Indonesia on course

Indonesia on course

The Straits Times
Asia News Network
Singapore

The important thing about Indonesia's parliamentary elections
next week is that the country's stability is no longer hostage to
political outcomes. The 1999 polls were held in the testy
aftermath of the Asian economic crisis and the departure of the
Soeharto regime, an exit that released destructive forces created
by the centrifugal pulls of ethnicity and regionalism.

Now, as President Megawati Soekarnoputri told this newspaper
in an interview, many of the conflicts in trouble-prone areas --
Maluku, Kalimantan, Irian Jaya and Aceh -- have been or are being
resolved. This is no mean achievement. Terrorism is the new
reality and it has power, yet, to break the fragile stability.

However, Indonesia's neighbors can be safe in the confidence
that, overall, Southeast Asia's pivot will continue its peaceful
transition away from the tumultuous past. Forty-eight parties
contested the last elections in 1999, compared to 24 taking part
this year. This is one of the small but significant details of
the maturing of the Indonesian political system, from the
political free-for-all that followed years of autocracy to the
more focused party politics of the new millennium.

Although stability is not what is at stake in this election,
Indonesia still needs to translate that stability into higher
growth. Foreign direct investment is still below the level it
reached before the 1997-1998 regional economic crisis; indeed, it
fell 66 percent year-on-year in January and February.

According to a report, those who want to invest cite a weak
judicial system and uncertainties over labor regulations as some
of the reasons for staying away. This is worrying because the
World Bank and International Monetary Fund have said that
Indonesia cannot grow fast enough to create opportunities for its
estimated 10 million unemployed, without more foreign funds
flowing in.

This is where next week's elections for the legislature, to be
followed by the presidential election in July, can make a
decisive difference. A strong president, buoyed by the power that
comes with a direct vote, will be in a position to take the tough
and occasionally unpleasant measures needed to set the country on
the track to growth.

One other factor of importance is the role which Islam will
play in politics. According to the 2000 census, 178 million
Muslims constitute 88 percent of the population. However, the
country also has more than 1,000 ethnic and sub-ethnic groups.

In a recently published book, Indonesian Electoral Behavior: A
Statistical Perspective, the authors studied the interplay of
religion, ethnicity and other variables, such as education,
geographical composition and per capita income, at work in the
1999 elections. They concluded that although religious and ethnic
loyalties influenced electoral outcomes then, they were not, with
some exceptions, the most important variables in explaining the
distribution of votes.

This analysis, which the authors said was relevant to this
year's parliamentary elections, suggests that Islam-based parties
which emphasize religious demands at the expense of bread-and-
butter expectations might be misjudging the public mood. PAS, the
Islamic party in Malaysia, learnt that to its cost in the
Malaysian elections.

Although Indonesia's political culture and electoral system
are not the same, there is little doubt that its elections, too,
will be fought on issues such as the economy and good governance.
How Indonesians choose is up to them. What their neighbors and
well-wishers hope for is that they will make choices that will
lead them forward.