Indonesia's parliamentary elections 2004 and their meaning for Indonesia's future

Jusuf Wanandi Jakarta

What is the impact of the 2004 legislative elections on Indonesia's two most important assets, a maturing democracy and moderate Islam?

A maturing democracy is not only democracy as a formality, such as having elections regularly or having political parties, but also having values and substance. The latter include striving for freedoms that must go hand in hand with democracy -- freedom of speech and freedom of assembly -- but also supremacy of the law and equality before the law.

Moderate Islam is part of political Islam that strives to harmonize modernity with Islam, reconcile Islam and democracy, and adopting politics that are open and inclusive for all Indonesians, namely a state that is not based on Islam or Islamic laws.

The April 2004 legislative elections are widely seen as honest and peaceful. The results have been well accepted by the general public despite the shortcomings of the General Elections Commission (KPU), a newly established independent body of nonpartisan members. Previously, the KPU was run by the government or political parties.

The people have shown their displeasure with the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) party, which has not done much for the people (corruption, unemployment, insecurity and bad judiciary). It received 40 percent fewer votes than in 1999. The elections also showed that voters, especially in the big cities, are also less bound by their formal and informal solidarity group leaders (based on religion, ethnicity and region).

They have given the Democratic Party of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono a big gain of 7.5 percent of the vote due to his popularity. These were in part sympathy voters in response to the way he was demoted by President Megawati Soekarnoputri. In 1999 those votes went to Megawati and the PDI-P. The Democratic Party was established only in 2002.

If indeed most of the new House of Representatives (DPR) members are younger and better educated than before -- and there will also be more women among them -- one could expect a qualitatively better legislature in the future. This augurs well for democracy in Indonesia. But this election is only one step toward a mature democracy. It may take another two elections to achieve it. Despite the messiness of the process for democracy, it is still worth it for most Indonesians as a lot of improvements have happened.

The results may create a greater fragmentation of political parties in the DPR as there are now seven major political parties. This could be further simplified in 2009.

This fragmentation could make the process of formulating policies more difficult, because it will take more than two parties to get a majority. At the same time, coalition forming will not be easy without the blocs of two parties, Golkar and the PDI-P.

The democratization process will also depend on how the next president is going to approach politics in general and particularly how he or she will cooperate with the DPR. If he or she does realize the need to create majority coalitions within the DPR to get the legislation, program, budget and appointments through, he or she also will be able to make the DPR more effective.

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and whether the DPR is really strengthening a mature democracy or not will depend on their performance within the next five years.

But of course a mature democracy not only depends on the elections, the DPR or the political parties. A strong and healthy civil society, a free press and an active student body are important prerequisites for a mature democracy in Indonesia.

They should have a strong presence as well until the foreseeable future since the political parties so far have not shown their vision and willingness to really stand up for society and the people. Instead, they are still very dependent on individual and group interests.

Moderate Islam won in the last election. But beyond figures and numbers, one should note the change of paradigm in the debate of the electorates, which has been divided into so-termed nationalist and Islamic parties.

The divide between santri and abangan is perhaps no more relevant. The Golkar Party is defined as "secular" or nationalist (abangan), but among its leaders there are many HMI (Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam, or Muslim Student Union) leaders. Although Golkar is a proponent of "nationalist" policies and programs and is open to every citizen, it is also very sensitive and up to date on Islamic issues and struggle in Indonesia.

PAN and the PKB are based on Islamic mass organizations, Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) respectively, but are open parties and do not promote sharia as a goal to be implemented in Indonesia.

The issue of Islam or nationalism did not become an issue in the last election (2004) campaign. Yet, there are still smaller parties based on Islam that are willing to make sharia national law.

The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), has been very successful, having used corruption and good governance as its main themes in the campaign. That was the compromise it had to make if it wanted to reach out to a large mass of supporters in society.

If all the Muslim parties are taken together, without PAN and the PKB, then in 2004 they had 23 percent of the vote or 127 of the 550 seats in the DPR. In 1999, the PKS (then known as PK, or Partai Keadilan) got 1.7 percent of the vote or seven seats from a total 500 seats. If you include PAN and the PKB, then they gained 42 percent or 231 seats this year. In 1999 they got 34 percent of the vote or 171 seats.

This percentage is about the same as what all the Muslim parties got in the 1955 election (43 percent). But 25 years have made a lot of fundamental difference. In 1955 all the Muslim parties formed one bloc of the Jakarta Charter (or sharia law) in the Constituent Assembly.

Nowadays, only 23 percent at most are proponents of sharia, although PAN and the PKB are opposed to it. The debates during the campaigns do not suggest that this issue is important. In the longer term, if many more Muslim parties become proponents of sharia, it is still open whether or not they are going to come out again in full force for sharia to be accepted as positive law.

In the meantime, only the PKS got more votes and seats among the proponents of sharia, while the rest stalled or lost votes. The PKS gain was not generated by a campaign for sharia, but by its anticorruption and welfare strategy. These were brilliant tactics.

There are two more issues with regard to sharia in Indonesia. The first is the question of creeping national legislation that will implement or be inspired by sharia, such as on education, food, social issues etc. in the future. Until now, the question has come up only sporadically, such as in relation to the National Education Law last year, especially on religious education as a subject matter in private schools.

But everybody, including moderate Muslims, has to be aware of this possibility and should also help in overcoming such an aberration in future legislation. The second issue is the political decisions made by several regents such as in Garut, Tasikmalaya, West Java, who have proclaimed the implementation of sharia in their regencies. This is essentially a political act, because they do not have the legal instruments to put sharia law into practice. Those decisions could be misunderstood politically. However, they are not a widespread phenomenon, and would be impossible to implement in practice.

The writer is cofounder and member of the board of trustees of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).