Indonesian Democracy Party–Struggle - PDI–P
The PDI–P is the successor party to one of the two other parties besides Golkar allowed to exist by the New Order: the Indonesian Democracy Party (PDI). The PDI emerged in 1973 from a fusion of two Christian parties: the Indonesian Christian Party (Parkindo) and the Catholic Party (Partai Katolik); and three secular parties: the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI), the League of the Supporters of Indonesian Independence (IPKI), and the Party of the Masses (Partai Murba). With no common ideological link among these constituent parties other than a commitment to Pancasila, the PDI was highly factionalized, torn by personality disputes, and held together only by direct government intervention into its internal affairs. For example, the IPKI had been strongly anti-PKI in the Old Order in contrast to the once-leftist Partai Murba.
The PNI, strongest in Jawa Timur and Jawa Tengah, was the largest of the five parties and the legatee of the late President Sukarno. With Sukarno’s gradual public rehabilitation as an “Independence Proclamation Hero” and the father of Pancasila, the PDI was not reluctant to trade upon the Sukarnoist heritage of the PNI, including recruiting several of Sukarno’s children as candidates and campaigners. Most prominent among them was his eldest daughter, Megawati Sukarnoputri, whose presence helped expand the PDI’s vote total in the 1992 elections. After she was elected party chair in 1993, Suharto began to see her as a greater threat and tried to have her removed, but she stood her ground. In 1996 the government backed a rival faction to forcibly eject Megawati and her supporters from party offices. She responded by founding the PDI–P to distinguish it from the New Order–backed PDI, which garnered only 3 percent of the vote in the 1997 elections. Because the PDI–P was not allowed to run in those elections, Megawati instructed her supporters to punish the rump PDI by voting for the PPP, which grew enormously as a result.
Both the PDI–P and the rump PDI competed in the 1999 elections, but with vastly different results. The PDI–P won the largest share with 33.7 percent (153 DPR seats), while the PDI languished with only 0.6 percent (two seats). Megawati became the frontrunner for the October 1999 presidential selection process in the MPR but lost to Abdurrahman Wahid, who then helped her get selected as vice president. When Wahid was removed from office in 2001, she became president until 2004, when she was defeated in direct elections by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
The PDI–P’s vote in the 2004 legislative elections suffered as well, losing almost half of its support to fall to 18.5 percent (109 DPR seats), as a result of public disappointment with her performance as president, her husband Taufik Kiemas’s reputation for corruption, and the party as a whole. Despite these setbacks, Megawati was reelected party chair at the 2005 congress, prompting some disaffected leaders led by Laksamana Sukardi to bolt and found the Democracy Renewal Party (PDP). In the 2009 legislative elections, the PDI–P’s support dropped further to 14 percent (94 DPR seats) as a result of competition from the Democrat, Gerindra, and Hanura parties.
Megawati, this time running with Prabowo Subianto, was defeated in a rematch with Yudhoyono in the 2009 presidential election.
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