The 2004 elections: The enemy within<\/p>\n
Satish Mishra
\nUNSFIR
\nJakarta<\/p>\n
2004 is an important year. This is the year when Indonesian
\ndemocracy either opens its doors to a new wave of consolidation
\nand reform or retreats along the historically familiar path
\ntowards a new kind of authoritarianism. These elections will
\ndecide whether Indonesian democracy will experience a rebirth or
\ncontinue to suffer slow suffocation for a second time in fifty
\nyears. That seems like an exaggeration. It may not be too far
\nfrom the truth. Consider the following facts.<\/p>\n
Despite the claims of economists and financial experts
\nregarding impressive progress in economic reform over the last
\nthree years, the public mood remains one of deep distrust. People
\nworry about jobs and not national income statistics. Unemployment
\nmatters. It is commonplace to hear that Indonesia is too poor to
\nhave an unemployment problem. This is splitting hairs. Open
\nunemployment remains higher than many industrial countries and
\nthe wide prevalence of underemployment means that people cannot
\nmake ends meet even when willing to work long hours at low wages.<\/p>\n
The perception of rising economic inequality serves to deepen
\npublic frustration further. In most countries consumption booms
\nare signs of economic confidence, the type of signal for which
\nboth bankers and investors keep a sharp lookout. In Indonesia the
\nconsumption boom has been in luxury cars and imported gadgetry,
\nfactors that reek of social injustice in difficult times.<\/p>\n
This view is further reinforced by rumors that former owners
\nof distressed conglomerates are back in business often stronger
\nthan before, thanks to the acceleration of IBRA sales in a buyers
\nmarket. Initial results from a study by the United Nations
\nSupport Facility for Indonesian Recovery show that asset
\nconcentration in the business sector might have even increased
\nduring the course of the last six years. Witness the fact that
\nmany famous brand names and retail outlets, Sogo, Marks and
\nSpencer, Starbucks and a host of others, signal not a vote of
\nrenewed confidence in Indonesia but purchases of brand names at
\nsmall commissions by well known Indonesian conglomerates of the
\nNew Order vintage.<\/p>\n
Two other factors add to this perception of rising economic
\ninequality. First, decentralization in Indonesia continues to be
\ndriven by resource rich regions. Yet out of the more than 400
\ndistricts in the country only around 13 can be classified as
\nresource rich. Widening public expenditure authority without the
\nrevenue to go with it, and without a convincing formula for
\ncombating inter-regional economic disparities, confirms what most
\npeople seem to believe; that future growth will benefit the
\nalready well off regions.<\/p>\n
Second, there is the China factor. China's entry into the WTO,
\nas well as its ability to attract more foreign investment than
\nany other developing country, has heightened concern about
\npossible job losses due to foreign competition. It has also given
\nemployers a weapon which to beat the workers and resist any
\nfurther upward wage adjustments even where productivity might be
\nrising. The reported migration of Korean and Japanese businesses
\nto Vietnam, China, India and Bangladesh adds to the fear of
\nglobalization that the China syndrome has ignited.<\/p>\n
All this is not good news for an emerging democracy. Public
\neuphoria at the fall of an autocracy can easily turn to public
\ndisgust. Even worse it can turn in to nostalgia for the past.<\/p>\n
Part of the problem is the inability or unwillingness of post-
\nNew Order politicians to spell out what democracy actually means
\nto the lives of ordinary citizens. There is no attempt to explain
\nto the ordinary citizen the rights and rituals of democracy, no
\nspelling out of claims and responsibilities, no evaluation of the
\ndamage done by the kleptocracy that passed as orderly government
\nof the New Order. Is it therefore surprising that in less than
\nsix years since the fall of Soeharto, democracy is equated with
\nchaos and dictatorship with leadership and stability?<\/p>\n
This is the inevitable consequence of political parties who
\njockey for parliamentary and government seats without any defined
\npolitical positions. Civil society organizations carp and
\ncomplain at the margins of political life, content to safeguard
\ntheir image and chastity from the depredation of the state and
\nlarge business.<\/p>\n
The consequence is a stark imbalance between the reform of the
\neconomy and that of other aspects of national life: the state
\napparatus, the judiciary, the police and military, the political
\nparties and civil society in general. In most other democratic
\ntransitions it is precisely these aspects of reform which form
\nthe building blocks of a new governing structure. They are not
\ndependent on 7 percent growth. They are the enabling conditions
\nwhich make a new kind of growth possible: more regulated, more
\nstable and widely shared.<\/p>\n
The elevation of the importance of macroeconomic recovery, the
\nabsence of any transparent plan of political reform and the
\nambivalent attitude to corruption in high places has created a
\ndeep seated cynicism in the public mind. This has bred a number
\nof other anxieties: separatism and disintegration of the nation
\nstate, the capture of political power by a resurgent business
\nelite, and the lack of any serious leadership which can give the
\ncountry a sense of will and direction.<\/p>\n
This is fertile ground for the re-entry of the previously
\ndiscredited elite into Indonesian public life. The stakes are
\nhigh. As Gus Dur reminds us, direct elections for the President
\nmeans that the \"winner will take all\". For a potential winner
\nfrom the New Order camp, future economic recovery will make the
\njob easier. It will be used to prove that order and leadership is
\nwhat matters in Indonesian politics.<\/p>\n
But things are not as bad as that. The political and
\nconstitutional changes already undertaken, though often flawed,
\nmake an effortless retreat to authoritarian structures of the
\npast unlikely. Decentralization, parliamentary reform, the
\nestablishment of independent institutions such as the
\nConstitutional Court, the Audit Commission and the Central Bank,
\nand the initial steps in military reform should discourage an
\nunthinking comparison with the 1950s.<\/p>\n
This means that attempts to recreate the power structures of
\nthe past will face deeper and more organized resistance than
\nbefore. The absence of a common enemy such as the fear of
\ncommunism, which provided the glue for military-Islamic
\ncooperation of the 1960s, cannot be repeated in the post-Cold War
\nworld. The military, no longer the darling of the nation, is
\nfaced with growing internal division. Memories of the
\nindependence movement have begun to fade. A new more open
\npolitical system, driven by a free press is beginning to take
\nroot. Religious teaching and influence are beginning to penetrate
\nthe rather monastic world of the average soldier.<\/p>\n
What are the prospects for a post-2004 Indonesia? The first,
\nand perhaps the more likely, is the retreat to old ways of doing
\nbusiness: the return of a new, more fragmented form of cronyism
\nheaded by born-again-casts from the New Order. For a while, they
\nmight even try to recreate a new vintage of dictatorship. This
\nwould mean more instability and a setback on the road to economic
\nrecovery. It may even mean a resurgence of violent social unrest
\nor separatist dissent.<\/p>\n
This is not however the end of the story. As has been the
\nexperience of many countries in transition to democracy, the
\npolitical pendulum is likely to swing back by 2009. The extent to
\nwhich it does so will depend on the engines of democratic reform
\nitself: Political parties, media, civil-society organizations.<\/p>\n
It will depend on creating a new kind of leadership which can
\nwork collectively towards working out the steps of a Second Wave
\nof reformasi.<\/p>\n
To understand what needs to be included in the agenda for the
\nSecond Wave they must go to the people. They must engage with
\nthose who oppose them. Democracy is about representing the
\npeople. It is not about hiding in the comforting company of our
\nown fellow travelers or feeling virtuous in the, self-cleansing
\nrituals of some select band of brothers. It is time to get real.
\nIt is time to recognize the enemy within. It is time to look in
\nthe mirror. The enemy within is not to be found among the
\ndetractors of democratic government, but in the ranks of its
\ndefenders.<\/p>",
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