Indonesian democracy: No turning back

Indonesian democracy: No turning back

Part 1 of 2

Satish Mishra, Chief Economist, UNSFIR/UNDP, Jakarta

All adult Indonesians who choose to do so go to the polls
today to elect a new House of Representatives,the Council of
Regional Representatives and local legislatures at provincial,
regency and municipal levels.

They will again exercise their voting rights in May and
possibly in September to elect a new president and vice
president.

In such a historic expression of the people's will, it is
worth thinking about what we should vote for and what we should
vote against. The way we chose will determine the course of
Indonesia's future over the coming decade or more. The reason is
simple. The coming elections represent an important next step in
the consolidation of Indonesia's young and fragile democracy. We
are not used to such open elections.

Over the last thirty or more years we have grown used to
letting our civil servants, our commanders or our community
leaders do the thinking for us. Now we have to take our future in
our own hands. It is time to begin thinking and choosing for
ourselves.

This is not easy. The long economic crisis has greatly eroded
our self confidence. It has changed our view of our selves. Only
yesterday, the world was praising our economic growth and
development. Foreign money and foreign businesses were flooding
into the country. We were being held up as a model for other
developing countries to emulate.

Today, our large businesses are close to bankrupt, our banks
remain in distress, our workers out of jobs. An entire generation
of our young are threatened by a life time of economic
insecurity.

Democratic elections however confer not just a right but also
a responsibility. That responsibility is the duty of every
citizen to think in terms of the public interest, to play a part
in providing a national mandate by which the country should be
governed.

In times of crisis and urgency, it is not only the leaders who
must play a part in implementing sensible policies and in
containing the eruption of social violence. The citizen must also
guide the leadership and help to ensure that public institutions
remain open and honest. The democratic political system is a
partnership of state and the citizen. It is neither just citizen,
nor is it just state.

Despite a sharp decline in national self confidence both State
and Citizen, must accept the historical responsibility that the
collapse of the former political system has placed on us. We must
think about what to do next. And we must think of it together.

Climbing out of the abyss of a national crisis involves two
essential skills, the ability to learn from the past and the
ability to look into the future. We need to do the first to avoid
repeating expensive mistakes. We need the second to avoid
mistakes yet to come. Both are important in building a new
Indonesia. Let us begin with the lessons of history.

The Indonesian national liberation struggle was founded on the
belief that Indonesians had a right to self government. That
meant a belief that all Indonesians, and not just the privileged
few, had a right to have a voice in constructing the new post-
independence Indonesia. This was a powerful emotion. Many died
for it. In the end they succeeded. Indonesia was free. The
liberation spirit dominated immediate post-independence politics.

Yet the passion that brought down the Dutch empire could not,
left to itself, build the foundations of effective government.
Governing institutions remained weak. The economy faltered.
Social and political divisions could not be kept in check. The
result in 1965 was the collapse of the regime and the death of
thousands of Indonesian citizens.

The New Order was borne out of a fear of disorder. It played
down the liberation spirit and built a powerful state. Political
life was circumscribed. Attention was diverted to bread not
freedom. Economic growth was heralded as the key to political
legitimacy. Growth was to be driven by stability, order and a
consensus imposed from above. The system proclaimed itself to be
rooted in Indonesian culture and psyche. In a tragic reversal of
history, it was assumed that most Indonesians preferred obedience
to self-determination.

The obsession with order and control on the one hand and the
greed unleashed by economic growth at any cost, on the other, led
to a hollowing out of key national institutions. Private business
dominated public life. ABRI, a renowned national institution
which had contributed so much to national independence was both
robbed of adequate funding and infected with the divided
loyalties of political management.

Centers of higher learning were turned into establishments of
state ideology. The judiciary, normally a keeper of laws and an
independent arbiter of disputes, was used to turn the scales of
justice in the favor of the economically and politically
powerful. The civil "service", turned it self into a secret
conclave of technical specialists far removed from those that it
was expected to serve.

To be sure, the New Order System, as have dictatorships in
many parts of the world, did, for a time, deliver high economic
growth. For a while it was also lucky. In its first decade, oil
prices rocketed. The sharp increase in government revenue helped
consolidate the new political system. Early growth was also
labor intensive. It was driven by the green revolution and by the
emergence of labor intensive textile production. Labor moved from
the village to the city. People got jobs even if wages remained
low.

On the whole, economic growth gave much to the few. It gave
very little to the many. Despite high economic growth for over
two decades the lives of the majority of our people barely
hovered over absolute subsistence. Relative priorities given to
programs which benefited the poor: In education, health and
sanitation remained well below even less well off neighboring
countries.

In other ways too, economic growth came at a heavy price. It
was the product of a system of governance which had turned
personal greed into public policy. It stifled initiative and
creativity. It saw obedience to the authoritarian state the prime
civic virtue and thus robbed the political system of a means of
public criticism and correction.

At the end of the day, the New Order collapsed like a large
and familiar tree, strong and everlasting from the outside but
hollow and weak from the inside.

The lesson is clear. The liberation spirit which had brought
Indonesia its independence could not be ignored for ever. Its
power was seen in the first wave of Reformasi which ended
Soeharto's long rule. Times of economic shock often bring about
changes in government.

In Indonesia, however, they brought about the collapse of an
entire socio-political system. Clearly, under the New Order the
pendulum had swung too far. The State was given primacy over
citizen. Growth, not freedom, became the source of political
legitimacy. It was not a contract which the Indonesian people
were willing to accept for ever.

This article does not represent the views of UNSFIR, UNDP or
any other UN organization. The views expressed here are strictly
personal.