Party Politics and the Media: Creating a New Dual Identity for Golkar

In 2004 the Golkar Party re-emerged as the strongest party in Indonesia when it returned to the top of the voting tally in the 2004 general election. One of the reasons that have been widely overlooked in explanations of the election results is the increasingly influential role of the media. This article will close this gap and argue that the media has directly contributed to Golkar’s good electoral performance in 2004 as it helped the former regime party to communicate a major image change to the general public. As this article will demonstrate, Golkar transformed itself between 1999 and 2004 from a party that was almost exclusively associated with the New Order to a party with a “dual identity”, somewhere between nostalgic status quo sentiment and modern democratic ideas. This new identity has helped the party to maintain its electoral appeal in the face of increasing anti-party sentiment in Indonesia.