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Involvement in the Indonesian National Party

On 4 July 1927, Sukarno with his friends from the Algemeene Studieclub established a pro-independence party, the Indonesian National Party (PNI), of which Sukarno was elected the first leader. The party advocated independence for Indonesia, and opposed imperialism and capitalism because it opined that both systems worsened the life of Indonesian people. The party also advocated secularism and unity amongst the many different ethnicities in the Dutch East Indies, to establish a united Indonesia. Sukarno also hoped that Japan would commence a war against the western powers and that Indonesia could then gain its independence with Japan's aid. Coming soon after the disintegration of Sarekat Islam in the early 1920s and the crushing of the Indonesian Communist Party after its failed rebellion of 1926, the PNI began to attract a large number of followers, particularly among the new university-educated youths eager for broader freedoms and opportunities denied to them in the racist and constrictive political system of Dutch colonialism.