Hope for change lies with students not politicians

Hope for change lies with students not politicians

More than 130 new political parties have sprouted up since May
of last year when the reformation era was ushered in, but will
the people entrust these parties with their hopes for democracy?
According to the latest poll jointly conducted by The Jakarta
Post and D&R magazine the people are not placing their hopes in
political parties, but rather they are trusting university
students to deliver democracy to the country.

JAKARTA (JP): A change to democracy after more than 30 years
under the repressive regime of former president Soeharto is the
fresh air the people are eager to breathe in.

This poll, conducted in five major cities across the country,
found that the people are placing their hopes for democracy on
the shoulders of university students who, ironically, are outside
of the political system.

This suggests that the people simply have no trust in the
current political system, and place more trust in students than
political leaders.

However, the people still believe that political parties with
a large public support can also contribute to change in the
country. Therefore, three political parties which have the
potential to draw overwhelming public support featured
prominently in the poll. These three parties are the Megawati
Soekarnoputri led faction of the Indonesian Democratic Party, the
Nation Awakening Party and the People's Mandate Party.

The poll found that 53.9 percent of the respondents believed
students would be able to push the country to a better democracy,
while 24.7 percent of respondents thought political parties could
lead the country to an improved democracy.

Nonetheless, exactly half of the respondents admitted that
they were confused by the present government's policies regarding
the shift to democracy. Nearly half of the respondents also
believed that the current political map was still a jumble.

The survey was conducted by the Research Productivity Center
in Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Denpasar and Medan. The 250
respondents in each of the five cities, comprising 68.7 percent
men and 31.3 percent women, were randomly selected.

The poll also recorded the people's sense of guarded optimism
toward any political promises coming from the government. They
still believed, however, that an election would be held this
year. Should the election be postponed, they said, it would be
because of social disorder or because of pressure from certain
political groups, not because of Habibie's desire to postpone the
poll.

Survey respondents also believed that Habibie's willingness to
hold on to power would not depend on Habibie himself but on
outside political factors. This suggests that a system of power
in Indonesia is gradually manifesting itself.

Questioned about whether there would really be an
election this year, 68.5 percent of those surveyed responded yes
and 21.4 percent answered that they did not think an election
would be held.

Of those who did not believe that the election would be held,
71.8 percent believed that the election would be purposely
postponed to maintain the status quo.

Asked what could prevent the poll from being held, 54.2
percent of respondents said widespread chaos and 35.5 percent
believed that pressures from certain political groups toward the
government would stop the poll from taking place.

The objectivity and fairness of elections was always
questioned during the reign of Soeharto, who ruled Indonesia with
an iron fist from 1966 to 1998 and who allowed only three
political parties to contest in elections.

Asked if the upcoming election would be objective and fair, 44
percent of respondents doubted the election would be fair. Only
25 percent of respondents believed that the election would be
fair.

The Armed Forces (ABRI), an extremely important factor in
Indonesian politics, has recently suffered an image problem as
past misdeeds continue to come to light.

Asked whether the Armed Forces would remain neutral in the
upcoming election, 41.6 percent of those polled said no, while
another 32.4 percent expressed doubts about ABRI's neutrality.

This overwhelming response makes one thing clear: in the eyes
of the people, ABRI will not remain neutral in the upcoming
election.

The question of ABRI's neutrality and the political status of
civil servants, currently being wooed by various political
groups, help to undermine the people's belief that the upcoming
election will be fairer, cleaner and more objective than the
previous six elections held under Soeharto.