Local elections -- the storm before the calm

Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The saying "the calm before the storm" does not apply to Indonesian politics. In most instances it is the exact opposite: a storm before the calm.

The election season of 2004 was one case where initial concern and anxiety belied the eventual calm at the polls.

Now we are hearing much brouhaha over local administration elections -- of regulations found wanting, a lack of preparation and fears of chaos.

With some 170 local elections throughout the year, there is bound to be pandemonium. Yes, there will be clashes, cases of ballot fraud and vote-buying. Legal challenges will be abound from sore losers and political opportunists trying to exploit legal technicalities.

However for the most part, the storm will become isolated and sporadic.

The very nature of local elections -- provincial, regency and municipality levels -- means the debates remain local, which will result in a disconnect between other areas. Hence the issues, while interesting to watch, will not evolve into an agitating nationwide affair.

The lack of "substance" in the elections also makes for a quick-resolving affair at the grassroots level.

Despite a few campaigns exploiting religious slogans, local elections will be ideologically free. Most of the candidates do not belong to ideologically rigid political parties since most are secular in practice and running for crude realist objectives -- power. Exceptions to watch are candidates from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) who have shown a vein of conservatism throughout its history.

Neither should we expect the local elections to pit major policy alternatives, because there is little policy distinction -- if there is even a presentable cohesive policy proposed -- between candidates. The spewed rhetoric will predictably range between sentiments of anticorruption, welfare, regional authority (anti-Jakarta) and ethnic chauvinism.

In the long run, the local elections should become a healthy thing for democratic growth and the empowerment of local voices. But given the evolutionary nature of political change, it will be many years before an accountable and truly representative system is in place.

In the medium term, the success of local elections will shape ties between the center (Jakarta) and the regional administrations.

For the short term, it is all about political elitism and its impact on the 2009 general elections. It will be a laboratory, of sorts, for national and presidential election strategies.

Three years of local elections presents the best way to evaluate the true strength of political parties ahead of the general election. It will either confirm or dismiss self- indulgent predictions of a party's power base. The compiled data will provide a basis for devising strategies to mobilize voters.

It also will provide a matrix of local issues, which can be paired with national platforms in the 2009 elections. Major parties in 2009 will be more sophisticated in their campaigns, and more able to highlight local content, rather than unattractive general national issues as they did in 2004.

The most important consequence of the local elections is the financial one, and who controls what in which area. Command of a local administration -- through the local council, regent and business community -- ensures a degree of monopoly over its natural resources.

The balance of power within most parties has shifted toward party branches in regencies/provinces for the simple fact that party central boards are now more dependent on "contributions" from the branches.

Success in places like Riau, East Kalimantan and Papua, often mean profit for the party's war chest. Money, in politics, often goes hand-in-hand with electoral prowess. Central board executives will be increasingly looking towards the regency branches to subsidize their campaigns in 2009.

Sometimes it may be better in the medium term for a party to be victorious in a small but rich regency or municipality, than one that highly populated, yet limited in areas to financially exploit.

Such is the "stormy" nature of Indonesian politics which, for now, results in "calm" exploitation.