Moral of the election: Out of touch, out of the race

Moral of the election: Out of touch, out of the race

Endy M. Bayuni, Jakarta

One of the chief lessons we take away from Monday's election
is that our political elite, as represented by the mighty
Nationhood Coalition, is completely out of touch with reality at
the grassroots level.

While the majority of the political elite fought to secure the
reelection of the incumbent president Megawati Soekarnoputri, a
clear majority of the people voted for her challenger, retired
Army general and former security minister Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono.

The disconnectedness between the people's wants and those of
most politicians could not have been more embarrassingly sharper.

The Nationhood Coalition of four parties controls 305 of 550
seats in the House of Representatives. Their share of House seats
came from the approximately 60 percent of combined votes they won
in the April legislative election.

Susilo's own Democratic Party has only 55 House seats.
Established last year to provide him with an election vehicle,
the party won just 8 percent of votes. Susilo did not form any
coalition, but welcomed small parties to join his camp.

On Monday, however, the tables were turned completely on the
incumbent and her coalition.

Two independent quick counts and a provisional count by the
General Elections Commission have shown Susilo with a little over
60 percent of tallied votes, against almost 40 percent for
Megawati. Most observers said the final results, to be announced
on Oct. 5, would be unlikely to depart much from these
preliminary figures.

With the inclusion of the nation's two largest parties, Golkar
and Megawati's own Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-
P), the Nationhood Coalition was a mighty election machine
impossible for Susilo to match. It had the resources and the
network, and with Golkar on board, it had the experience to run
an effective campaign. It seemed almost a sure recipe for
success.

When the coalition was announced on Aug. 19 at a five-star
hotel in Jakarta, many in the grouping were so intoxicated with
themselves that they felt they were unbeatable. Even Megawati
declared in her speech that "victory is within our grasp".

Theoretically, they were correct. If the coalition parties
could deliver on Sept. 20 the same number of votes they won in
April, the election would have been clear sailing for Megawati.

But they were up against a challenger who enjoyed massive
popular support. Susilo had been leading several independent
surveys in the last 12 months, even before he had announced his
candidacy toward the end of last year.

His popularity was confirmed in the first round of the
presidential election on July 5, which was contested by five
candidates. Susilo won 34 percent against Megawati's 26. But even
in the run-up to Sept. 20, all independent surveys had Susilo
leading consistently by quite a wide margin.

On Monday, when people voted directly for their president for
the first time ever, most people ignored the wishes or
instructions of the political elite and voted for Susilo.

Where did Megawati's Nationhood Coalition go wrong?

The coalition parties had done every thing they could. Golkar
used its huge network of party chapters to canvass votes in the
regions, areas beyond the reach of Susilo's much smaller team.
There were even strong indications of "money politics" and smear
campaigns being waged against Susilo.

Where the coalition went wrong is that over the years, they
had become increasingly distant from the people they were
supposed to represent.

When the people were given the chance to vote for themselves
on who should lead the country, many voted according to their
conscience. No intimidation and no amount of money could have
influenced the way they voted.

This was the whole point of holding a direct presidential
election: to give the people a say in the national leadership.

The political elite may still control the process by making it
mandatory for presidential candidates to be nominated by parties,
but they cannot control the outcome -- that power is in the hands
of the people. And this week, they begged to differ from the
wishes of the political elite.

The formation of the Nationhood Coalition was illustrative of
this strong disconnection between the political elite and the
people, and was seen by most as another display of horse-trading
among the elite for the spoils of their expected victory.

We are reminded of a similar process that led to the election
of Abdurrahman Wahid as president in 1999 by the People's
Consultative Assembly. It was precisely this ugly process that
many people loathed, which led to a growth in demand for the
direct electoral system to be adopted this year.

However, the major political parties failed to read the signs
of the people's growing discontent over their performance.

Leaders of these parties remained silent when many of their
regional legislators were being prosecuted on corruption charges.
Even in the rare instances when the accusations were proven in
court, these party leaders did not lift so much as a finger.

The strongest indication of the people's loathing of political
parties came in the first round of the presidential election on
July 5. How else could Susilo's 34 percent win be explained, when
his party won only 8 percent three months earlier?

Alas, the political elite chose to ignore even this
indisputable sign and decided to forge the coalition.

In doing so, these parties sent a message to the people that
they were more interested in serving their personal interests,
and not the people they were supposed to represent.

So, what's next for the political elite, particularly those in
big parties like the PDI-P and Golkar?

Their defeat should drive them to do some soul-searching about
their place in Indonesia's democracy. While our system certainly
cannot function without parties, our political elite must undergo
some major changes to win back the people's sympathy and trust.

If the major parties hope to continue to play a role in this
nascent democracy, they need to go back to the people and start
listening to what the people want.

The writer is chief editor of The Jakarta Post.