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.