Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – A breakaway faction of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has officially registered as the country's 28th political party, a move that the faction's supporters say will spell doom for the PDI-P.
Hundreds of party leaders and supporters from the newly named Renewal Democratic Party (PDP) stopped traffic Thursday when they marched 10 kilometers from their party headquarters on Jl. Sisingamangaraja in South Jakarta to the Justice and Human Rights Ministry in Kuningan, also South Jakarta.
Laksamana Sukardi, a former state enterprises minister under president Megawati Soekarnoputri's administration, and now PDP coordinator, said the party was set up to reform Indonesia's political culture, which he said remained "feudalistic", and to defend pluralism.
The PDP was created when senior leaders split from the nationalist PDI-P in December last year, after a group lead by Laksamana lost a bitter fight to reform the party at its national congress. The party, which has a leadership council instead of a single leader, has become the 14th new group to register since the 2004 legislative elections.
Laksamana claimed PDP party members reached into the millions and was optimistic it would perform better in the 2009 general elections than the PDI-P.
He said the party was an inclusive, nationalist grouping, which would promote pluralism through a reinterpretation of the state ideology Pancasila and a return to principles enshrined in the Constitution.
The PDP has already established chapters in 32 provinces, branches in 70 percent of regencies and municipalities and 60 percent of the nation's subdistricts. The Political Party Law requires all political groups to field offices in at least in 50 percent of provinces, and branches in at least 50 percent of regions and 25 percent of subdistricts throughout the country.
After their party was registered, supporters spent time fund-raising for the Yogyakarta and Central Java earthquake victims.
Roy BB Janis, a member of the party's leadership council, said the registration was planned to coincide with the 61st anniversary of the state ideology, Pancasila. "PDP is open all people regardless of their ethnicity, race and religion. We fully support Indonesian as a unitary state," he said.