WITHER GOLKAR

The dust is still settling from the Indonesian election, with final voting results not expected until October 5th. Hopefully that will be just enough time for the coalition of fools, crooks and Islamists to disintegrate. Otherwise, they could make trouble for Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY).

Yesterday, (Golkar leader) Mr Akbar (Tandjung) huddled with top Golkar aides for a lunch meeting at which there was only one talking point: How to make life difficult for President Bambang.
Last night, the Golkar chief met Ms Megawati and her husband Taufik Kiemas at their home in South Jakarta to hone the plan.
The alliance proposed by Mr Akbar includes the same parties that backed Ms Megawati for the presidency.
Besides Golkar and PDI-P, it will also feature the Muslim-based United Development Party and the small Prosperous Peace Party.

I doubt that the opposition will hold together once SBY starts handing out cabinet positions. The parties backing his electoral opponent Megawati Sukarnoputri consisted of ex-dictator Suharto's Golkar, the PDI-P of former president Sukarno's daughter Megawati and the UDP, which is headed by the despicable Hamzah Haz. There is not much tying them together, other than the fact that they are not parties you would trust in power.

The Straits Times suggests that the coalition will likely fracture rather quickly.

...splits within Golkar and PDI-P are deepening, blunting the force of their threat.
Significantly also, Mr Bambang's continued strong showing in the polls is strengthening his hand in dealing with a potentially hostile legislature, where his Democrat Party-based alliance has only 103 seats.
Mr Rachmat Witoelar, one of Mr Bambang's political advisers, said: 'The idea of a grand coalition is just an illusion. It is no big deal.
'They don't trust each other and they can't work together. The presidential election provides the best empirical proof of this. How then can you see them ganging up against the president?'
Mr Akbar concedes the point. 'That is my concern. Some of the legislators might be offered lucrative positions and could switch sides. Bambang is trying to break us up,' he said.

A word of advice for Mr Akbar, I wouldn't worry too much about a fracturing of the coalition, I'd be more concerned about a fracturing of Golkar.

The demise of the coalition is inevitable, the only real question is how long it may take to happen. There's no political bond holding its membership together. The PDI-P is pretty much just Megawati's personal political vehicle. While the UDP's Islamist nature does not make it a natural partner for either the secular Golkar or PDI-P.

Golkar, meanwhile, is mostly comprised of opportunists. Hence, it is the most vulnerable to internal splits. It is the former party of power and many of its members miss that; it is unlikely that all of them will be happy to remain as an opposition.

The fissures in the Golkar party became apparent during the presidential campaign, with several members being censured by the party after they decided to back SBY. Now that he has gained the presidency, I expect there will be an even larger exodus.

My political predictions are very hit-and-miss, but I'm willing to bet on this one.

When a former dictatorial ruling party loses its dictator, it generally has little to hold it together except for the prospect of keeping power as a united front. If it is unable to do that, then it loses its reason for existence.

The same thing has happened elsewhere. The most notable recent case in Asia was probably the 1994 fracture of Taiwan's Kuomintang, although it has also happened with the Eastern Bloc's Communist parties and, over a much longer period, Argentina's Peronists.

So, regardless of Akbar's current bluster, I expect Suharto's New Order will rapidly be getting a lot older.