Biggest challenges lurk after the euphoria

By Yuli Ismartono

JAKARTA (JP): There is a sense of deja vu to all the frenetic preparations leading up to the June 7 elections. The excitement of unfettered campaigning, the exuberance of media politicking, as well as the chaos and the occasional strife, have happened before in the not so distant past.

As a journalist, I witnessed all this in Cambodia in 1992, Russia in 1993 and South Africa in 1994. It's like watching a variation of the same play. The stage, the props and the actors are different, but many of the scenes and much of the script are uncannily similar. The common thread among all of those historic elections is an attempt to break with the past and begin a new, democratic life. This is what's happening in Indonesia today.

In Cambodia, the elections were intended to lay to rest more than a decade of civil war and make the warring factions compete in the political arena rather than in the battlefield.

Except for the Khmer Rouge, the royalist Funcinpec, the incumbent People's Party of Cambodia (PPC) and the Khmer People's National Liberation Front (KPNLF) took part in the country's first elections since 1970.

The outcome was predictably far from perfect, despite the heavy presence of United Nations officials and peacekeeping forces and hundreds of international observers. Amid accusations of cheating and vote manipulation, the popular Funcinpec, led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was marginally defeated by Prime Minister Hun Sen's PPC.

The resulting government was a coalition between the two winning parties, with Ranariddh and Hun Sen as coprime ministers. Consequently, there had to be power sharing in each of the governmental ministries. It was a recipe for disaster, proven by the resumption of armed clashes between the forces of Ranariddh and Hun Sen a few years later. Ranariddh was forced to flee the country but came back in time for the recent elections.

There was no civil war prior to Russia's first multiparty elections in 1993. But there was a climate of uncertainty and tension in the wake of armed clashes between rebellious elements in the military and loyalist troops of President Boris Yeltsin's transitional government in Moscow.

Russia was also waking up to the fact that it could no longer take for granted the support of former satellite states like Ukraine, Georgia and other Central Asia republics which had separated themselves from the Russian federation.

In addition, the economy was still reeling from the effects of communism's downfall, which produced more victims than victors, at least in the initial stages of the free market system's entry. As the country prepared to go to those landmark polls, the streets were littered with beggars, mostly the retired and the elderly who were struggling to adjust to the new economic realities. Yet amid that somber mood, the Russians cast their ballots with great expectations for radical changes, pretty much what Indonesians are hoping the elections can do to end the economic crisis.

In South Africa, as in Indonesia today, the lead up to the 1994 elections, the first since the end of apartheid, was truly an emotional experience.

After years of repression, of being deprived of the right to vote freely, the people were jubilant, much like Indonesians today in their campaigns for their political parties. Despite acts of intimidation and terror by right-wing groups, of violence among tribal groups, when election day came, the people stoically stood in line for hours, waiting for that historic moment when they could finally cast their ballots for a government of their choice.

The black majority finally came to power, while the white minority took a back seat. Five years later, following yet another overwhelming election victory for the African National Congress (ANC) the country still faces a host of unmet expectations.

One should not forget the 1990 tragic elections in Myanmar. Although Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won by a landslide, the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) regime never allowed it to take its rightful place in government. As a consequence, the status quo remains in force.

There are lessons to be learned from those past elections, namely that the biggest challenge comes after the euphoria of the elections themselves. The Cambodian experience shows that a government of compromise, where age-old enemies are forced into alliances, is fraught with problems. From the Russian and South African cases, we should be warned about people's high expectations and a new administration's ability to deliver promises.

Yet we should also be heartened by the fact that despite all the obstacles and the pessimism, the elections are a definite must if the country is to forge ahead toward changes that could lead to a united, integrated, peaceful and prosperous democratic society.

The writer is a former Tempo journalist currently working in corporate communications.