Max Lane – The Indonesian government's implementation of policies demanded by the International Monetary Fund – the reduction of subsidies on petrol and kerosene, as well as on electricity and telephone charges – has caused widespread price increases and the disappearance of some products from markets.

The official price of kerosene, which is vital to most poor Indonesians for cooking, has increased 50%, but in some cases it has risen higher. It has disappeared in some towns. Newspapers have reported that in Central Java people are being forced to use firewood again.

In some areas, there have also been protests over unavailability of rice. Outside Jakarta, public transport prices have risen. Newspapers, radio and television regularly report price hikes in a wide range of goods.

Even worse, the new policies for petrol and diesel fuel allow prices to rise or fall in line with a Singapore-based price index. This has heightened insecurity about future fuel prices and, as a result, prices in general. The newspapers also regularly report police seizures of large amounts of hoarded petrol, kerosene and rice.

While prices are set to rise at an unpredictable rate, wage rises lag well behind. The government has announced increases in the minimum wage but employers are resisting this strongly. Workers' organisations report that many enterprises are not paying the new minimum wages.

While the government has resisted employers' legal challenges to the new minimum wage, it has not brought any employers to court over non-compliance. The workers' initial sympathy with the minister of labour for fighting the employers' challenges is wearing thin.

At the same time, privatisation continues, intensifying workers' fears of being sacked or their conditions being undermined. Workers in sectors that have not experienced strikes for more than 30 years, such as the big cement factories and telecommunication companies, are taking to the streets.

Political scandals

It is not only the government's economic policies that are raising the mass political temperature. Akbar Tanjung, the head of Golkar, the party of former dictator Suharto and an ally of President Megawati Sukarnoputri in ousting former president Abdurrahman Wahid, has been accused of being unable to account for $4 million he received from the State Logistics Agency while he was a minister.

The attorney-general has been very slow to act, only recently classifying him as a suspect but not charging him. National Awakening Party members of parliament and others have called for a parliamentary inquiry. Despite weeks of discussion, the parliament has been unable to agree to an inquiry. Megawati's party appears to be split, as does the National Mandate Party of Amien Rais.

Golkar is being increasingly discredited because of the scandal, but so has Megawati for not taking any real action on corruption issues. Tommy Suharto, captured by police several weeks ago, has still not been charged with any new serious offence. His initial two years' sentence for corruption has already been overturned.

Megawati's poor image on corruption has been made worse by her appointment of her husband, Taufiq Kiemas, to lead key government delegations to discuss commercial relations with Singapore and China. Kiemas is also seen to be a direct beneficiary of the oil price rises, as he owns petrol station interests.

On top of these scandals, the government has announced that it is granting the biggest bankrupt Suharto cronies another six years to pay the billions of dollars they owe the government. There are also widespread media reports that bankrupt enterprises taken over by the government in 1997 may be sold back at dirt-cheap prices to their original owners, despite its "official policy" against this.

Student protests have been increasing in number every day. "Mass anger is deepening everywhere", Haris Rusli, chairperson of the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD), told Green Left Weekly. "There are more and more demonstrations every day. When students tour around the city in protest buses and the people come out to cheer our banners and slogans that reject the price rises and say the Megawati government is not a government of the poor."

Two key student leadership centres have emerged. The first, the Student Executive Bodies (BEM), is dominated by the Indonesian Muslim Students Action Committee (KAMMI), the student organ of the Justice Party (PK). The PK is a strongly Islamic party founded in 1999 after 17 years as an underground organisation.

The second leadership centre is the National Student League for Democracy (LMND), which is at the core of ad hoc activist coalitions around the country and is closely aligned to the PRD. Islamic and PRD students

"Both KAMMI and LMND are now mobilising on the streets with the same demands", Rusli explained. "And not just against the fuel price rises, also against the IMF and for the repudiation of the foreign debt. Both also demand a real fight against corruption and the prosecution of human rights violators from the Suharto period. In many towns, we coordinate our actions. We both call for the replacement of the Megawati government with a new kind of political power."

There are large differences on what this new political power is. The PK and KAMMI talk about the "dictatorship of the youth", a concept inspired by what they believe the Taliban in Afghanistan represents.

However, the PK has different origins to those of the Taliban. Islamic university students opposed to the Suharto dictatorship formed the PK during the 1980s. These students are now professionals, with a modern perspective on many issues.

"We can debate openly with them", said Rusli. "Our challenge is to show that we have the alternative. Cuba is our example of where the people have made big social, cultural and economic advances. We challenge them to show us a country under Islamic law that has made the same progress.

"We are both carrying out similar campaigns, trying to give leadership to the mass discontent. The question is who can succeed in winning the people to their view of the solution: 'a dictatorship of the youth' or a 'government of the poor, the workers and peasants'."

The PK has been able to organise and mobilise students and women, mainly housewives, but their support among organised workers and peasants is very weak. The PK still retains an anti-left ideological orientation that blinds it to the necessity of organising on a class basis.

Alliances

"There is now greater openness to alliances", Rusli told GLW. A major step forward has been the formation of the Committee Against Exploitation of Workers (KAPB). The key organisations in this alliance are the Indonesian National Front for Labour Struggles (FNPBI), led by Dita Sari, along with a new independent maritime workers' union, a major retail workers' union and several other union federations and groups. The PRD is also a member, as are a number of student groups and non-government organisations (NGOs).

The KAPB organised its first action on January 15, attended by 1500 people, and is planning a larger action later in January. "The KAPB is a major initiative. There is still much work to do to draw in more trade unions. Similar initiatives are underway among students, peasants, intellectuals and so on", said Rusli.

There has been a strong response for the call for a "government of the poor" among a broad layer of intellectuals, NGOs, political figures, students, labour and peasant groups, reported Rusli. There have been big public seminars attended by hundreds of activists. "There was a general consensus that Megawati had to be replaced by a new power. Of course, there is still discussion on how and precisely what. The huge anti-Golkar campaign that we were able to help build during the period of Abdurrahman Wahid's government has helped this process. Many of the people, especially the democratic intellectuals, who joined the alliances during that period have stuck with the struggle."

Rusli told GLW that the PRD is proposing a national people's congress of all democratic groups and figures to discuss opposition, and alternatives, to the Megawati government's implementation of neo-liberal IMF policies. A second focus, said Rusli, was the need for a campaign to wipe out corruption and bring people to justice for crimes committed during the Suharto period.

"A national gathering to discuss coordination of these campaigns can help create the national democratic front that we need. We have proposed that such a congress take place in March. We have to help build vehicles that the people can use to change things. Without them, we will just see a repeat of the riots of May 1998."