Euphoria of number<\/p>\n
The Team of Eleven, the verification committee tasked with
\ndetermining the eligibility of poll contestants, did not surprise
\nanyone on Thursday when it announced the 48 political parties
\nmeeting all criteria to contest the June general election.<\/p>\n
This fails to surprise us because the nation knows that, since
\npresident Soeharto's downfall in May, busy politicians have
\nestablished more than 100 parties to contest the June general
\nelection. At least 24 of these parties, calling themselves either
\nnational or Islamic parties, are sponsored by Muslim social
\norganizations.<\/p>\n
At a glance this mass movement seems counterproductive to
\nnational development, as it is seemingly based solely on
\npolitical egotism and a mad grab for power. This provokes the
\nquestion: How can a nation which prides itself on the virtue of
\nmusyawarah (deliberation leading to consensus) produce so many
\nleaders who shun this noble wisdom?<\/p>\n
But further analysis unearths other explanations.<\/p>\n
The present situation can be likened to the trauma of the
\n1950s, when established political entities were dismembered by
\ntheir own ambitious reactionaries. Perhaps now politicians are
\nopting to work separately from the beginning to avoid bitter
\nseparations in the future.<\/p>\n
However, the most logical explanation is perhaps simply the
\ndesire to enjoy the newly found political freedom following the
\nfall of the dictator.<\/p>\n
But politicians, as seasonal as some of them are, have to bear
\nin mind that desire alone is not enough, because a general
\nelection is not a Latin American carnival. The voters, especially
\nthe more educated among them, need to learn whether the parties'
\nagendas are good enough to salvage this nation from the present
\npolitical and economic morass.<\/p>\n
As of Thursday, only the National Mandate Party and the
\nJustice Party had announced their respective political agendas in
\ndetail.<\/p>\n
Although many parties have claimed they will each win about 40
\npercent of the vote, deep in their hearts they must know it will
\nbe a difficult contest. So there have been talks about the
\nsharing of power, because some of the more astute politicians
\nhave realized that they have been living under the delusion of
\nhaving tens of millions of supporters.<\/p>\n
In the planned power-sharing system, a party receiving more
\nthan 40 percent of vote will be free to select its partner, or
\npartners; those with about 30 percent each would negotiate a
\npartnership on an equal basis; and those with less votes would be
\nbegging to join a coalition.<\/p>\n
But this kind of partnership may turn out to repeat history,
\nalthough more foolish than what happened in the 1950s, because
\nonce the partnership is dissolved the government will fall. And
\nthis would lead to further political instability.<\/p>\n
It is true that in our political wilderness there are still
\npoliticians roaming the provinces unknown to their electorates.
\nThey are products of Soeharto's concept of the \"floating mass\",
\nin which the government prohibited village level political
\nrepresentation. These leaders visit the populace once in five
\nyears to feed them with empty promises, exploiting the honesty of
\nour rural people. But they might also win millions of votes.<\/p>\n
It is certainly hard to pick who will emerge as the biggest
\npolitical entity, as it is not clear which of the political
\nleaders is fit to head the nation for the next five years.<\/p>\n
However, most thinking citizens today agree that any
\npolitician who has served in the Soeharto regime should be barred
\nfrom leading the country. They know that the general election
\nwill only have meaning if it can point this country toward a new
\nera and leave behind the nightmare of the status quo.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/euphoria-of-number-1447893297",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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