 In 1973, the government 'obliged' the nine political parties of the time to fuse themselves into the Islamic United Development Party (PPP) and the nationalist Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI).The only other participant for all the elections held during the New Order regime was Golkar, the "functional group".In the run up to the election, the PPP worked hard to position itself as a party that was not extreme in its outlook, and that was not an opposition force, in an effort to bring about an open and participative political culture in which the party would play a more meaningful political role.