Indonesian democracy 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.