The problem with Indonesian democracy
By Jacqueline Hicks
JAKARTA - August's independence day holiday was particularly stressful for
Indonesia's political elite. As the rest of the country was drifting back to
work after the long weekend, political party leaders were making last minute
changes to the roster of candidates they will field in next year's legislative
elections.
Eleventh-hour lobbying among party cadres saw certain party leaders running up
to the Election Commission's doors at one minute to midnight on the final day
of registration. With the selection process now complete, important decisions
have been made about who will govern Indonesia for the next five years before
the first vote has even been cast.
While attention is focused on the possible outcome of the
September presidential elections, in which incumbent Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
is running for re-election, the result of April's legislative elections will be
as, if not more, significant to the country's political direction. Although
Indonesia has a presidential political system, it is the legislature, the Dewan
Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR), which holds the de facto balance of power.
Yudhoyono's government is now backed by a coalition of eight political parties,
accounting for 404 of the DPR's 550 seats. However, in practice these parties
have not always supported Yudhoyono-backed legislation. The DPR has either
watered down or blocked a new investment law, mining bill and labor bill during
his tenure. The DPR has also rejected some of his top appointments, including
recently his chosen candidate to serve as governor of Bank Indonesia.
Although the government can stall legislation through procedural delays, the
parliament has greater formal powers. Indonesian presidents do not have a veto
over legislation - bills automatically become law after 30 days whether or not
the president has signed them. Nor is there an upper house through which bills
must pass before they become law, as in many other countries. This all means
that the political parties in general, and the individual legislators in
particular, have a constitutionally disproportionate influence over how the
country is run.
During the authoritarian Suharto regime, which ruled the country with an iron
fist for 32 years, parliament rarely, if ever, disagreed with the president.
Empowering the legislature in relation to the executive was an important
milestone in the post-Suharto reforms ushered in after his 1998 ouster. But
there is now a groundswell of opinion that the pendulum has swung too far the
other way in favor of the DPR.
In early September, Constitutional Court judges declared their support for a
constitutional amendment to address the legislature's powers and on September 8
an agreement was reached to form a constitutional commission which could
empower a second chamber, the Dewan Perwakilan Dearah (DPD), to act as a check
on the DPR. The commission's work is expected to be long, arduous and contested
and will probably take years before reforms are actually implemented.
Regeneration, degeneration
The recently decided pool of legislative candidates for the 2009 elections is
notable for its new faces. Over 50% of the candidates fielded by the country's
two biggest parties, Golkar and PDI-P, have no previous legislature experience.
The ratio of newcomers in other political parties is even higher. Around 10% to
20% of candidates from the ten biggest parties originate from outside party
circles, including academics, business people and local celebrities.
As part of an NGO coalition called the Movement to Stop the Election of Rotten
Politicians, Danang Widoyoko from Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) is dismayed
about the number of celebrities - singers, actors and comedians - that were
included on the candidate lists. "Through my lobbying [for Indonesian
Corruption Watch] at parliament I come into regular contact with the
celebrities elected in 2004. They really don't have the capacity to debate or
raise issues. They do as they are told by the party leaders, sign their names
and collect their pay checks," he said.
This emphasis on new and external candidates is largely driven by the dire
reputation of the legislators currently sitting in the DPR. The law-making
process has been continually hampered over the last four years by party
politicking and special interests. Legislators have been unable to complete the
legislative timetable set out at the beginning of each parliamentary session
and a large backlog of bills awaits the new parliament members.
Proposed legislation which does not directly serve legislators' interests is
often pigeonholed. Bills on a judicial watchdog, a new corruption court and
administrative reform have all fallen into a DPR black hole. Laws relating
directly to political parties, such as campaign finance, however are given more
attention and arguably decided for legislators' own benefit rather than the
larger interests of the nation.
Revelations of corruption have caused the most damage to the DPR's reputation.
A particularly high-profile case to recently make headlines is Bank Indonesia's
alleged payment of US$11 million to legislators to ensure their cooperation in
the passage of a 2003 banking bill and support Bank Indonesia officials accused
of involvement in a long-running corruption scandal. One witness in the case,
currently on trial in Jakarta, has alleged the involvement of at least 52
legislators in the scandal.
While fielding external candidates to distance themselves from sullied
incumbent legislators, party bosses have also stacked candidate lists with
their own kith and kin. For instance, Yudhoyono's party has fielded his son to
contest a DPR seat in the president's birthplace. Former president Megawati
Sukarnoputri's daughter is set to stand for a PDI-P safe-seat and one of the
founders of PAN party, Amien Rais, saw his son chosen as a party candidate.
All in all, there are dozens of legislative candidates from all of the parties
related to party leaders. One party, the PBB, admitted that 90% of its women
candidates are from the same family as the party's bosses. Hadar Gumay,
executive director of the Center for Electoral Reform, cautions that the new
faces do not necessarily represent a new and hopeful generation of politicians.
"The leaders of the parties are all elites from the old days, the vast majority
aged between 41 and 67," he said. "Even the new parties formed to contest the
2009 elections are just off-shoots of the old ones ... populated by elites of
the same generation who have argued with their old parties."
ICW's Danang, meanwhile, says that the real power within the political parties
is vested in this old guard. "Old faces run the show in all of the biggest
parties," he said.
Internal discretion
Party elders often exert their influence through the selection process of both
legislative and presidential candidates. While parties in some countries, most
notably the US, hold elections among their members or the wider population to
choose candidates, most others do not.
The majority of political parties worldwide reach decisions on the candidates
they field for election through negotiation between party heads and grassroots
supporters. So, too, it is with Indonesia's political parties. But just where
the balance of power lies between the top and the bottom of parties is
debatable.
ICW's Danang paints a gloomy picture of the candidate selection process,
alleging that it all depends on connections to the top and money. Tommy Legowo
of parliament watchdog Formappi, however, thinks that the situation is more
nuanced, suggesting there is a big variation in how parties choose their
candidates.
"The established parties are more internally democratic than the new ones," he
said. "Within parties like Golkar, PDI-P and PPP, the candidates often come up
from grassroots support in the regions, but it also depends on the leaders at
the regional level. Some are more accommodative to the rank and file members
than others. In comparison, the new parties are usually very dependent on their
leaders."
There are some signs of innovation, however. For instance, the modernist and
conservative Islamic party, PKS, gives every party member one vote to choose
candidates. Meanwhile, Golkar, the party most linked to the old authoritarian
Suharto regime, is seeking greater public input into their candidate selection
through the use of opinion surveys.
Self-interest and survival is arguably a motivating factor - Golkar is
suffering a crisis of confidence in their candidates after a string of regional
election defeats. A political bill passed in March gave party elite even more
control over who eventually sits in parliament, creating in the process more
distance between legislators and their electorate.
Indonesia uses a party list system, where voters at legislative polls tend to
pick a particular party and not bother selecting individual candidates. If a
party wins a seat, but none of their candidates gains at least 30% of the vote,
then the party leaders have discretion over which candidates sit in parliament,
according to the bill.
The provision was criticized heavily at the time because it was perceived as
making legislators more beholden to their party leaders rather than the voters.
In an about-turn, some of the parties who initially voted for the bill now say
they will voluntarily scrap or reduce the 30% limit and place whichever of
their candidates gets the most votes into parliament instead.
Formappi's Legowo thinks that political parties are in part responding to
public criticism, but points to internal party conflicts as the main motivation
for the flip-flop. Competition for candidature was particularly intense within
Golkar, resulting in resentment from those who didn't make the top spots on the
candidate list and complaints from the losers' powerful patrons within the
party.
While the Golkar party was largely unified under former president Suharto, it
is now prone to division and contains several power centers clustered around
half a dozen different political elites. According to one Golkar insider, it
was protests from the party’s regional heads which finally instigated the
change of policy.
"Some [regional heads] who had failed to get a high ranking on the list
complained they had no motivation to campaign for the party if they were
unlikely to get a seat in the DPR," the source said on condition of anonymity.
Golkar, PAN and President Yudhoyono's Democrat Party, are among those who have
said they will no longer use the list system. Other parties, such as PDI-P and
some smaller parties have dropped the vote threshold to 15%, thereby making it
easier for the most popular candidates among voters to gain a seat.
Still, Danang doubts that future legislators will represent an improvement on
the current lot and calls for a greater effort to educate the public about
their choices.
"My work means that I follow politics very closely, but even I am confused
about who to vote for in my home town when the time comes," he said. "I've seen
the list of names for the seat, but I have no idea who they are or what they
stand for. If that is the situation for me, what hope do ordinary people have
in choosing good candidates?"
Dr Jacqueline Hicks is a political analyst based in Jakarta. She may be
reached at hicks.jacky@gmail.com.
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