JP/7/IGNAS

JP/7/IGNAS

Politics can't be
justified without
concern for public good

Political parties
and political issues in Indonesia

Ignas Kleden
The Center for East
Indonesian Affairs (CEIA)
Jakarta

It is an age-old truism that politics has something to do with
power. Yet this only half the truth. The fact that someone -- the
president for example -- is entitled to such big power over the
others can only be understood and justified if the power given to
him or her is used for the common good of as many citizens as
possible.

This is why the concern for the common good and public
interest is another constitutive element of politics. Without
power entitlement and power wielding, politics cannot be
exercised. And without serious concern for public interest and
common good, politics cannot be justified.

The situation is somewhat parallel to the fact that the state
is entitled to have the monopoly of the use of violence. This
entitlement is accepted because it is believed that the violence
which is at the state's disposal will be used to compel law
enforcement by means of forcing people who refuse to behave
according to the law to recognize and to follow legal rules and
regulations. Also it is assumed that the violence will be used to
protect the state and the citizens from possible violence
conducted by other party or other state.

Yet the entitlement is often hunted for without sufficient
awareness of the concomitant obligation. Power is so enchanting
and overwhelming, while the concern for public interest and
common good is usually neglected and ignored. This is also true
for the army and the police who are often more than aware of
their right to apply violence and to use weapons while being
easily forgetful of the obligation to protect people and to
provide them with security.

This asymmetric perception of politics is all the more true
for Indonesia. Their agenda and operation shows that their main
business and their most important preoccupation is nothing but
the involvement in the attainment, the distribution and the
maximization of power. All political parties, big and small, are
engaged in preparation for general election, electoral threshold,
the financing of political campaign, possible political
coalition, and the prospective candidates for the presidency and
the House of Representatives.

No mention is made of how a political party envisages the
realization of the common good and the public interest and how
this will be done. The Indonesian Party of Struggle (PDI
Perjuangan), Golkar, and United Development (PPP) say very little
or not even a single word about their determination, strategy and
method to fight the proliferation of corruption and other
malpractices within bureaucracy, what is to be done to solve the
problem of increasing unemployment, and what are their ideas and
plans regarding economic recovery.

It is really surprising that despite the very striking and
threatening environmental depreciation, there is no imagination
among the politically interested people to found a political
party comparable to the Green Party in other more developed
countries.

Surprisingly though there are a great number of people living
below the poverty line -- reaching 47.9 million according to the
2002 report of the Ministry of Health -- and despite so many
minorities there is no serious initiative to establish a
political party which concentrates on social-democratic programs.

Yet every political party repeatedly talks about the interest
and the progress of the people, without the smallest hint of the
willingness and the ability to translate distinctively people's
interest into priorities in various sectors.

How is people's interest reflected and represented in housing,
public transportation, schooling, industry, trade, business and
economy or political education? Is it in the interest of the
people if private luxury cars dominate the city's main streets
instead of public transportations? How is public interest made
visible in education if fees are so high that education is
affordable only within a limited circle?

Why are golf courses everywhere while there is hardly space
for playgrounds? Are small industries and various handcrafts are
given priorities and incentives? Why do industrial goods have
free prices whereas agricultural products are bound to have a
fixed price?

For now there are more than 200 political parties in Indonesia
-- which does not necessarily imply that there are more than 200
or more groupings interested in the common good. The figure only
indicates an increasing number of people participating in power
building and power wielding. It's rare to hear substantial
debates among political parties about their plans and programs
for poverty alleviation, about priorities in regional autonomy or
about improvement and reform of national education.

In more developed democratic countries the competition among
contending political parties is carried out through the
introduction and the promotion of their political programs.
People vote for parties with political programs that are supposed
to correspond best to the needs of the voters.

In Indonesia it is a sociological enigma, on why and on the
basis of what reasons people vote to one party instead of the
other, despite the fact the political programs are not the main
priority of most of the parties. What becomes the means of
political persuasion and political appeal?

The absence of substantial programs of political parties
become one of the main reasons why the tendency towards internal
fractioning within parties is far greater than the ability to
establish an internal consolidation. What is now happening within
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) occurs
also within the National Awakening Party (PKB), PPP and within
the former ruling party, Golkar.

The lack of concern about public interest as a common cause
for every party members turns out to become an occasion in which
everybody who have some influence within party is tempted to make
use of the party as a means for the pursuit of individual
interest or the interest of a particular faction.

It can certainly be fruitful if the contending arguments and
the contest of competing discourses are pursued within the scope
of a party's mission and within the framework of party's
programs. But often each faction within the party endeavours to
pursue its own interest instead of getting involved in efforts to
find the best possible way to realize the program of the party.

This is why political parties here do not as yet represent a
case of institution building in political sector. There are no
common programs and ideals which function as a cohesive binding
force uniting the party members as a solid grouping, and there
are no common values for which the party becomes an institutional
embodiment. The programs and the ideals make the commitment of
party members and the devotion of their expertise meaningful,
whereas the underlying common values provide them with a sense of
purpose and sense of fulfilment.

The official number of the registered political parties of
Indonesia now is 234, of which 30 are supposedly entitled to
contend in the competition for general election. We have to wait
and see whether the smaller parties which do not pass the
electoral threshold are willing and ready to sacrifice their own
interest in order to encourage political institution building in
Indonesia by means of joining the bigger ones.

Yet this is very unlikely because the absence of substantial
programs in many bigger parties would make it very difficult for
the smaller ones to estimate their closeness to one party or
another. The tragedy is that people are inclined to believe that
pursuing one's own interest is more safe and long-lasting than
trying to push for the common good in which one can happily
partake without excluding other people unnecessarily.

At this point a miserable tragedy is turned into a bad comedy.