Page 120 - SCANDAL AND DEMOCRACY

Media in Retreat 105

noted Jauhari, “at a critical moment,” journalists covering the meeting decided to
intervene. Shifting roles from observers to participants, they drew up a petition pro-
testing the seat’s award to the PWI, circulated it among reporters present, and inter-
rupted the meeting to deliver it. After this development, the commission finally
113
voted to eliminate the media seat from the Utusan Golongan.
The associations’ success had significance beyond its partisan context. They could
claim victory in blocking Golkar from installing a supporter in parliament since secur-
ing an MPR post for the PWI, an instrument of Suharto’s control, would have cost
the media professional distance and restored the PWI’s position as the official repre-
sentative of all journalists. More broadly, the battle united the jumble of new journal-
ists’ associations around a common goal clearly articulated in their statement to the
KPU: “The journalistic profession constitutes a fourth power (‘fourth estate’) that is
expected . . . to perform the function of control over the other three powers: execu-
tive, judicial, legislative.”
114
“Today, whether history takes note or not,” Jauhari said, “we have launched an
effort of no small significance to work together . . . to situate the press in its proper
place, that is, free from the three [branches of government].” Whether the media’s
sectoral seat would be granted to another Golkar supporter was also irrelevant. “What
matters,” Jauhari argued, “is that we have advanced one more step in our efforts to
position the media as the fourth estate in our democratic nation.”
115
This victory bore little relationship to actual reporting practices that, by default,
had helped skew the parliamentary elections toward Golkar. But it did draw a clear
dividing line between the news media and the state, which would become critical in
the final phase of the 1999 elections—the selection of the next president.

On the eve of Indonesia’s first democratic elections in over forty years, many saw
Suharto’s successor, B. J. Habibie, as a weak, transitional figure, and his party, Golkar,

as a discredited, fading force. Yet together they came remarkably close to retaining the
presidency and perpetuating Golkar’s lock on power. As the electoral process moved
into selection of the president, the ruling party enjoyed advantages in the appointive
bloc, strengths in coalition building, and pluralities in the outer islands. By the fi nal
116

ratification of the count on July 28, Golkar—though trailing the top opposition party,
PDIP, in the popular vote by double digits—seemed poised for its seventh presidential
win. With little violence or visible fraud, the party had manipulated the parliamentary
elections, widely hailed as “free and fair,” to produce an outcome as carefully engi-
neered as any under the New Order.
Throughout this period, Indonesia’s media bore witness to an extraordinarily
contentious process—from the incumbent parliament’s debates over the transition
rules to their implementation in the June 1999 ballot. During the long count that fol-
lowed, the media, influenced by factors ranging from owner biases and the seeming
complacency of opposition leaders to fears of invalidating the elections and thereby
sparking riots, downplayed reports of irregularities that were indicators of systematic
fraud.
117
In the realm of electoral politics at least, Indonesia, with its newly freed media,
appeared to be back where it had started, tacitly accepting a rigged process in the
name of stability and compromise. This caution aided Golkar’s manipulation, threat-
ening the gains of a year of democratic reform, including progress in institutional-
izing the uncertain outcomes inherent in fair and open contestation. After a year of
electoral reform and, at times, reckless experimentation with their new freedom, the