Page 131 - SCANDAL AND DEMOCRACY

116 Chapter 6

At this point, the election was, by most accounts, Megawati’s to lose. But both she
and her party, PDIP, were still reluctant to forge alliances. Going into the MPR vote,
PDIP’s largest ally was the National Awakening Party (Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa,
PKB), controlling fifty-one seats and led by Muslim cleric Abdurrahman Wahid. Gol-
kar, by contrast, had formed a coalition with the Muslim parties of the Central Axis
group, who together controlled 150 seats and were determined to keep Megawati
out of the presidency. On the eve of the ballot, as delegates bustled around making
deals, the 695 members of the MPR remained roughly divided between the these two
opposing alliances, with the thirty-eight representatives from the military sitting on
the fence.
With Habibie out and Megawati stalemated, the only remaining viable candidate
was Wahid himself. But few viewed the near-blind, outspoken cleric as a serious con-
tender. His PKB had won only 10 percent of the 462 DPR seats, or 7 percent of the
wider 695-member plenary parliament (MPR). Even if Wahid garnered additional
support for his own candidacy, insiders still expected him to end up throwing his
votes behind Megawati.
76
PDIP’s delegates seemed confident of victory. According to one correspondent,
their “earlier secret deals with [Akbar Tanjung’s] wing of Golkar, and their firm
belief that Mr. Wahid [would] back down,” led PDIP leaders to believe they had
well over the 348 votes needed to win the presidency. They retired for the night on
October 19, apparently unconcerned by the ongoing negotiations among the other
parties.
77
When PDIP’s delegates arrived at the MPR complex for the scheduled presidential
vote the next morning, the situation took them—and nearly everyone else—by sur-
prise. During the night, Wahid had formed an alliance with the head of the National
Mandate Party, Amien Rais, and other Central Axis leaders. Fifteen minutes before
the vote, he struck a bargain with the dominant Golkar faction, gaining “at least 150
votes in return for [his] support for their vice-presidential candidate.” In exchange,
he reportedly promised Golkar “10 seats in his 35-member cabinet.” With this final
78
burst of lobbying, and some last-minute politicking with the minor Bulan Bintang
party, Wahid won the presidency by a comfortable margin of sixty votes.
Megawati accepted her former ally’s surprising win without complaint. Outside,
however, the news set off a fresh wave of protests as thousands of her supporters
stormed through the streets surrounding parliament, burning tires and stoning secu-
rity forces. After losing the MPR chair to the National Mandate Party, the position of
79
DPR Speaker to Golkar, and now the presidency to Wahid, PDIP—although the win-
ner of the popular vote—was almost completely marginalized in the new government.
The situation had troubling implications for both the credibility of the 1999 elections
and the legitimacy of Wahid’s new administration.
The MPR’s next vote would decide the vice presidency, already promised by Wahid
to Golkar. Once again, however, concern over the reaction of the demonstrators out-
side their windows—and the public they represented—limited legislators’ freedom to
maneuver. After twenty-four hours of debate, they decided, with Wahid’s backing, to
make Megawati the new vice president. Celebrations broke out among her support-
ers. The oath-taking ceremony was a triumph for reformasi , as the MPR, now chaired
by the opposition leader Amien Rais, swore in two of the other main leaders in the
opposition movement that ousted Suharto—Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati
Sukarnoputri. After a quarter-century in power and months of skillful maneuvering,
Golkar had lost its lock on executive power.