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PAN aims high despite declining influence
The National Mandate Party (PAN) remains confident that it will be an influential force in 2014 despite the fact that its popularity and influence has declined due to its lack of prominent and influential figures
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The National Mandate Party (PAN) remains confident that it will be an influential force in 2014 despite
the fact that its popularity and influence has declined due to its lack of prominent and influential figures.
The party is aiming to garner at least 10 percent of the vote in the legislative election, up from 7.7 percent in 2009. With this target, the party expects to be able to establish a coalition with other parties to endorse its chairman, Hatta Rajasa, as a presidential candidate.
'All parties, including PAN, want to be able to nominate its own presidential candidate. However, I want to stress that for now, we need to focus on achieving our target in the legislative election for seats in the House of Representatives,' Hatta told The Jakarta Post in a recent interview.
Despite PAN's ambition to compete in the presidential election with Hatta as a candidate, history shows that the party has never surpassed the double-digit percentage required to be considered a major player in Indonesia's political arena.
The main reason for PAN's underachievement is the fact that the party has never been popular among the country's lower income segments.
The party was established in 1998, when 50 scholars and intellectuals gathered at a forum called the People's Mandate Assembly (Mara) and decided to form a political party. Amien Rais, a noted political scholar and then-leader of Indonesia's second-largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, became PAN's first chairman with University of Indonesia (UI) economist Faisal Basri as the party's secretary-general.
Due to PAN's intellectual base, it only gained prominence among educated, middle-class voters and not among those of lower social standing, who account for a significant number of voters.
While other member-based parties, such as the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), have managed to maintain and expand their grassroot support base through direct communication, PAN has spent more time managing internal conflicts among its educated elite, with Amien playing the role of 'king'.
The combination of ongoing internal rifts and Amien's intervention in PAN's democratic process to appoint a chairman has done nothing for the party but trigger disappointment and the departure of some of its best members, including Faisal.
Realizing the error in being an elitist party, Hatta has tried, under his leadership, to repair the damage by introducing more direct incursions into the country's grass roots.
This initiative, which Hatta has termed Moving Forward With PAN (Mapan), provides entrepreneurship training and sponsorships for low-income people so that they can improve their livelihoods and economic situations.
'Our financing is not much, maybe around Rp 5 million [US$436.82] per entrepreneur, but this is enough to start a business. Our main concern is to improve skills and provide access to financing, which will eventually help to create more businesses and open more jobs in each electoral region,' Hatta said.
A second factor that has made PAN an underachiever in terms of political bargaining is the fact that the party has failed to produce new, influential and popular figures to attract votes. This issue forced the party to make a dramatic change in its recruiting policy for new members prior to the 2009 general election.
PAN began recruiting popular celebrities, such as comedian Eko Hendro Purnomo, or Eko Patrio, and male model Primus Yustisio, to boost its popularity among lower-class voters. With this strategy, the party managed to maintain its presence in the House and became the fifth-largest out of nine factions.
However, while PAN celebrities managed to secure House seats, the party had to endure the fact that some of its best politicians lost their legislative positions. A number of seasoned politicians, such as Alvin Lie, lost their seats after being beaten in the election by more popular but politically inexperienced celebrities.
Therefore, although PAN achieved some success, quantitatively speaking, it did so at the expense of quality. Moreover, on a number of crucial issues during the 2009-2014 legislative period, the party has always opted to play safe by voting with the ruling Democratic Party.
For this year's election, PAN has decided to maintain its policy to recruit celebrities for the sake of winning votes. The party's celebrity legislative candidates now include Indonesian Idol judge Anang Hermansyah and former model Desy Ratnasari.
As long as PAN favors celebrity over political experience and, thereby, quantity over quality, it is hard to see the party becoming a significant political player at the House during the next legislative period.
