Parties and Factions in Indonesia:

The Effects of Historical Legacies and

Ulla Fionna

Fellow at ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute

Email: ufionna@iseas.edu.sg

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Papers in this series are preliminary in nature and are intended to stimulate discussion and critical

comment. The Editorial Committee accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed,

which rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be

produced in any form without permission. Comments are welcomed and may be sent to the author(s).

Series Chairman

Tan Chin Tiong

Series Editor

Francis E. Hutchinson

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INTRODUCTION

Political parties are an important building block in Indonesia’s political system. Compared to

their counterparts in neighbouring countries such as Thailand or the Philippines, Indonesian

meaningful engagement with ordinary citizens. Many of them are highly leader-centric at the

top, but largely clientelistic at the grassroots (Tomsa, 2013). All in all, internal dynamics in

Indonesian parties tend to be driven primarily by rent-seeking and the quest for patronage

rather than ideological or programmatic debates.

Factionalism in Indonesian parties is largely a reflection of their broader organizational

characteristics. Factional divisions exist in most parties, but they are usually fluid and based

on clientelistic loyalties or perceived opportunities for access to patronage rather than the

representation of social cleavages, competing ideological paradigms or regional affiliations.

In the formative years of the current party system, which emerged in the aftermath of the fall

disputes internally. Some parties have been more successful in handling this challenge than

others, thereby exposing not only subtle differences in the nature of factionalism between

individual parties, but also in the parties’ ability to accommodate different interests within

one organization.

This paper distinguishes between programmatic and clientelistic or patronage-driven

factionalism and locates the roots of these types of factionalism in the Indonesian party

system arising from a mix of historical legacies and institutional developments after

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democratization in 1998. It argues that even though traces of programmatically infused

factionalism still persist in some parties, the dominant variant of factionalism in Indonesia

Organizationally, the paper begins with an overview of the evolution of Indonesia’s party

system, distinguishing between six core parties that have successfully competed in all post-

Suharto elections (1999, 2004, 2009 and 2104) and four newer parties that were only formed

after the 1999 election. The paper then identifies three main factors that account for the

peculiar pattern of factionalism prevalent in Indonesia today. The first two factors are the

prominent and still politicized social cleavage structure and the deeply entrenched culture of

patronage politics inherited from the preceding authoritarian regime. The third factor that has

shaped patterns of factionalism in Indonesia is the institutional framework that underpins the

Indonesia has had four distinct party systems since achieving its political independence in

1945. Each of these systems had its origins in a critical juncture that altered not only the

nature of the party system, but also the entire regime structure for years to come. But despite

Indonesia’s tumultuous history with multiple deeply felt ruptures, some individual parties

have managed to survive through several of the very different party systems. Indeed, a

number of Indonesia’s contemporary parties can traced their origins back to as far as the

country’s immediate post-independence period, while others were formed during the

authoritarian New Order era (1966-1998). Overall, the longevity of these parties is a

testimony to the relatively weak influence of factionalism on party politics.

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The first Indonesian party system emerged during and after the revolutionary war against the

Dutch (1945-1949). When the first post-independence election was held in 1955, the system

concept of Guided Democracy. Parliament was disbanded in 1958 and some parties including

the largest Islamic party Masyumi were banned in 1960. Most other parties continued to exist

but had no political influence. The only exception was the Indonesian Communist Party

(Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI) which kept growing in stature throughout Guided

Democracy, but its expansion came to a dramatic end in the aftermath of an aborted coup

attempt in 1965 and the ensuing anti-communist mass killings (Kammen and McGregor,

2012).

The events of 1965 spelt the end of Guided Democracy. In its place emerged Suharto’s

developmental authoritarian New Order regime which obliterated the PKI and prohibited the

society between political Islam and secularism as the two opposition parties were specifically

designed to represent the respective interests of the Islamic community (PPP) and secular and

Christian groups (PDI). Within the three parties of the New Order, factionalism was rife as

each of them struggled to accommodate a plethora of different groups and interests (see

below for more details).

The New Order regime ended in May 1998 when President Suharto resigned amid a severe

financial crisis and massive student protests. Under his successor, interim president B.J.

Habibie, restrictions on party formation were lifted and Indonesia embarked on a transition to

democracy that included some drastic crisis-ridden reforms in the early phase, founding

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elections in 1999, and four protracted rounds of constitutional reforms between 1999 and

2002 (Crouch, 2010; Horowitz, 2013). The reform process paved the way for a new trajectory

Despite the fragmentation, however, there are some indications of late that the party system is

actually stabilizing. Firstly, electoral volatility has remained relatively constant over the

years, hovering between 23.0 in 2004 and 26.3 at the most recent election in 2014

(Higashikata and Kawamura, 2015: 8). Secondly, the number of new parties entering the

legislature has continuously declined in the last two elections. Indeed, with only one new

party successful in winning seats in the DPR in 2014, the national party systems of 2009 and

2014 look remarkably similar. Thirdly, the 2014 election also finally saw an institutionally

induced convergence between local and national party systems, thereby ending years of

excessive and continuously growing fragmentation in local party systems (Tomsa, 2014).

And fourthly, there continues to be a discernible core of six parties that have now won seats

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clearly from the newer parties is the absence of a strong, almighty leader who concentrates

power in the hands of a single individual. The only exception here is the Indonesian

established in 1999, but it is effectively much older, tracing its organizational roots and socio-

political values back to the time before the current democratic era (Johnson Tan, 2013). The

other core parties share this organizational feature. The National Awakening Party (Partai

Kebangkitan Bangsa, PKB) and the National Mandate Party (Partai Amanat Nasional, PAN),

for example, have strong affinities with two parties from the 1950s, the Nahdlatul Ulama

(NU) and Masyumi. Golkar and PPP, of course, are state-sponsored products of the New

Order regime, whilst the Prosperous Justice Party (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera, PKS) emerged

out of a campus-based religious movement that originated in the 1970s.

The differences in the organizational development and institutional structures between the

overall the dominant pattern of factionalism in recent years has been shaped by what Sartori

evident in the newer, highly personalistic parties where factional dynamics revolve almost

exclusively around access to patronage resources distributed by the dominant leader. All in

all though, both the intensity of factionalism as well as its impact on broader party politics in

Indonesia has been fairly limited, especially when compared to other Southeast Asian

countries such as Thailand or the Philippines. The following sections will first outline the

main factors that account for this peculiar pattern of factionalism in Indonesia before

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illustrating some of the implications of this factionalism pattern for party politics and the

quality of democracy in Indonesia.

operating during that juncture to produce divergent outcomes’, for the formation of party

systems in new democracies. Compared to the many other parties that have come and gone

over the past four elections, the six core parties all had a head start at the time of the critical

juncture in 1998 because they could utilize pre-existing networks and structures based on

parties, mass organizations and social movements that had already been in existence for

decades. However, while they used this advantage to establish themselves as strong

contenders in the new democratic party system, they also inherited significant organizational

baggage including peculiar leadership structures and factional divisions derived from their

organizational trajectories before democratization.

Muhammadiyah was the backbone of Masyumi which was later banned by Sukarno. During

the New Order, NU and Muhammadiyah withdrew from formal party politics and the

instantly revived as both Muhammadiyah and NU urged their respective leaders to establish

their own new parties. The result was the formation of PAN and PKB.

By establishing themselves as the electoral vehicles for huge mass organizations, PAN and

PKB inherited a solid base of loyal followers, but they also inherited the internal frictions

inherent in these organizations. To a large extent these frictions revolved around clientelistic

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infrastructures failed because years of de-ideologization and the deliberate fragmentation of

civil society during the New Order had created very high barriers to mobilizing electoral

elections and the progressive tightening of the regulations for party formation.

laws initiated by interim president B.J. Habibie in 1998/99. Although drafted in haste, these

laws had path-defining characteristics. Not only did they determine the shape of the party

system as a fragmented multiparty system, but they also had a major impact on forms and

consequences of factionalism as politicians quickly came to treat political parties as vehicles

new parties, resulting in less splinters and more intense internal party factionalism. At the

same time, the introduction of direct presidential elections in 2004 also altered the incentive

structure for the formation of new parties. This section will examine the combined effects of

these institutional changes and trace their impact on the nature and scope of factionalism in

Indonesia.

The euphoria that came with the 1998 reform movement demanded a complete overhaul of

involved many considerations. On the one hand, the laws needed to incorporate the varying

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interests of the three parties represented in parliament at the time of the transition – Golkar,

PPP and PDI. On the other hand, they also needed to reflect the reform aspects demanded on

own political vehicles. As the new law required only 50 people as the minimum to found a

new party, the option was easy and attractive, especially compared to relying on the

unpredictability of furthering a political career in a major party. Moreover, parliamentary

representation was beckoning even with a miniscule share of the vote as the election laws

featured only a poorly designed electoral threshold which, rather than banning parties that

failed to reach the threshold from gaining seats in parliament, only banned these parties from

contesting the next election under the same name. As a result of this rather hastily formulated

regulatory framework, a multitude of new parties was formed in the run-up to the 1999

election. 48 parties eventually contested the poll and 21 won at least one seat in parliament.

regulation was finally revised to make it an effective parliamentary threshold. The most

recent election law enacted in 2012 also stipulated that any party that fails to pass the

threshold (by now revised to 3.5%) will not be eligible for seats in parliament.

The second hurdle consisted of new organisational requirements for the parties. In 1999, the

secession of East Timor as well as ongoing rebellions in Aceh and Papua had ignited fears of

greater national instability, which was reflected in efforts to reduce the possibility of regional

or ethnic parties that could form a base for communal conflicts (Hillman, 2012: 421). As

such, the 1999 Election Law had already required parties to have established branches in half

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of all provinces and half of the districts and municipalities in each of these. Although fears of

secessionism subsided in later years, the prerequisites for extensive organisation were

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these elections are cast directly for candidates rather than party symbols and parties remain

the main vehicles for nomination, there are significant incentives for ambitious individuals to

Second, the switch from a closed list PR system to a partially and eventually fully open list

system also weakened the position of parties vis-à-vis the candidates. As the open list system

means that a candidate’s victory is solely based on the number of votes, competition and

rivalry between candidates became fierce, particularly among those from the same party.

Observations from the 2014 legislative election revealed that candidates from the same party

would rather avoid each other and were more tolerant towards those from other parties.

Parties were also often unable or unwilling to support individual candidates in their

campaigns, turning much of the campaign into competition between individuals with no

effective links to the parties that nominated them. A significant side effect of this

development was that vote buying and other illicit campaign tactics by individual candidates

when the likes of Prabowo, Wiranto and Surya Paloh started building their parties, the new

opportunities were welcomed by many core party members who had affiliated with factions

that had lost recent battles for influence. Unsurprisingly then, the ranks of Gerindra, Hanura

and Nasdem were mostly filled with former members of the core parties rather than freshly

recruited new blood. At the same time though, the core parties themselves also devised new

strategies to try and keep those who had lost out in factional disputes within their parties. A

popular strategy was to expand leadership boards and give disgruntled members of losing

factions positions as deputy chairmen or heads of internal party departments (Mietzner, 2013:

119). However, as the next section will show, these strategies did not always work smoothly.

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Although the combined trends of fragmentation and personalization of electoral politics have

decentralization has made local chapters more assertive in recent years, central leadership

boards usually call the shots in the end. Moreover, parties also have the right to recall

members of their parliamentary caucuses if the latter are deemed to have violated party

instructions (Ziegenhain, 2015: 101). Taken together, the prominence of the parties in the

political system and the centralized organizational infrastructures have, by and large, helped

to contain the potential for overly excessive factionalism. Nevertheless, factionalism has left

its mark on Indonesian party politics, in at least two key areas: first, it has damaged the

internal coherence of individual parties and second, it has adversely affected party system

stability and the durability of coalitions.

Iskandar in the run-up to the 2009 election. As both sides repeatedly claimed to be the

legitimate leaders, the party proved incapable of resolving the split. Instead, it had to rely on

outside intervention in the form of court rulings and instructions by the General Election

Commission to at least be able to field candidates for the 2009 election. As a result of the

split, the party recorded its worst ever result and came close to fading into oblivion. It was

only after Wahid passed away in December 2009 that the party eventually rallied behind

Muhaimin. Since then, he has proven successful in restoring party unity, largely by appealing

to the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) supporters to reaffirm their strong emotional attachment to the

party. Muhaimin’s efforts to realign PKB more closely to this core identity has encouraged

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and convinced members to cast their differences aside. In addition, a much-needed injection

of funds from a business tycoon, Rusdi Kirana, also proved useful in boosting party

decision to back Prabowo during and after the 2014 presidential election – while Aburizal is

an avid Prabowo supporter, Agung had declared his support for Jokowi. After two national

congresses organized by each of the leaders and other internal measures had failed to

reconcile the two camps, the conflicting factions eventually decided to follow an order by the

Supreme Court and organized an Extraordinary Congress. Under pressure from President

Jokowi, the congress resulted in the election of Setya Novanto as new chairman, another

deeply entrenched oligarch with good connections to Jokowi’s right hand man Luhut

Panjaitan (Mietzner, 2016: 221).

Similarly, the 2014 election also left a divide in the PPP. Unlike Golkar however, the split in

victory at the Supreme Court in late 2015. But the government refused to recognize this

result, leading to yet another congress in February 2016 in which Romy was eventually