Wens Manggut and Andari Karina Anom – Where are all the laughter and hand clapping of yesteryear? They have all but disappeared from Golkar's party headquarters in Slipi, West Jakarta. It's as if the former political vehicle of the Suharto regime is black and blue, within and without.
Two weeks ago, President Abdurrahman Wahid gave the attorney general his blessing to investigate the involvement of its chairman Akbar Tandjung in a legal case which smelt of corruption. To date Akbar has not been officially called for questioning, but his reputation is slipping. New Attorney General Baharuddin Lopa's apparent keenness to root out corruption has a lot of people scared.
And it has prompted Akbar's old political opponents in Golkar to start rebuilding their forces. The heat is on. One senior party official told Tempo that old scores have recently resurfaced. Every group is vying for its interests. Divided we fall. These troubles make the party's overall influence weaken, even its strength to "just ask President Wahid to abandon Baharuddin Lopa's steps to open the file on Akbar Tandjung's past."
Internal conflicts in Golkar are nothing new. Soon after Suharto fell, it started to break up and has kept on breaking up. After its National Congress in 1998, Edi Sudradjat, Hayono Isman and several other top Golkar figures formed a new party, the PKP, based around the idea of unity. Although they trailed far behind Golkar in the 1999 election, the PKP phenomenon is something the party never saw during its decades of virtually unchallenged rule.
The splits showed more tellingly when Habibie's accountability speech as president was rejected by the supreme People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) in October 1999. Votes from Golkar dissidents swung the balance. A number of politicians from East Indonesia, united in the so-called Iramasuka Nusantara faction, accused Akbar and pals of stabbing Habibie in the back. Habibie is from Sulawesi.
When Golkar's parliamentary faction met for the first time after that, the meeting was little short of chaos. Several MPR members from the Iramasuka front accused Akbar and reformist Marzuki Darusman of betraying the party. "We have been betrayed by Golkar people themselves," said Anwar Arifin, a DPR legislator from South Sulawesi.
Failure to carry Habibie back in triumpth to the presidential chair did not mean the Iramasuka group gave up all hope. Iramasuka saved up its strength and has now reemerged, just as Akbar faces legal problems and a resulting slump in his popularity. The Iramasuka front is now arranging its position, a Tempo source in Golkar said, waiting to turn the president's war with the DPR to its advantage. "They scoop up profits from the open war of President Abdurrahman Wahid's camp with the DPR which involves Akbar Tandjung," said this source.
Lately a number of Iramasuka politicians have been on a political walkabout. On June 16 two figures from the group, Andi Matalata and Marwah Daud Ibrahim, met Taufiq Kiemas, the influential husband of Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri. The word is that Taufiq was told they would support Megawati on condition they get cabinet seats when she takes over as president, although Marwah himself denied any such talk of trading in cabinet posts. "We discussed the fate of this country, not cabinet seats," he said.
Iramasuka has also cast its eyes on the Wahid crowd. They are trying to rally forces so he can escape sacking. Iramasuka is one of the forces that have been eyed up by Wahid's lobbyists. It controls a juicy 72 seats in parliament.
Marwah confirmed that his group has talked to Wahid's crowd. But he insisted that it was the Wahid people that approached them, not the other way around. Marwah himself admits he met with a number of envoys from Wahid. Unfortunately, Marwah kept the names of the envoys and the contents of their talks private. "It would not be ethical if I cited them," he told Tempo.
But is this closeness aimed at strengthening Wahid's weak position ahead of the special session? "It appears indeed to be so," said Marwah diplomatically. Some 72 seats are quite interesting to political forces of all persuasions, according to Marwah.
Other new factions are also emerging in Golkar, or reemerging in some cases. There is the West Java group pushed by former mines and energy minister Ginandjar Kartasasmita and the renewal group spearheaded by former attorney general Marzuki Darusman. All these groups, said a senior Golkar official, want to take over the remains of the shade of the party with the Banyan tree as its symbol. Even though that Banyan tree has been rather damaged by repeated storms and shed quite a few leaves in the process.