Introduction

The following discussion was written based on
interviews conducted by Jurnal Bersatu (Journal of
Unity) editorial staff with a number of people’s
organisations. The spectrum and “political
groupings” along with the sectors and class of
organisation were several of the considerations in
the choice of the groups that were interviewed.
Nevertheless there were two organisations – the
People’s Movement Alliance for Agrarian Reform
(AGRA) and the United People’s Party (PPR) who on
the eve of the publication of this journal were
unable to be interviewed.

Social-political organisations

2. Zely Ariane, Spokesperson People’s Democratic
Party-Political Committee of the Poor (KPRM-PRD)

The economic livelihood of the people is
deteriorating as a consequence of the neoliberal
economic policies that have been pursued since the
Suharto era. The burden of the foreign debt is
sapping the state budget and there is no funding
portion that is adequate to improve the people’s
productive forces. In addition to this, the capacity
of domestic industrial to absorb the productive
forces has also been destroyed by foreign capital
that has no interest in investing its capital to
develop the national industry and prefers to
speculate on the financial markets, in portfolios,
bonds and shares. The destruction of the people’s
purchasing power, unemployment, mass dismissals and
outsourcing are a consequence of this neoliberal
economic model.

In the political field meanwhile, since the fall of
former President Gus Dur (Abdurrahman Wahid), there
are three political forces that are dominant: 1) the
New Order forces in the shape of the Golkar Party;
2) the fake reformists, particularly those parties
that became parasites on the 1998 reform movement
and afterwards; and 3) the military. The fall of Gus
Dur itself was a reflection of how the military
supported the first and second groups to bring Gus
Dur down. And now, the political tendency of these
three groups is to become the agents of foreign
capital.

The principle issues facing the people at the moment

The source of the people’s problems at the moment is
the low level of their productive capacity. There
are a number of factors that have become obstacles
to the people’s productivity, such as the low levels
of education and health along with poor
infrastructure; low wage levels, problems with the
quality of agricultural land, the provision of
capital, technology, prices and distribution; the
lack of employment opportunities and so forth. So in
the midst of the destruction of the people’s
purchasing power, the thing that could unite all of
the above problems is the issue of the increase in
the price of basic commodities.

State of the people’s movement

Currently there are two significant spectrums within
the movement. First, the movements that still have a
link with those of the 1980s and 1990s, such as the
Green Indonesia Union (SHI), the Working People’s
Association (PRP), the Workers Challenge Alliance
(ABM), the Indonesian Farmers Federation (FSPI), the
National Students Front (FMN) and so forth. This
spectrum is more open to programs to solve
neoliberalism radically or in stages and their
action committees have demands that are quite
radical politically. Second, the spontaneous,
fragmented and economist movement, which does not
have or only has a small link with the movements of
the 1980s and 1990s. Included within this movement
is the response or resistance by the people that
statistically could reach the thousands every month.
Their actions are also becoming richer with
revolutionary methods such as occupations, strikes
and so forth. This spectrum is far broader and must
be united and influenced by the first spectrum of
the movement.

Aims of the struggle

The KPRM-PRD’s aim is to struggle for a socialist
society, because socialism is the one and only
solution to capitalism that is destroying humanity’s
future. Under capitalism, as a result of the
ownership and control by a small handful of people
over the companies that produce products needed by
humanity, suffering is occurring in the midst of an
abundance of goods. This ownership is the principle
obstacle to improving human productivity, a basis
for which has already been provided by advances in
scientific knowledge and technology.

Now, the development of socialism has two
prerequisites. First, democracy, that guarantees the
fullest possible direct participation of the people
and that does not end in elections or the ballot
paper, such as referendums and communal councils ala
Venezuela. Second, the centralisation of all funding
components under the state and under the control of
the people. This is necessary to: 1) fund the
emergency needs of the people, which if they are not
immediately addressed could reduce the people’s
productivity; and 2) funding national
industrialisation by and for the people.

People’s movement unity

Movement unity is absolutely essential to provide
self-confidence to the people and to build the
people’s hopes to take power. The pressing issues
are: 1) laying aside sectarianism and
preconceptions; 2) uniting those programs of
struggle that can be agreed upon; and 3) organising
regular conferences to discuss and debate
scientifically the programs that are unable or not
yet able to be unified.

Political parties

Political parties are a necessity for the movement
and their function is political education for the
poor to build their own forces. Under bourgeois
representative democracy, the movement is given an
opportunity to form political parties and step
forward as participants in elections, as if gaining
seats in the parliament is only a way to advance the
democratic struggle. Real change cannot be achieved
through parliament. Here, these efforts to get into
parliament will only be beneficial to the people, if
it is based on the necessity to motivate the direct
involvement of the people and confront the people
with the state as the obstacle to their
participation. Without this, movement parties will
become no different to the other traditional
parties, which believe that change can be achieved
only by gaining seats in the parliament.

Currently, the reality is that a number of elements
in the second spectrum of the movement have already
started to form their own political parties and this
represents a form of political advance for the
movement, because in the past the movement has been
faced by the problem of an anti-party sentiment. The
current problem however is no longer the
establishment of a party, but instead one of unity.
Because without unity, it will impossible for these
parties to succeed in becoming electoral
participants, bearing in mind that the present
obstacles to becoming a contestant in the elections
can only be broken down with united mobilisations.
This is what the National Liberation Party of Unity
(Papernas) has failed to do.

The 2009 elections

Given the current composition of the participants in
the 2009 general elections and the increasing
cooling of the people’s enthusiasm towards
elections, it is impossible for the 2009 elections
to answer the people’s problems. Meanwhile
alternative party forces such as the United People’s
Party (PPR), who are not yet very popular, and
Papernas, whose structure is inadequate as a result
of a split within its structures that opposed
forming a coalition, will find it difficult to take
part in the elections. Moreover Papernas’s image has
been destroyed as a consequence of its plan to merge
with the Islamic based Star Reform Party (PBR) —
which has now been rejected by the PBR — and
carrying out a secret negotiations to form colation
with the Democratic Party of Reform (PDP, a split
off from the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle).

With regard to Papernas and its other activities
directed to joining the traditional political
parties, they have begun to be coopted by the elite,
the fake reformists and even remnants of the New
Order. Politics such as this represent a
demoralisation on the part of activities in the
first spectrum of the movement, that do not want to
think hard about how to cultivate the current and
advantageous objective situation and also because of
careerist opportunism. This last point cannot be
ignored, because it will destroy the movement and
the people’s trust in its own forces and political
alternatives. They must be criticised and if it
become increasingly detrimental, must be opposed.

The position that must be taken with regard to the
2009 elections is to unite all the political
expressions of the people’s struggle and the
movements under coalitions, conferences and the
unification of mobilisations with various demands
and solutions for the people, in order to challenge
the hegemony of the existing parties and the
remnants of the old elite forces. Without uniting
this political expression, all of the election
calls, weather they are for a boycott or to elect
the PPR or Papernas, will not be able to be
successfully undertaken or gain the support of the
people.