An (alternative) politics of the poor has been the political position of the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD) since it was established. This was a politics with the perspective that any changes and any victory to be won by the poor must be based on the people’s own strength, on the strength of the movement. This perspective has been abandoned by a section of the leadership of the PRD – those calling themselves the majority in the PRD – in accord with their interest in liquidating themselves (ideologically, politically, organizationally) into an electoral unity with a fake reformist party, an ally of the government, a government which is the agent of imperialism. All this in order have the opportunity to get into parliament.
Because of this, those of us who refuse to abandon this politics of the poor, and who reject the path of parliamentarist opportunism have taken the name the Political Committee of the Poor-PRD (KPRM-PRD). The formation of the KPRM-PRD began as a result of coercion when, using the position/authority of a majority, which then became the internal position of the PRD, forced a division/split of the party: either supporting parliamentarist opportunism or to build a peoples movement.
We now understand this undemocratic decision to split the party as the destructive consequence of their opportunist political perspective. For the KPRM-PRD the more important pressing need is to play a concrete role in the development of a politics of the poor together with other forces in the movement, building that kind of unity.
Yet, even so, this does not mean that the KPRM-PRD is washing its hands of the problem of the destruction of the politics of the poor perspective inside the PRD. While helping to build the peoples movement, we will continue the internal struggle to win back the PRD as an instrument of struggle for the politics of the poor.
In the current economic and political situation, the movement faces the challenge of evaluating the situation and taking responsibility [to lead]. The people day by day become clearer on the accumulating problems that they face. So the responsibility increases for the movement to show the links between these problems and the role of imperialist oppression. We must be able to go beyond and pierce through the thousands of illusions, that are always being strengthened, and which disguise the subservience of our rulers to imperialist interests.
Hopes for genuine change for the people will grow if the peoples own strength (with activists from the movement among them) are capable of creating a network of resistance among the people that is broad and united.
The concrete manifestation of the politics of the poor is the broadening and unifying of the peoples resistance, a unifying of the peoples mobilizations raising up demands and solutions to the socio-economic problems of the people. These mobilizations must grow and enter into every political arena of the poor, and the elections are just one of these. And indeed no matter whatever the political movement of the poor may expre3ss itself in, the primary thing that cannot be compromised is the refusal to suffer any interference, to suffer any subordination (so to remain free of the influence) and the refusal to fuse with the pro-imperialist government, the army, remnants of the New Order or fake reformists.
Yes, the politics of the poor is an alternative, a rival perspective based on the strength of the peoples own resistance, based non the principles of non-cooperation and non-cooptation with the enemies of the people. No matter how difficult, the building of the peoples own strength to resist must be carried out, the problems must be overcome; this task cannot be avoided. The method of three monthly mobilizations is just one method which we are putting forward, and can still be further developed, to extend the resistance of the people, to awaken political consciousness, while concretizing it in the struggle method of the people; to make their demands through mass mobilization.
In the name of an easy path to power (with the justification that revolution can be carried out from above). Including through parliamentarist opportunism, is truly an abandonment of the tru struggle of the people, is truly cutting oneself away from a politics in solidarity with the people.
* From PEMBEBASAN (Liberation) (published by KPRM-PRD)
January, 2008.
Indonesia: Reject Parliamentarism and Opportunism
By Sam King
Jakarta: On January 31 the Struggle Committee of the Poor (KPRM) wing of the People’s Democratic Party (PRD) today made its public launch under the banner of “Reject Co-option and Co-operation with remnants of the New Order [military dictatorship of General Suharto], the military and the fake reformists; unite and stand up for an alternative politics of the poor.”
The launch was organised to promote the KPRM-PRD’s view that meaningful social change in Indonesia can only be achieved through political struggle by the mass of the Indonesia’s 236 million, mostly poor people.
According to KPRM-PRD leader Danial Indrakusuma relating to the rising movement of localised, spontaneous struggles throughout Indonesia is the key to building such popular struggle.
Indrakusuma told Green Left Weekly “economic” struggle like workers strikes, peasant land claims or pricing disputes and struggles by urban poor communities such as against housing demolitions continue to rise and have done so since 1998. “That is the prize for having overthrown [the] Suharto” Military dictatorship in 1998.
The KPRM-PRD views rising economic struggle as a popular response to the policies imposed on Indonesia by international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation - however virtually none of the leaderships of these mostly local and sectoral movements view their struggles as either national, international or even political issues.
KPRM-PRD speakers repeated their political position that the organised left must orient primarily towards the local spontaneous movements in order to help bring these into national politics and help them unite at a national level. They argued that only an uncompromising political stance can provide the mass movements with the political arguments needed to fight-back against the root cause of all the economic grievances - the subjugation of Indonesia to the needs of foreign capitalists.
The meeting was attended by representatives of like minded leftist organisations including the Indonesian Student Union (SMI), Indonesian Federation of Transport Workers (FBTI), Poor People’s Alliance (ARM), Left House (Rumah Kiri), Alliance for Workers Demands (ABM), People’s Democratic Party – National Liberation Party of Struggle (PRD-PAPERNAS), National Student Front (FMN), Friends of the Earth Indonesia (WALHI), and the Independent Journalists Alliance (AJI),
Spokesperson Zely Ariane presented the KPRM-PRD position paper entitled “responsibility of the KPRM-PRD to the People and the Democratic Movement.” Ariane told Green Left the KPRM needed to open a public forum on their political views after as they were expelled from the Central Leadership Committee of the People’s Democratic Party for their political views in July 2007.
The position paper is critical of what it describes as a tendency in the left movement towards “parliamentarism” (viewing parliamentary representation as the primary method of creating social change) and opportunism (hiding or abandoning political views in order to more easily advance ones position). An example given of this tendency in the movement was that the last 5 chairpersons of the PRD have all joined mainstream electoral parties.
According to the KPRM-PRD such “electoralism” marches arm in arm with its necessary counterpart – “opportunism”. Ariane told Green Left “that is now the dominant trend among the PRD-PAPERNAS” lead by Dita Sari. PRD-PAPERNAS (also present at the forum) is currently seeking electoral coalition with the Democracy Renewal Party (PDP) and the Star Reform Party (PBR) neither of which have a historical connection to the left.
Laksamana Sukardi, the central leader and coordinator of the PDP Central Leadership Committee is currently being investigated on corruption charges stemming from his time as the Minister for State Enterprises in the cabinet of Megawati Sukarnoputri.
The PBR members of parliament voted for the new foreign investment laws in 2007 that promise equal treatment be given by the government towards domestic and foreign investors.
On behalf of the PRD-PAPERNAS Binbin Firmansyah told the forum “we are intervening in the election with the tactic of a coalition with a bourgeois party. While we already know that party is rotten and not revolutionary however we must continue to intervene in order to gain a bigger platform. At this moment the movement does not have a position on the platform of mainstream politics.” Binbin explained “The movement is everywhere but they still look towards the bourgeois political stage [the election]. We can not just leave that stage [to the bourgeoisie and] to be embraced by the people.”
Apart from clarifying its own perspectives and the split in the PRD, the KPRM-PRD argues the movement as a whole needs to understand the division between parliamentarism and opportunism on the one hand and “politics of the poor” on the other – arguing it is not only an internal issue of the PRD.
The first issue since June 2006 of the PRD’s newspaper Pembebasan (Liberation) was launched at the same time.