Analysis of chaos in regent elections

The election of regents is one important feature of autonomy. But chaos colored the election recently in Sampang on Madura, East Java, and earlier in several other regencies, such as Malang and Mojokerto.Pratikno of Gadjah Mada University, who has conducted intensive research into regional autonomy, says local politicians must share the blame.

Question: President Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) requested that the inauguration of Sampang's elected regent Fadhilah Budiono be delayed until his suspected involvement in a number of corruption cases, as alleged by the National Awakening Party (PKB, founded by Gus Dur) is investigated.

East Java Governor Imam Utomo has set up a team to collect facts on the allegations. Isn't this a form of intervention from the central government in the local administration?

Answer: This kind of intervention in these times can still be excused on the grounds that we are still in the middle of a transition of national scale.

But such intervention must be limited; it must not become a bad precedent. Continuous intervention in fundamental issues touching on local politics, such as in regional elections, could spark deeper conflict between the central and local levels.

In this case, the central government was too late. Well before the regent's election, it should have made sure that the election would not violate the law (on regional autonomy) and that it could be conducted in a democratic manner.

But the government only intervened after the election of Fadhilah Budiono as regent for the second time was over.

The government's intervention could instead trigger even sharper conflict among political elements in Sampang (represented by different political parties supporting respective candidates).

Such intervention could become a bad precedent, because if one group in a locality loses in the election of a regent or governor, the losing group could try to mobilize the masses to demand intervention again from the central government.

Imagine how busy Jakarta would be if it had to be involved in such matters. Regional autonomy is both decentralization and a management model in which the central government must save its energy by not getting involved in local politics. Remember, we have 360 regencies.

So how should the conflict in Sampang be settled?

The only way is through the court. First, to prove the validity of the regent's election. Second, to prove allegations that Fadhilah is involved in corruption.

But I'm sure that PKB does not fully trust legal proceedings, which would take time, while the courts have long been believed to have been coopted by those in power. Meanwhile, he is supported by the Golkar Party, who perfectly represents the old powers in Sampang. It wasn't surprising that Fadhilah responded to the allegations, just saying, "So, sue me."

Are the cases of Sampang and other regencies unique to East Java?

Sampang is not a merely local case. It occurred with the backdrop of similar problems on a national scale ...

Firstly, I think the Sampang case happened because of legal uncertainty and public distrust in the law. If the courts had public credibility, PKB would not have needed to raise accusations because Fadhilah would not have been able to escape the law.

And legal uncertainty is clearly a national problem.

Secondly, the Sampang case also reflects transitional politics, in this case the tension between new and old politicians.

In Sampang, new politicians are represented by PKB and the old ones are those in the United Development Party (PPP), Golkar and others. What about local factors?

Even "local" factors were a national phenomena. In this case, the degree of autonomy of local politicians, including that regarding the regent's election.

This is, of course, a consequence of the new regional autonomy law. In the case of Sampang, with the autonomy, members of the local legislature barely heeded public aspirations, leading to the disappointment of many people.

Their autonomy enabled the local politicians to arrange deals on two levels: within their parties and among individuals.

This is why a party winning the elections in one area -- even one that has gained 50 percent of votes -- often finds it difficult to make their candidate a regent (or governor), because of the space open to members of one party to conduct individual political deals.

This leads to the possibility of "money politics", superiors' instructions and so on, or the electing of a person based on pragmatic considerations -- to get money to prepare for the next election.

Another factor is the absence of a rule that a party member must be the candidate for regent.

Often candidates from big parties are those who are unknown in their localities, or someone with a vague track record.

This has happened in many areas.

In Bantul (Yogyakarta), for instance, Regent Idham Samawi is not a party man, neither is his deputy, who is an Air Force officer with credentials merely consisting of a Yogyakarta identity card.

This an example of what is happening these days in various regions.

Is money behind this phenomenon?

Money would be the most logical explanation. Because if a candidate was a leading kiyai (religious scholar) or some other locally popular informal figure, we could gauge that he became a candidate because of his large public following.

So if we want to maintain this way of electing regents (through the regional legislature), we need tighter screening of candidates so that political parties and legislature members do not abuse public trust.

Actually, in a proportional system of elections, the candidate should be someone who is widely known and who has contributed much to a political party, because voters have placed their trust in the party.

In a parliamentary system, such as in Australia, the chair of the winning political party becomes prime minister.

This reflects a form of appreciation of voters by a party.

What about the reelection of Fadhilah as Sampang regent?

His case is too obvious. His problem is that he was the former regent from the New Order era, which, of course, has a big problem with "cleanness" (from corruption and other forms of power abuse).

Was there any regent during the New Order period who was free of corruption? So Fadhilah's election was sure to invite protests. We still remember charges of human rights abuses during the 1997 election in Sampang during the rule of Fadhilah.

Does the Sampang case reflect ideological conflict between the followers of the defunct modernist Muslim organization Syarikat Islam (SI) and the traditionalist Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), given that the area used to be a base of SI?

I don't think so ... The Sampang case is more a reflection of the battle of old and new politicians with opposing interests. PPP tends to side with Golkar, both being "old" parties with many similar interests.

Coalition between PPP and PKB has been more difficult even though they're both based on Islamic followers, precisely because of the "old and new players" factor.

Another explanation is that among new and old politicians, there is a different political culture; a different spirit, a different tolerance toward (negative) bureaucratic practices and so forth.

So although there is a lot of ideological difference between PPP and Golkar, they were both raised in a relatively similar political culture of the New Order and can, therefore, cooperate.

And I don't think it's only PPP which is actively seeking support in the Sampang regent election, but Fadilah himself, using his old (network). Fadilah could surely be the most aggressive figure to mobilize support from everyone, including from PPP.

PPP tends to lean toward Golkar ... the latter is in need of a "friend."

Golkar has great interest in saving itself from its "historic burden", such as the riots prior to the 1997 elections in Sampang caused by the government which imposed the victory of Golkar.

So PPP would support the party dependent on its support, making its bargaining position higher. In this context, PPP decided to support Golkar with (the possibility of a big, future) compensation because of PPP's significant support of Golkar.

Is the Sampang case a reminder of the importance of direct elections of a regent or governor?

I think direct elections would first mean cutting the (length of the) process. A shorter process would mean narrower space for negotiations which turn out to be the "buying and selling" of votes.

With direct elections, political parties would not arbitrarily nominate a candidate because the last say would be with legislature members but with the voters.

So, political parties would compete each other to nominate the most popular candidate in the eyes of the public.

However, direct elections have the tendency to neglect a candidate's technocratic or managerial skills -- while such technical skills are needed for a regent.

Along North Java, there would be no choice for political parties in direct elections but to nominate highly popular kiyai.

Regions outside Java would nominate the most influential local leaders. This (need for technical skills) must be balanced by creating a new position under the regent, say a district manager.

Maybe this wouldn't be such a problem among highly educated societies.

Wouldn't direct elections trigger conflict, particularly when political parties mobilize mass support for their respective candidates?

Yes, but we can't wait for democracy until people are culturally ready. Everyone is ready after a few experiments. So what we can do is to design a system in which potential for conflicts are reduced, like having campaigns without the mobilization of masses.

Another way would be to have nominees from a number of parties. So party A and other parties could jointly nominate a number of candidates, and their supporters would have less reason to fight.

But direct elections wouldn't mean an end to bribes, not at all ...(Asip A. Hasani)