Managing Politics and Islam in Indonesia

166 MANAGING POLITICS AND ISLAM IN INDONESIAregime’s lifting of restrictions on freedom of assembly (December 1995) and itsintroduction, in January 1996, of regulations enabling people to hold social,cultural and political gatherings without official permits. 16 Overall, theproliferating ‘rainbow’ groups constituted initiatives by opponents of the regimeto open up democratic space and establish alternative channels of interestrepresentation and political participation outside the restrictive corporatiststructure.Although PRD was viewed as a potentially significant threat to Suharto’sregime because of its grassroots following (discussed below), the other‘rainbow’ organisations did not constitute a direct threat to power arrangements.As elite-centred initiatives with no real grassroots membership, theseorganisations were limited in their ability to represent people’s unfulfilled andrising expectations. They were, at the end of the day, set up as vehicles withwhich to promote the ambitions and interests of one set of (sidelined) elitefigures, who wanted to gain inclusion in the power structure, against another setof elite interests that were more closely allied to the state.Having said this, the power holders still perceived the ‘rainbow’ organisationsas a threat because they operated outside of the authorised political rules, whichprohibited the formation of new political organisations. Moreover, the highlypaternalistic state normally regarded open dissent as an intolerable act ofinsubordination or subversion. Although Suharto tolerated a certain level ofdissent in order, among other things, to allow people to let off steam, he was notaccustomed to the extent of criticism that leaders of the new organisationsdirected against the New Order establishment. An example of this criticism was,at a two-day national meeting of YKPK in Surabaya (8–9 January 1996), whenspeakers highlighted the Suharto government’s failure to provide democratic,accountable and transparent government that would permit people’s genuineparticipation. Included among the dignitaries present at the national meetingopened by Wahono, were Marzuki Darusman of the National Human RightsCommission, the NU Chairman Abdurrahman Wahid and several prominentformer PPP and Golkar leaders. The ‘de-Wahono-isation’ and the ‘de-YKPKisation’of the parties had hurt a number of these figures. 17The Suharto government, no doubt, also was worried about the prospect of adomino effect should the new organisations provide an example for others tofollow. Despite the government’s apprehensions, it was not until the ‘rainbow’organisations lent their support to broader dissent in society coalescing round afaction of PDI led by the popularly-elected Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri,that Suharto’s circle of power holders decided to take decisive action againstthem.