Managing Politics and Islam in Indonesia

MOBILISATIONS AND COUNTER-MOBILISATIONS OF STATE AND SOCIETY 185member MPR would be filled with compliant politicians, Suharto stalwarts andfamily members. Given his commanding control of Indonesian politics, ananalyst at the time might have been forgiven for concluding that the mountingpre-election opposition and violence was fairly inconsequential to the overallpolitical process. 87The PPP chairman and leaders did complain about vote rigging after the poll,with several branches threatening to boycott the election results. In some parts ofthe country, PPP supporters rioted in protest over the election result with at leastone rioter being shot dead. In the district of Sampan, Madura (East Java) thegovernment even conducted an unprecedented re-count of dozens of pollingbooths in an effort to assuage PPP tensions. At the end of the day, however, PPP,under Metareum’s leadership, assumed its more characteristicallyaccommodating stance and signed the official election results, which still saw theIslamic-oriented party increase its share of the vote from 1992. In an interview,Metareum admitted that neither a boycott nor protest would measurably alter theestablished political arrangements. 88Was it the case, then, that Golkar’s over-zealous campaign strategy had beenan outstanding success, as it did garner a robust result for Golkar in the face ofrising opposition? To the contrary, analysts had quite correctly perceived at thetime that the Suharto government still had a price to pay for the underlyingresentment to its rule, harboured by Indonesia’s politically excluded anddisadvantaged classes. Seismic shifts were destined to occur in the Tectonicplates of Indonesian politics, as long suppressed resentments of Suharto’s ruleand intra-elite machinations were eventually to erupt into the open and bringabout the demise of President Suharto and his New Order. The 1997 electioncontest had set in motion a new dynamic, providing an early example of agitationby Indonesia’s excluded lower classes. By identifying with the concerns ofIndonesia’s hitherto disenfranchised ‘floating mass’, Indonesia’s elite therebyhad shifted political competition beyond the predictable boundaries of the NewOrder political system. The ramifications of this shift in politics were soon to befelt.NOTES1. By ‘the elite’ I mean the ‘political elite’, which includes the ruling elite (thepresident and his immediate circle) and supporting elite (ministers, bureaucrats,legislators, politicians, economics advisers and the like) within the state. It alsoincludes leaders of non-government organisations and high-profile intellectuals,government opponents, and dissidents, who interact with the state elite, arerecognised for their contribution to national discourse, or are involved in elite-levelpolitical negotiation and contest.2. Tiras, 2 November 1995; Ummat, 27 November and 11 December 1995; Gatra, 11November 1995; Tempo, 4 June 1994.