Building a shrewder society by promoting political education
Building a shrewder society by promoting political education
Mohammad Nasih, Researcher, KATALIS Foundation, Jakarta
As scheduled by the General Elections Commission (KPU), the
general election of 2004 will start on April 5, when people go to
the polls to elect members of the House of Representatives (DPR),
Regional Representative Councils (DPD) and Regional Legislatures
(DPRD). This means that the election, held once every five years,
is only a few months away.
No wonder the preelection atmosphere can now be felt,
particularly because the political elite have started maneuvering
to serve their own and their groups' interests. Their moves are
taking different forms but the politicians refuse to admit having
begun campaigning early.
The continuity of the nation's future depends considerably on
the outcome of this election. Whether the nation is going to
experience an improved and enlightened state of survival or
plunge into a deeper abyss will be determined by the results of
this political race, as it turns out national leaders mandated to
direct this country of over 200 million people.
Therefore, in order to ensure the election of the true
national leaders expected by society, the people eligible to vote
should have comprehensive and mature knowledge, vision and
consideration. Their political attitude should in no way be
counterproductive vis-a-vis the public aspirations to be brought
to reality. The simple logic is that a correct political attitude
will bring about good leaders, and the other way round. Though
this is not an absolute guarantee, a correct political stance has
the greatest chance of securing true leaders.
A right political attitude should be acquired by making exact
calculations. It indeed is not simple because those to be
directly involved in the election of leaders are millions of
people with diverse levels of knowledge of the intricate
political realities, while the choices offered are difficult and
confusing. The intricacies and difficulties are at least
imaginable when we notice that the presidential election law
produced through horse-trading between major legislative groups
fails to define criteria for good quality leaders in moral and
intellectual terms.
The faction of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle
(PDI Perjuangan) insisted that the academic requirement for a
candidate be dropped, certainly to enable Megawati to run for
another term. The faction of the Golkar Party urged that no
provision prevent a criminal defendant from being a nominee,
obviously in connection with the Buloggate II graft case that
Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung was convicted for. The faction of
the National Awakening Party (PKB) omitted the "ability to read
and write" condition, otherwise it would not be able to field ex-
president Gus Dur.
Admittedly, there are only a very small number of voters
capable of making such political calculations so far, which is
even more the case in view of the political elite's sophisticated
scenarios. The political players have prepared their "traps",
crude and refined, to make people unaware that they are actually
being snared. So the question is which of the political groups
will later benefit from the population's weak attitude. It is
this aspect that needs discussion for a proper solution.
People's dilemma
At present, the discourse on golput ("white group", those
refusing to vote) is becoming widespread among not only the
middle and upper classes, but also the grassroots. This stance is
legitimate because every citizen has the right to vote and this
right, unlike an obligation, may or may not be exercised.
Golput has arisen against the background of public
disappointment in the performance of the political elite,
considered less responsive to the aspirations and interests of
the majority. The political elite are also seen as giving
priority to their own personal, family and group interests. This
has led to the critical belief that the masses are merely
mobilized during election periods to serve the political elite.
At first glance, golput constitutes an intellectual
advancement on the part of society in the evaluation of political
reality based on what it has perceived so far. However, golput
should not just be favorable to the status quo group in such a
way that it can maintain its political power.
The calculation is in fact very complicated but it is an
absolute requirement because the population will have to
determine the nation's fate in the future.
To ensure accurate political calculation, people's
empowerment, in this case their political education, is
inevitable. This is actually one of the functions of political
parties, which ideally become the mouthpiece of the public at
large. Yet these parties seem unwilling to educate people for
fear of being abandoned as the latter become politically
literate.
For this reason, the role of political education should be
promptly taken over by other institutions like non-government
organizations and independent mass associations with populist
commitments, before everything gets too late. The masses should
be invited to discuss the most effective method of imposing
retributive justice on the political parties that make empty
promises during election periods only to regain power.
The most important purpose of political education is to enable
individuals' positive orientation to political values, covering
the essence of citizenship, democracy, political affiliation,
criticism and auto-criticism. In this way, the bargaining
position of the masses will be strengthened in the face of
parties and the political elite, which will be forced to nurture
a higher sense of responsibility to society.
The writer is a participant of the Political Sciences
Postgraduate Program at the University of Indonesia.