Monoloyalty policy: Problems and prospects

By R. Siti Zuhro

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian bureaucracy is not neutral, due to the government's policy of insisting on the monoloyalty of civil servants, so that they can only vote for its political body, Golkar, in general elections.

Since Soeharto started ruling the country in 1966, there have been fundamental changes in Indonesian politics. The armed forces have played a significant role in politics, while political parties have not functioned properly in the same way as their counterparts in more democratic societies.

In this regard, the government's policy of the "floating mass" is very harmful to the development of the parties in Indonesia because they may not have branches in subdistricts and villages.

This policy definitely benefits Golkar rather than the other political parties. Golkar has become a major force both socially and politically in Indonesian life, while the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) and the United Development Party (PPP) have no mass bases in villages.

There is no question, then, of whether the bureaucracy has played a dominant role in political and social life. Some analysts believe that the dominant role of the bureaucracy is ultimately because of the role of the civil servants in politics. Their involvement in politics, as reflected in their support of Golkar, has caused the bureaucracy to be no longer neutral.

This phenomena is contrary to the conventional theory of bureaucracy in which civil servants are expected to give better service to the people and to remain politically neutral. Moreover, civil servants are expected to conform to various rules and regulations in carrying out their duties. Therefore, the main problem of the bureaucracy concerns their central role in politics, especially their role in supporting Golkar in winning elections.

Moreover, to support Golkar, the government has established the Indonesian Civil Servants Corps (Korpri) as its mass base. As an organization of civil servants, Korpri has the duties of helping Golkar win elections and seeking other supporters outside its organization. Thus, the civil service monoloyalty policy implemented since 1970 has successfully limited civil servants' activities in politics.

As government employees, civil servants actually have a position similar to that of other citizens because constitutionally they have the freedom to express their desires. However, the fact is that their freedom of expression is very limited.

This tendency, in fact, seems to have been perpetuated under the Habibie government, as reflected in the recent debates on the crucial issue among PPP, PDI, the Armed Forces (ABRI) and Golkar at the House of Representatives (DPR).

In these debates, only Golkar has agreed that civil servants can become members and functionaries of parties. The debates will affect the result of the proposed new political act.

If Golkar wins the debate, the bureaucracy will not be so much different from the current condition, which was also called monoloyalitas tunggal birokrasi (the monoloyalty of the bureaucracy). This is why the future prospects of the bureaucracy are still not clear. Whether it will become brighter, or worse.

Golkar's support of the idea of allowing civil servants to become members or functionaries of political parties can be explained by the fact that Golkar does not only tend to maintain its close relationship with Korpri, but also it is not prepared to lose its traditional support. This it spells out clearly in its response to the draft political acts of Nov. 25 and 26 November 1998. This also indicates that the future prospect of the political rights of the civil servants is still questionable, whether these will become positive or deteriorate.

The problem is if the proposed new political act still permits civil servants to become functionaries of political parties, it will have a serious impact on the process of good governance. However, it will not make the government better able to carry out its job. And it is contributing to the creation of an inefficient and ineffective government. It will also hinder the development of an accountable government.

It is also clear that the politicization of the bureaucracy through the monoloyalty policy has not only hampered the development of democracy, but has also resulted in an inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy, which will make it more difficult for Indonesian products to compete on the global market.

Furthermore, Indonesia is also facing problems in internal factors such as the lack of economic resources and the strong demand for political reform or democratization. This, in itself, is a very important argument why civil servants should have political freedom and an independent position. It means, there is no need for civil servants to become functionaries of political parties. But they exercise their political rights through their membership of political parties and their freedom to choose their representatives at general elections.

The independence of civil servants is fundamentally needed not only to create fair elections and to make the bureaucracy neutral, but also to decrease the centralization of power and to develop civil society. Finally, Indonesians should learn from the past experience that they have to prevent the high concentration of conflicts resulting from the politicization of the bureaucracy under the New Order government.

The writer is a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).