Consolidation of democracy: Anticipating 2004

Smita Notosusanto Cetro

Next year, is the fifth anniversary of the end of the Soeharto regime which marked Indonesia's transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Indonesia was hailed as the newest addition to the long-list of "third wave" democracies already in progress since 1974. Many of these nascent democracies are now showing signs of reverting to authoritarianism.

These reversals are in part caused by the continuing economic crisis that had triggered the political transition in the first place and the inability of the new democratic government to deliver both the economic and political goods anticipated by their citizens.

The most important reason underlying the reversal is the failure of states in transition to firmly establish the democratic rules of the game in the form of constitutional measures and other institutional provisions to uphold the new democratic state. As a result in many of these countries a tug-of-war between pro-democracy forces and the remaining status quo forces or authoritarian incumbent continues.

Like other third wave democracies, Indonesia is especially vulnerable to reversal because the events of 1998 did not provide an opening for pro-democracy forces to dictate and dominate the democratic agenda.

Despite his resignation from power, Soeharto's legacy of authoritarian structures or enclaves remains. The failure of pro- democracy forces to design democratic rules of the game in a new constitution resulted in a prolonged and destabilizing power struggle at the highest levels of government which had the ripple effect all the way down to the regions. In many countries undergoing severe political transitions, drafting a new democratic constitution becomes a priority even before an election takes place.

The new constitution has to delineate the salient features of the new democratic state, making democracy the only game in town; highlighting protection of civil and political rights, rule of the law, supremacy of civilian government over military forces and accountability of state institutions and officials. In the absence of clear and accepted democratic rules of the game, competing political forces will play their own game, establish rules or interpret existing regulations according to their own factional interests.

Transitional governments, usually face the multiple battles of preventing authoritarian incursions, running an effective government while struggling to provide economic goods. This was the predicament surrounding the government of President Abdurrahman Wahid and is now faced by the government of President Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Indicators of a systematic reversal toward authoritarianism are already apparent in the emphasis on security and the heavy- handed approach in handling conflicts in the regions. Also in the continued tolerance toward impunity for perpetrators of past human rights abuses as well as corruptors within the highest levels of state institutions. Increasing trends toward militarism, illustrated in the rise of civilian militia groups even within political parties, add a violent character to the already chaotic political process. There is also a faint but significant trend toward clamping down on dissent as demonstrated in the trial of youths accused of destroying the pictures of the President during a pro-democracy rally. The recent cancellation by stated-owned television TVRI of the broadcasting of the play Alia -- about the plight of a young Acehnese girl at the height of the military operations zone in Aceh reportedly at the behest of the armed forces is another measure that can only be associated with the New Order regime.

Despite the fact that the 1999 election was hailed as the freest elections since 1955, the public is now disillusioned with the result.

Elected legislators tend to have very low public accountability and lack commitment to public interests.

Corruption and money politics are rampant in almost all legislatures at all levels, especially in relation to elections of local public officials.

Finally, the productivity of the legislature is very low, illustrated by the backlog of bills and failure of the legislature to propose bills, therefore allowing a more dominant role for the executive branch to dictate the agenda in proposing most bills. Even when legislations were passed, many of these legislations did not go through a rigorous public consultation process, and worse, legislations were often passed when most of the legislators were absent.

Fortunately, there were significant victories in the battle to keep the democratization process on track. Most important is the freedom of the press that has provided an important support to our nascent democracy.

Another achievement is the constitutional amendment to allow direct presidential elections and creation of a second house in the legislature to represent provincial representatives consisting of non-party members.

It was also a momentous victory when the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) decided to abolish the reserved seats for military representatives -- eliminating one of the last remnants of authoritarian enclave in the Assembly.

Indeed, these attainments can be regarded as important democratic enclaves that will serve as important foundations for the consolidation of democracy.

To further ensure consolidation, it is important for pro- democracy forces to carefully safeguard the preparations for the 2004 elections. In newly established democracies, the second election usually becomes the "make it or break it" indicator of the democratization process.

This means that the legal underpinnings of the 2004 elections need to be scrutinized in order to prevent reversals and to strengthen consolidation of democracy. The most important agenda in a country undergoing a difficult transition such as Indonesia is to prevent the status quo or authoritarian incumbent from dominating the elections.

The law has to establish a level playing field for all participants, allowing more political space to alternative voices or those marginalized groups previously spurned by the authoritarian regime. Therefore, provisions in the political party and electoral laws have to ensure this level playing field for all participants. Consequently, choosing an election system, becomes a crucial point. While the proportional system (PR) has its weaknesses, it is still the only system that would allow non- status quo or alternative voices to participate in the political process. A first-past-the-post, single member district, better known as the district system, would only allow two or at the most three of the biggest and most established political parties to dominate the legislature. While this is perhaps a normal phenomenon in more established democracies, it is more threatening to fragile democracies especially those with existing authoritarian structures and players.

Apprehension about the number of participating political parties should not be a justification to adopt provisions that would limit participation of alternative, new, and less- established parties. The problem facing Indonesia is less the quantity of political parties than the quality and accountability of political parties. This can be addressed by promoting stricter conditions for internal party democracy, financial accountability and provisions to allow the creation of local political parties that will only be allowed to contest elections at the provincial or district legislature level. The 1999 general elections also demonstrated that the numbers of parties did not really affect the ability of voters to choose the political party of their choice.

Second, to strengthen public accountability of elected legislators, the electoral system should also allow voters to cast their votes for candidates instead of political parties. The open-list proportional system (PR) allows this.

As opposed to the current closed PR system which only allows party symbols to appear on the ballot paper, the open-list PR will have both the symbols of participating political parties, and the names of candidates nominated by each participating political party. Thus voters can cast their votes for individual candidates as well as the party of their choice.

The open-PR system will also reduce the dominance of a central party committee in determining the candidates or switching candidates across districts as frequently happened in 1999.

A vital point is also the issue of the independence of the electoral commission. The government proposed that the electoral commission be put under the authority of the home ministry, which will seriously weaken its independence. If this happens, then, we can expect more intervention by the government in elections through election officials which will reduce the integrity of the elections. An independent and non-partisan Elections Commission has to be maintained so that the level playing field among participants of the elections can be established.

Fourth, the new electoral law will have to adopt the creation of an effective enforcement of electoral regulations to ensure that violators of both the political party and electoral laws will be brought to justice. This is certainly one of the weakest points of the 1999 general elections since not a single violator of the electoral laws during the 1999 general elections, notably in the use of campaign financing, have been brought to justice. The creation of an ad-hoc elections court would provide an efficient and speedy processing of election violations. Closely related to this is the fifth agenda of delineating detailed and strict campaign finance regulations to encourage political parties to be more accountable about their campaign fund-raising and spending. Strict campaign finance regulations are also needed to prevent parties from misusing public funds or public facilities to benefit their party or their candidates. Campaign finance regulations are also needed, again to ensure a level- playing field between established parties and new, smaller parties.

Unfortunately, the course of deliberations within the legislature on the above agenda is discouraging. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-Perjuangan) has thrown its support behind maintaining a closed-PR system, therefore ensuring dominance of a central party committee and denying voters the ability to cast their votes for individual candidates instead of parties. Also, both PDI-Perjuangan and Golkar are conspiring to limit the participation of medium and smaller parties to participate in the Presidential elections by maintaining a condition that only the first three winners of the legislative elections can contest, therefore ensuring only the three biggest parties to join the presidential elections. Political factions in the legislature have spoken out against rigid campaign financing regulations, even objecting to the proposal to impose a ceiling for campaign contributions.

More worrying is the fact that in the already passed Political Party Law, the government is granted the authority to control political parties, to ensure that political parties do not violate provisions prohibiting activities against the Constitution, against the integrity and unity of the Republic of Indonesia, and against governmental policies in the establishment of diplomatic relations and initiatives with friendly nations.

This would put a limit on the freedom of political parties to be critical or oppose the government, or the ruling political party in government. Again, this provision may strengthen the trend toward authoritarianism.

Against this background, as we end the tumultuous year of 2002, it is imperative that all pro-democracy forces pay close attention to the current deliberation of the electoral law and the accompanying presidential electoral law which will continue to take place in early 2003. After that, the whole country will have to go through a hectic schedule of preparations for both the legislative and presidential elections in 2004. It is therefore, up to all of us to ensure that the elections in 2004 provide a strong foundation for consolidation of democracy in Indonesia.