Democratization, decentralization on the right track

Wed, 16 Apr 2003

Indonesia is in the throes of a giant transition from a centralistic, authoritarian government to a more democratic and decentralized administration. British Ambassador Richard Gozney talked to The Jakarta Post's Riyadi Suparno about the sometimes rocky path toward a democratic Indonesia and letting the people have their say through decentralization.

I am much more optimistic than many of my Indonesian friends. I think it happens quite often that the people of a country are more pessimistic about their future than the outsiders who live there and have got to know the country. It's because the people focus more on the aspects of the transition to democracy, which has not yet gone completely through, which is not yet finalized. That's natural. But when you stand back, you see the things have gone right. Here we are, five years after the fall of the authoritarian New Order government, and an enormous number of things have gone right. There was the successful elections in 1999 that elected the House of Representatives (DPR); it is playing a huge role in making the government accountable here, and that's what democracy is all about. If they sometimes go a bit further, and ministers in the government are complaining, as our ministers in London are also complaining about a select committee ... -- they are too bold, asking too many questions and keeping them too long in parliament -- that's a very healthy thing. If a minister is saying that he is having an easy time from the select committee, or commission of the DPR, then that's the time for us to start worrying. The job of the DPR is to toast the government and roast the government, and make the government feel hot and uncomfortable. Otherwise, the DPR is not doing its job. So, you had the elections and the DPR, but then you had a difficult time two years later because of the relationship between the executive of Abdurrahman Wahid and the DPR. But that was resolved through the Constitution. After that, you had four sessions of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) amending the Constitution, which again has been successful. Indonesians should be very, very proud of the way the democratic processes have moved forward for the past four years. Another thing which has been more successful is decentralization. Few countries have taken this triple challenge. A lot of countries have gone through a change from the authoritarian regime to democracy at the same time as an economic recession. Often, it is an economic crash that led to a change in politics, and, certainly in Indonesia in 1997 and 1998, the fall of the New Order was precipitated by the economic crash. Those two tend to go together, one causing the other, but it's difficult to do it with the third element of huge decentralization. And decentralization has worked. I have spent a long time outside of Jakarta, with governors and regents, heads of provincial and regency legislative bodies as well as faction leaders. None of them are complaining that they are not getting the money. In other words, they are getting the money spent by Jakarta on education, on health, on public works. They are spending it and they've got enough money for the teachers and nurses at community health centers. A lot of places are doing interesting work to make their democracy alive and real at a local level. We were working with people in South Sulawesi, where regents were telling district heads and village heads, "Don't tell people what they want, but ask them what they want". That had not happened during the past 40 years since the late years of Sukarno, with his guided democracy. Yes, this sort of thing is not happening everywhere, but it's happening in enough places for me to realize that decentralization does not just work at the financial level. It works at the other level, actually encouraging local democracy. In other words, it's telling people in districts and villages that they can expect to have their voices heard. The actual money for development may not be bigger than before, the decision- making is even slower and economic growth is more modest, but people can expect to be heard. One cost of democracy is that you have to consult a lot of people, with an attendant amount of debate, so decision-making can be slowed down, and something won't happen because, for example, people don't like the idea of a coal mine in a protected forest. A lot of NGOs help them articulate their opposition. In other areas, people say "Yes, please do mine here". Again, this is local people with their strong views. So, economic growth can be affected by the fact democracy requires consultation. But when you get a decision in a democracy, it is much more soundly based, it's not going to be reversed because people have been consulted, and they would respect it because of the fact they had their say, they took their view to local legislative councils and it was taken into account. I think local legislative councils have to be braver, and some have not been brave enough. In the case of good regents and good governors, they have nothing to fear from the councils, which can be brave and demanding and insistent on looking closely at accounts, on how the money is spent and how the decision has been made. Great caution is needed, however, when regions start borrowing money on their own account. Experience elsewhere in the world suggests that you need to be very cautious about that. Even in a country like Britain, where you think regions and local governments would know better, there have been big mistakes. Parts of London, equivalent of North Jakarta, borrowed money and it went badly wrong, leaving a huge bill for the people. It's not an easy game, because you have to calculate how you are going to repay the debt. 1

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