General elections and triumph of pragmatism
General elections and triumph of pragmatism
Chusnul Mar'iyah
For someone who has experienced working in conflict zones like West Kalimantan, Ambon, Poso and Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, and who worked with the student demonstrators in 1998 to bring down the Soeharto regime, both as a woman and an activist, the sense of deja vu that accompanied the unfolding of the "civil war" and my involvement as a member of the electoral commission (KPU, 2001-2006) in conducting the 2004 elections was overwhelming.
This ranges from the visual impact of the bombing in Jakarta in front of the KPU office (the Philippines' ambassador residence) in 2001, the 2002 Bali bombings and the bombing in front of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004, to the apparent enthusiasm of numerous groups to establish new political parties and the newfound press freedom, all of which served as the background for social, economic and political uncertainty from 1999 to 2004.
This also includes individual scenes of cruelty (people killing each other, rapes, the burning down of houses) and the far more dramatic and collective practice of "ethnic cleansing" in parts of Indonesia.
In early December, I visited Sampit in Central Kalimantan, which according to the regent is 75 percent Madurese. About 6,000 Madurese were killed in an ethnic conflict with Dayaks in 2001. Some Dayaks were also killed. This conflict from 1999 to 2001 also displaced about two million people.
The elections in 1999 brought hope that the nation's political problems would be solved, but the expectations were too high. People tend to look for instant remedies to cure our acute diseases.
There was more hope in 2004 as the General Elections Commission (KPU) conducted three elections. For the first time in its history, Indonesia was going to hold a direct presidential election.
Against the backdrop of social, political, economic and security issues, the newly independent KPU was to conduct the elections. This independent body had many challenges.
Despite much criticism, the KPU managed to hold the most complex election in the world. Disputes between political parties were brought to the Constitutional Court. The public had access to quick and accurate election results through television stations and the KPU website (http://tnp.kpu.go.id/), because the results were displayed and submitted from each polling station through the KPU's information technology.
There was little violence during the elections. Compared with the elections in 1999, the 2004 elections were successful. The polls in 1999 were more about changing the regimes of Soeharto and then Habibie. The elections 2004 were a truly democratic process.
Pre-election climate: KPU
The KPU is the center of the legal and political rules of the game. As a new institution, the KPU has many weaknesses due to the time constraints placed on it since the completion of the electoral regulations in March 2003. In spite of these constraints, the KPU managed to achieve the objective of peacefully conducting the 2004 elections. The body received a lot of criticism from NGOs, political parties and individual candidates, who expected the KPU to be able instantly to remedy the acute problems.
The commission faced unresolved issues in electoral regulations. This forced the KPU to make 32 injunctions on districting and to establish new regional KPU branches at the provincial, regency/municipal levels.
Prior to the elections, the majority of the media doubted the elections would be peaceful and smooth. Of course, logistical problems were one major reason. The number of voters for the legislative election was 147 million. The KPU produced about 662 million ballot papers for 24 parties and individual candidates.
It was not easy to convince people the KPU was working very hard to distribute voting materials to all of the polling stations on time. Only 1,176 polling stations out of 559,770 (0.2 percent) did not hold the legislative election on April 5. A day after the polls, newspaper headlines stated that thousands of polling stations failed to conduct the election. However, no papers reported that 99.8 percent of polling stations held the vote as scheduled on April 5.
Transparency of election results: KPU information technology
Despite some controversy, the KPU used information technology (IT) to report and tabulate the election results in parallel with the manual vote count.
The commission developed a new IT infrastructure that spans 32 provinces, 440 regencies and 4,167 municipalities. The IT system was established to help achieve the objective of conducting the elections peacefully without political unrest.
The system emphasized transparency so the vote counting process and results were credible. During the Soeharto regime, the ruling party regularly received an unbelievable 99.1 percent of the vote in many regions.
In the 1999 elections, it took 68 days to complete the vote count. We could not afford to have such a long delay in obtaining the official results in 2004. Particularly because the results of the legislative election would determine the candidates for the presidential election. Therefore, it was very important to get the results as soon as possible.
The results of the legislative election and the first and second rounds of the presidential election are shown in Table 1. In the legislative election, when the IT system was used for the first time, results from 81.14 percent of polling stations were submitted electronically to the KPU Data Center. This figure represents closely the percentage of municipalities equipped with telecommunications and computing facilities. The percentage of polling stations, voters and municipalities increases in the first and second rounds of the presidential election.
Table 1. Results of 2004 elections
Even though the percentage of data submission improved significantly, data from certain polling stations was not submitted electronically due to a lack of electricity and geographical difficulties. Despite this, the accuracy of the data was very high.
The difference in percentage of vote results for each party submitted manually and electronically in the legislative election was 0.2 percent, as shown in Figure 1. In the first round of the presidential election it was 0.047 (Figure 2) and in the second round of the presidential election it was 0.258 (Figure 3). These differences are insignificant because the gaps in vote results between candidates are significant. For example, in the second round of the presidential election, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono received 60.624 percent of the vote and Megawati Soekarnoputri 39.376 percent.
Figure 1. Legislative election: Manual and IT vote results
Figure 2. Presidential Election I: Manual and IT vote results
Figure 3. Presidential Election II: Manual and IT vote results
The rate of election results submission from polling stations is shown in Figure 4. It can be noted from the figures that the rate of submission improves significantly in the final round of the presidential election. In the legislative election, results from only 3,773 (0.67 percent) polling stations were collected on the day of the election, while in the first and second rounds of the presidential election 45,083 (7.98 percent) and 206,457 (36.37 percent) polling stations respectively submitted their results on the day of the vote. Four days after the second round of the presidential election, 539,901 (95.10 percent) polling stations had submitted their results.
Figure 4. Number of polling stations submitting results on day of election
The legislative election results: Golkar fights back
Despite a very pessimistic scenario, Golkar performed well in many regions in the legislative election. The election results found Golkar receiving the highest percentage of votes. In the 1999 elections Golkar won 120 seats in the House of Representatives, and the party garnered nine more seats in the 2004 elections.
This same trend was seen at the provincial and regency/mayoral levels. For example, in Bali, a power base for the PDI-P, Golkar increased its number of seats in the provincial council from five to 14.
The outgoing ruling party, PDI-P, lost votes in many regions. The PDI-P collapsed everywhere, at both the national and regional levels, falling from 34 percent of the vote in 1999 to 19 percent in 2004.
A new party that gained significant support was the Democratic Party, which secured 10 percent of the vote and 57 seats in the House. One could argue that the Democratic Party took votes from the PDI-P in some areas thanks to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Another party that significantly increased its seats in the House was the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). In 1999, the PKS had 38 seats in the House, but in 2004 it ended with 52 seats.
Another party that did well for itself in 2004 was the National Awakening Party (PKB) with 56 seats in the House.
Observers believe there is still a mixture in Indonesia of secular-nationalist, religious-nationalist and religious parties. However, the elections suggested the triumph of pragmatism in politics. There were electoral trends in 2004 that help explain regional variations in the swing toward Golkar and other political parties such as the PKS and the Democratic Party.
The presidential election
Winning the most votes in the general election did not guarantee the Golkar candidate victory in the presidential election. For the first time in its history, Indonesia held a direct presidential election.
Even though the laws governing the election were not ideal, for example, candidates could only be nominated by political parties, the citizens of Indonesia participated in the election enthusiastically and peacefully. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Jusuf Kalla were elected as president and vice president in two rounds of the election. Five candidates contested the first round and two candidates the second.
Voters were more inclined to vote for the "embedded elite" rather than the "floating elite". Presidential candidate Amien Rais can be classified as a floating elite. On the other hand, Yudhoyono is considered an embedded elite because he has held various government positions.
A new political landscape: Politics of pragmatism
In the past, when a new session of the People's Consultative Assembly opened it usually was to choose a new president. However, this time the president was directly elected by the people. Therefore, this is the first time in Indonesian politics where there is a real system of checks and balances between the legislative and the executive.
The role of the House is challenged by the Regional Representatives Council (DPD). However, the House continues to be the whip hand of the Indonesian political system. The members of the DPD are in a sense very difficult to control, but this is also the weakness of the council in consolidating its power.
The continued amendment of the Constitution seems like opening Pandora's box. On one hand, we need to finish the amendments; on the other hand, under the leadership of Assembly Speaker Hidayat Nur Wahid from the PKS, many people doubt whether the Assembly will review Chapter 29 of the Constitution. Some still suspect there is a move afoot to establish an Islamic state in Indonesia. However, with the House leadership in the hands of Golkar, the role of the Assembly as the supreme law-making body in the country will be challenged by the House and to a certain extent by the DPD.
I still believe the DPR will be the whip hand in the political dynamism. We are still looking for House members to take the initiative to overcome the challenges the nation now faces, including institution building, corruption, human rights, economic recovery, security and good governance.
The elected president has a strong mandate because Susilo received 60.8 percent of the vote in the second round of the presidential election. Susilo has ample opportunity to set up a good and clean government even though he has a minority support from the political party that nominated him for the presidency, the Democratic Party. However, his political grip will be challenged by Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who was recently elected Golkar Party leader. The executive will now have the leverage of the political machinery of the House.
The future of democracy in Indonesia: A crisis of trust
The performance in its first 100 days in office is the challenge for Susilo and his government. The President's credibility in combating corruption, on the Munir death probe, the issue of migrant workers and the issue of the deportation of hundreds of Muslims from East Timor to Indonesia is a question. Does it look like a successful time for the government?
Not necessarily. The danger that the government now faces is that the public response to recent events will see the standing of politicians slump to new lows. Sure, voters may think less of Susilo, but it is possible that the recent issues may also lower their opinion of all politicians. I suggest three factors that may explain why trust in politicians has collapsed.
First, the past few decades have seen a "social-capital crisis" in Indonesian politics. We are less likely to join organizations because of the co-optation by the government of the day, less trusting of our neighbors and less involved in politics.
The same factors that led us to disengage from civic life have probably also contributed to our tendency to trust our leaders less, especially political leaders.
The second major change is that politics has moved away from focusing on issues which the voters are concerned with, consequently leading voters to feel that none of the parties really represent their values. The first 100 days in office is the test for the new government to be concerned with the interests of the voters.
The issues of human rights and corruption, especially how to clean up the police and the courts, are two challenges for the government.
Third, changes in the way the media reports on politics have affected the standing of politicians. With a greater focus on conflict over substance and personalities over policy, media reports have become more critical of politicians.
Many reports in the media are baseless. In the words of one media commentator, many journalists today "presume to lift the curtain on the wizard and reveal the charlatan behind it". The more voters distrust politicians, the more they may come to decide that the government is ill equipped to solve the problems of society. The result? The government will suffer the greatest harm.
Closing remarks
Democracy is a process. The KPU has successfully carried out the democratic process of elections, an achievement that the international community recognizes as a foundation for further development in other sectors.
Meanwhile, politicians will not earn the trust of voters with words alone, but with decisive action.