Before former President Soeharto stepped down from power on May 1998, Megawati Soekarnoputri and her Indonesian Democratic Party in Struggle (PDI-P) have been my favorite politicians.
The reason was because Megawati and PDI-P adopted an independent policy towards the authoritarian government, and was "crushed" them on 27 July 1996. In 1999 the first democratic election was held and PDI-P won the majority vote and Megawati became Vice President that year, then President in 2001.
During the five years that follows, performances of Megawati and PDI-P were not different from any other politicians and political parties, i.e. corruption, incompetent officials, sales of state owned companies, etc. Besides, the party totally rely on Megawati, her husband, daughter Puan. No serious efforts were made to regenerate the party.
As a result, Soeharto's Golkar Party won with 25% and PDI-P 18%. Although the Democrat Party (PD) only got 7% however its founder former Coordinating Minister of Politics, Laws and Security Soesilo Bambang Yudoyono (SBY) won 60% in the presidential election. Megawati was very disappointed and announced that PDI-P became an opposition party.
SBY and PD formed a coalition government with Golkar and several Islamic based parties which performed quite well in the following 5 years.
In the 2009 general election, the PD won with 25% votes, followed by Golkar (2nd.) and PDI-P (3rd.) and SBY got 60% votes in the presidential election.
While other political parties have changed leadership, PDI-P only stick to Megawati, her husband, daughter and brother. This was confirmed during the party's recent congress in Bali which re-elected Megawati as Chairperson who handpicked other leaders of the party, and emphasized that PDI-P will remain as an opposition party.
Considering the above and the fact that people are getting more and more smarter every day, unless serious efforts are made to prepare newer, younger, better educated and quality leaders, PDI-P's future political role would be very difficult, or almost impossible, to predict.
