Next elections won't produce new leaders: Analyst
Next elections won't produce new leaders: Analyst
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Next year's general elections will result in the same
unqualified, corrupt leaders heading the nation, political
analyst Arbi Sanit said on Thursday.
And these same leaders had designed the law to ensure that was
the case, he said.
"The elections will maintain the present elite leaders
although they are proven to have failed to bring about
prosperity," Arbi of the University of Indonesia (UI) told a
discussion in Jakarta on Thursday.
Indonesia is slated to hold legislative elections in April
2004 and two-stage direct presidential elections in July and
September respectively.
Citing articles in the election law, he said the executive
boards of political parties possessed the ultimate power to
determine legislative candidates ahead of the elections.
Although the nation has formally adopted a combination of
open-list and proportional system, Arbi said the law encouraged
people to vote for political parties instead of a specific
candidate.
He said political leaders would still dominate and control the
nation. "Slogans that the people will be a decisive factor are
just nonsense," he said.
Arbi said the elections would produce elite leaders who know
nothing about democracy, therefore the policies they would make
would never benefit the people.
Former transmigration minister Siswono Yudhohusodo, who also
spoke at the discussion, said the elections would be an important
milestone in the country's journey towards democracy.
He said the presence of qualified leaders and the readiness of
the people to practice democracy were prerequisites to improving
Indonesia.
He said it would be very difficult for the nation to get
qualified leaders, because many leaders had lost their sense of
responsibility when committing mistakes, their sense of shame
about corruption and their sense of fear of the law.
Siswono, who chairs the Indonesian Farmers Brotherhood Union
(HKTI), however, suggested the nation should be optimistic about
the leaders after the next election.
He said that although the macro-economy had shown significant
growth in the past three years, some leaders had betrayed the
nation.
The betrayal appeared in various forms, including the sales of
state assets at cheap prices, the enormous importation of food,
smuggling, corruption and rampant money politics.
Besides the performance of the macro-economy, Siswono said
Indonesia faced hard problems with high unemployment, a limited
budget and low economic growth.
Concerning the importance of state leaders, Siswono suggested
that Indonesia look at Malaysia, Singapore, and China, which have
had Mahathir Mohammad, Lee Kuan Yew, and Deng Xiao Ping
respectively.
"All of them are examples of leaders who have brought their
nations to prosperity," he said.