Money politics: Seeking help of the lords of the purse

Money politics: Seeking help of the lords of the purse

B. Herry-Priyono, Researcher, Alumnus, London School of Economics

On Friday Sept. 13, when Mahfudz Djailani admitted that he had
paid Rp 200 million to 40 councillors as down payment of a total
of Rp 2 billion if they elected him to the post of Jakarta
Governor, people must have been angered and burst into laughter
simultaneously.

Angered, as politics had become so low. And they would have
laughed because the news revealed the obvious anyway.

On Monday, Sept. 16, when Mahfudz retracted his admission and
decided not to reveal the names of the 40 councillors as he had
threatened to, people must have laughed even harder. Probably not
because the information was untrue, but because the legal
implications of revealing the names seems to have scared him. As
we know, "law" is not synonymous with "truth".

With or without anger cum laughter, money politics seems to be
a misnomer. There has never been politics without money as much
as there is no money without politics. Money and politics are
like Siamese twins that can almost not be separated with surgery.
Indeed, no form of politics could deal forever with the insidious
power of wealth -- particularly portable and negotiable wealth.

Imagine the following hypothetical scenario. You are the
president of a country called Indonesia, and, for whatever
reasons, you want to secure your seat in the 2004 general
elections. What would you need? -- To secure the machine of
financial resources. Where are such financial machines located?
There are at least three cities you must control: Jakarta,
Surabaya and Medan. Not because they represent Indonesia, but
because in these cities are located the lords of the purse.

Who are they? Business tycoons, big businesses and other
financial oligarchs. So, the stage is set for either comedy or
tragedy. You may wish to believe that the interests of
administrative power (your presidency and the governorship of
Jakarta) could be insulated from the influence of financial power
(tycoons, big businesses and other lords of the business).
Similarly, you may wish the financial power could be insulated
from administrative power.

Machiavelli would have risen from his grave and rushed to say
that such insulation is wishful thinking. What works is what is
done. The normative is of course not so, but norm is a rhetorical
bubble that is there to work as a facade. The more vacuous and
merrier the rhetorical bubble, the better.

Then, suppose that some of your close friends were business
tycoons. They may look indifferent toward the battle for the
Jakarta gubernatorial race. Their "indifference" is quite
deceptive. This apparent indifference simply comes from the fact
that they, unless they run as formal candidates, are officially
not part of the state apparatus or would-be state apparatus.

This, however, does not conceal the fact that they have every
stake in the gubernatorial race. If there is no business outside
the definition of administrative power (and vice versa), there is
also no business that is disinterested in the struggle for
administrative power.

It is here that a "parasitical symbiosis" is forged. You, as
president of Indonesia, have every interest to have a Jakarta
governor as your lieutenant who will secure the votes for your
2004 presidential race.

But, above all, you and the would-be governor have every
interest to secure financial resources, either for your personal
pocket, your own business, or for funding your 2004 presidential
ambition. On the part of your friends (some business magnates),
they have every interest to have a president and a Jakarta
governor who supports their businesses, either in the more
general sense as a pro-business climate, or as a personal
connection.

They will not support a president or a Jakarta governor who
takes the side of the urban poor vis-a-vis their industrial or
financial interests. Some of them would not even hesitate to
raise thousands of mercenaries to back their ambitions with
necessary violence.

Suppose I decided to run as candidate in the Jakarta
gubernatorial race. Suppose also that I have a good platform and
program, am considered qualified -- professionally, managerially,
intellectually -- and I have broad support from most Jakartans.
What do I lack? First, money. Second, financial support from many
business oligarchs. Third, control over the Jakarta City Council
that does not necessarily represent the will of the Jakarta
populace.

One may think that the members of the City Council were angels
with constant eyes on the agonies of ordinary Jakartans, who
would thus vote for the most qualified candidate to deal with the
problems of a city in agony. That is of course a farce. Once we
know that the council is also made up of people who, on the
whole, are guided by considerations of self-interest, the mystery
is solved.

Then the question shifts as to whether I could make the
highest bid. Such a bid of course does not take place overtly,
for secrecy is the mother of collusion. Law is good, but it is
little more than rhetorical bubble in this politico-economic
morass.

I would also have to make the highest bid to the president who
has every stake to control Jakarta, Medan and Surabaya. In total,
the amount may reach billions or trillions of rupiah, either
fixed or negotiated. If I want to be a ruler in Surabaya, perhaps
I need to spend Rp 100 billion. I would guess in Jakarta the bid
reaches hundreds of billion or some trillions. Alas, I was not
elected, for if I were, I would chase back what I have invested
on.

So the stage is set for the game of administrative autocrats
and financial oligarchs. In the meantime, the pangs of brutish
survival of the ordinary Jakartans rumble on, as if nothing has
happened. Of course the tragedy enters into the collective
subconscious of the masses. No wonder once in a while we find the
angry mobs revolting.