Where Indonesia stands after 17 years of Reformasi

Yesterday, May 21, marked the 17th anniversary of Indonesia’s post-Suharto democratic era. In those 17 years, the country has seen five legislative and three direct presidential elections. Some central government powers have been devolved to the provinces, and former President Suharto’s three-party system has been opened up. So, how do things stand now?

Indonesia possesses all the structures of a typical representative democracy. Institutions central to effective democratic performance have been re-formed, if not created from scratch — the Corruption Eradication Commission being a notable example. The House of Representatives (DPR) is no longer a rubber stamp, thanks to a series of constitutional amendments.

In theory, a strong legislative body should maximise the government’s accountability to the people. However, a nationwide survey conducted by Populi Center last January found that the House was perceived as the most corrupt state institution and that most respondents doubted its capacity to represent the people.

The lack of public trust in the DPR is a serious defect in Indonesia’s reformed democracy. Trust is the last thing the House is likely to receive when many members are regularly implicated in corruption scandals.

But the legislators are not the only rotten apples. It cannot be denied that the people connive in the corruption of their representatives, even before their election. Hence, it is unrealistic for people to demand high standards from lawmakers when many of them expect to have their votes “bought” by candidates at election time. No fewer than 52 per cent of the reported violations during last year’s legislative elections comprised instances where campaigning candidates distributed money to their constituents. The actual percentage could be higher if unreported cases were to be taken into account.

While the president is now directly elected by the people, there are signs that the quality of the election process has diminished. When the country held its first presidential election in 2004, there were five presidential candidates with their respective running mates. Five years later, only three presidential candidates entered the fray, while last year the number went down to two.

Admittedly, the 2004 presidential election was different, in the sense that the threshold required for a political party or coalition to nominate a candidate was 5 per cent of the popular vote, while by the next election in 2009, it had been altered to 20 per cent. The threshold was the same last year.

As Indonesia does not have a two-party system like the United States, for example, the lack of choice in the last presidential election represented an attenuation of quality in the political system, suggesting a failure in effecting regeneration. Both the lack of public trust in the legislature and the stunted regeneration of political leadership reflect the country’s parochial political culture, essentially unchanged from Suharto’s reign.

It was only last week that the Democratic Party’s fourth congress in Surabaya unanimously elected former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as its chairman, an inevitable outcome when there was no other contender.

Dr Yudhoyono’s election as chairman was perhaps a foregone conclusion even before the congress, given his family’s powerful influence within the party. It was also unthinkable that the only president the party has produced should fail to be re-elected as chairman. However, one cannot help thinking that Dr Yudhoyono’s sole candidacy came about through machination, designed to spare the somewhat sensitive leader the “indignity” of having to win through a voting mechanism.

Curiously, the allergy to voting is a widespread phenomenon in Indonesian politics since, prior to her re-election as chairperson of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Ms Megawati Soekarnoputri lambasted voting as an “imported Western custom”. In apparent disdain of Western-style democracy, the PDI-P even skipped the nominal election process and reinstalled Ms Megawati unanimously as chairperson for the fourth consecutive term since 1998.

Ms Megawati also said the “Indonesian” way of reaching decisions is through “musyawarah untuk mufakat” (deliberation towards consensus) and “gotong royong” (communal effort), both of which were two concepts used by Suharto to silence his critics and impose his autocratic will on the nation for three decades.

Suharto’s definition of consensus is markedly different from that of the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who mocked it as “something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects”. His “mufakat” (consensual decision-making) was closer to “something in which he believed, but no one else dared dispute”. It remains unclear what Ms Megawati’s understanding of the concept is, but given her professed aversion to anything Western, it is doubtful she had Thatcher’s in mind.

Seventeen years on, Indonesia’s venture into democracy has resulted in very little change in the country’s political culture; neither has it brought about any decline in its rampant corruption. It is not the political structures that fail the nation; rather it is the political culture. Perhaps Reformasi’s only saving grace is the greater press freedom Indonesians enjoy today. Let us hope it stays that way. THE JAKARTA GLOBE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Johannes Nugroho is a writer and businessman from Surabaya.