Golkar
골카르
A centre to centre-right secular-nationalist party in Indonesia, whose full name is the Party of Functional Groups; Golkar is its abbreviation. It began in 1964 as a federation of functional groups that the armed forces created against the Communist Party, and Suharto turned it into his electoral machine, making it the ruling organisation of the New Order from 1971 to 1999, when Indonesia was effectively a one-party state. Since Suharto's fall in 1998 it has kept a place in governing coalitions and remains the oldest extant party in Indonesia.
In depth
In 1959 President Sukarno introduced Guided Democracy, in which so-called functional groups would play a role in government in place of political parties. The armed forces supported it as a counterweight to the growing Communist Party of Indonesia, and built around the anti-communist trade union Soksi the Joint Secretariat of Functional Groups, officially established on 20 October 1964. By 1968 there were almost 250 organisations under its umbrella.
Suharto, president from 1968, belonged to no party because of his military background, but needed one for re-election and settled on Golkar. His closest associate Ali Murtopo, under Suharto's supervision, turned the federation of NGOs into a political party; Golkar portrayed itself as non-ideological, promising "economic development" and "stability", and encouraged civil servants to vote for it as a sign of loyalty to the government. It won 62 percent in the first election of 1971, then 62 percent in 1977, 64 in 1982, 73 in 1987, 68 in 1992 and 74 in 1997. After 1973 only two other parties were allowed, and Indonesia was effectively a one-party state. In 1978 Suharto took full control of the party as chairman of the executive board, a post above even the party chairman, and five of the six Golkar chairmen of the New Order were military officers.
After Suharto resigned in May 1998, a special congress in July elected Akbar Tandjung as chairman, the first chairman chosen democratically, and the executive board was abolished. In the first democratic election of 1999 Golkar came second with 20 percent behind Megawati's PDI-P, and that year, when the accountability speech of Suharto's successor B. J. Habibie was rejected with some Golkar members voting against it, Habibie withdrew his candidacy. Golkar then joined the Wahid and Megawati governments, became the largest party again in the 2004 election, and its member Jusuf Kalla became vice president. In 2016 it joined the Joko Widodo administration.