A note on rotten politicians and rotten strategies

Max Lane, Visiting Fellow, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, Murdoch WA, Australia

Since the beginning of this year, we have seen the development of a very important phenomenon in Indonesian politics. This is the emergence of the National Movement Not to Choose Rotten Politicians -- GNTPPB.

The GNTPPB was founded by a coalition of intellectual-politicians, most notably the economist Faisal Basri, and activists from various non-government organizations. Teten Mazduki from Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) and Longgena Ginting from the environmental WAHLI have been prominent, but there are many others involved.

There have also already been demonstrations, mostly by student activists, which have been raising the same call: Don't vote for the "rotten politicians". Such demonstrations have taken place not only on Java but also in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The newspapers now report daily on activities aimed against the "rotten politicians".

There have also been reports of the setting up of "posko" (command posts) to mobilise people to vote against, that is, not to vote for these "rotten politicians". A range of political groups are also taking other similar initiatives, such as the National Salvation Movement, where former student leader, Hariman Siregar, is active.

The political sentiment for such a wave of activity has been established for some time. At the level of mass consciousness it has been reflected in how the term elit politik has been transformed from a normal sociological description to a form of insult. The rejection of the elit politik among the majority of the population has also been reflected through numerous polls.

While polls on the political popularity of political figures have given very different results in terms of who exactly is the "most popular" at any particular time, they all show that there is no politician with more than 25-30 percent support and many show that, in fact, most politicians have almost no real popularity. Figures for "don't know yet" or "no of these" are almost always the largest.

This widespread anti-elite sentiment is also reflected in the sustained popularity of newspaper like Rakyat Merdeka. Rakyat Merdeka's publishes data every day on the financial wealth of politicians, bureaucrats and business people. As a result Rakyat Merdeka is the largest circulating daily newspaper in Jakarta aimed at a mass urban poor readership. The paper has paid for its anti-elite coverage with its editor being put on trial for defaming the President (over a cartoon caricaturing the President) and sentenced to six months in jail.

From within the elite itself, there was also an immediate hostile reaction to the emergence of this campaign. GOLKAR chairperson, Akbar Tanjung, immediately attacked the campaign. Tanjung, still awaiting the outcome of an appeal against a jail sentence for corruption, would be a natural target for the intellectual-politicians and NGOs.

On Jan. 8, as soon as the movement emerged, Tanjung issued a veiled threat that the mentioning of names without proof would be nothing but a "political statement". Since his comments, there has been constant discussion within the GNTPPB as to whether names can be mentioned or not. There is obviously a fear of court libel action . The magazine TEMPO recently lost a case and has had damages of one million dollars awarded against it in favour of businessman Tommy Winarta.

While GNTPPB has not yet began a campaign naming names it has set out some specific criteria for judging the "rottenness" of politicians. These were involvement in corruption; human rights violations; and gender discrimination. This reflects key aspects of some of the agenda that has developed through the anti- dictatorship movement of the 1990s.

But it falls short of the full agenda that the movement of the 1990s developed. Any perusal of the press during the late 1990s and since the fall of Suharto, let alone a survey of the publications of pro-democracy NGOS and the writings of critical intellectuals, shows an agenda that also includes questions of full democratisation (including the issues of self-determination in Aceh and Papua) and also opposition to neo-liberal globalisation.

Even though it is a narrow agenda, the formalisation of the anti-corruption, anti-human rights abuses and anti-gender discrimination values in the public arena of the media is an important steps towards mapping a part of the agenda of a more organised opposition to the elit politik that will begin to emerge during 2004.

However, these first steps are unlikely to be consolidated if the agenda remain so narrow, looking at only half the problem, that is, looking only at the "rotten politicians" and avoiding looking at the "rotten strategies". This narrow agenda will mean a narrow support base as well.

The elit politik's bad image is a result of a combination of two things: It's obvious wealth and self-indulgence as well as it's failure to bring the country out of its underdevelopment crisis. In a recent important article in The Jakarta Post, Rizal Ramli wrote about the loss of ambition among the country's "leadership", that is, ambition for the country as a hole. "Muddling through" is the limit of this ambition.

The "muddling through" sentiment is fostered by Western elite interests as they know that the neo-liberal strategy of "development", which Washington, London and Canberra support, is only going to develop underdevelopment. They need Indonesians to accept that the country will ever be anything but a "muddle through" country. While self-enrichment continues among the elite, the neo-colonial fostered muddle through future is accepted for the rest of the people and country.

This is the real core of any "rottenness". A rejection of rottenness means rejecting also the neo-liberal strategy of (under)development and the development of an alternative. One problem for the GNTPPB is that it represents a coalition between the center-left, represented by the NGOs who do critique neo- liberalism, and the center-right, the economist-politicians (and other politicians).

The center-right elements are only interested in targeting their rivals as individual politicians but not the neo-liberal economic strategies which the elit politik implements. Opposing "rotten politicians" without a campaign against "rotten strategies" will mean the movement can often no solutions to the social and economic crisis and therefore will, in the end, not be able to mobilise the victims of neo-liberalism, the rural and urban poor, into political action.