Consolidation of democracy: Anticipating 2004
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.