never raising the issue of political prisoners.
"To the best of my recollection, Megawati never talks about political prisoners, not only PRD, but all political prisoners," he said of the woman who his party defended when Suharto tried to put her in political limbo.
Sujatmiko, party secretary general Petrus Hari Haryanto and six other party activists have been in jail since being sentenced to between nine and 13 years in 1997. They were accused of inciting riots in Jakarta on July 27, 1996, when Megawati was fighting for her political life.
He and his followers have rejected offers of a presidential pardon, which would imply they were guilty and they would accept nothing but amnesty. "We reject the pardon because Habibie has not corrected Suharto's policy," he said.
The PRD is among the 48 political parties – all but three made legal since the downfall of Suharto a year ago – contesting the June polls.