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.