A note on rotten politicians and rotten strategies

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.