Not voting a sign of disobedience?

By Makmur Keliat

SURABAYA (JP): In the context of a modern state, an election serves to symbolize the presence of democracy. It is believed that by holding an election through a multiparty system people will come to know the will of the majority.

Since one of the basic tenets of democracy is that to govern people have to gain people's support based on a mandate, an election is a symbol of people's sovereignty. In practical terms, therefore, an election can be considered as a verdict of the people on a government's performance.

One can assume that the majority regards a government's performance as poor if its party obtains a lower percentage of votes cast compared to the previous election or if it is defeated. To put it another way, the significance of any election lies in the mechanism of reward and punishment set up by the people and government according to the principles of social contract.

Nobody knows what the people's verdict will be on the government's record in our election. However, there are strong arguments to say that the poll is more complicated than previous ones.

First of all, the election needs to be related to an aging president. It is possible that this made President Soeharto reluctant to state explicitly his readiness to be re-elected and that he would merely exhibit his personal support for a new candidate after the count is held.

Even if the President accepts the candidacy, the views of the new House of Representatives members remain vital due to their right to elect the vice-president. As all people know, constitutionally speaking, the vice president automatically becomes president if the president cannot continue his job. It is with this in mind that the new House members are going to have an extraordinary privilege in the years to come.

It is then natural that the fight to win votes among the political parties, particularly between Golkar, the dominant party and the United Development Party (PPP), is going to be more competitive than ever. Indeed, this growing competitiveness emerged even before the campaign began, as was shown through a the color war in Central Java.

To some extent, the "yellowization" (coloring public utilities yellow, the color of Golkar) was a harbinger of the more massive political mobilization in the campaign.

Unlike PPP and Golkar, the only other minority party allowed by law, the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), is likely to play a marginal role in the election due to the weak legitimacy of the Soerjadi leadership. This weak legitimacy has precipitated a stronger rivalry between Golkar and PPP. The internal conflict within PDI has also given Golkar and PPP a greater opportunity to tap pro-Megawati PDI supporters.

However, efforts to take advantage of the rift will not be easy, particularly as, and the government has also recognized this, it is expected the number of voters not casting their ballots will markedly increase.

In this context, it helps to look at the characteristics of nonvoters in the United States. A survey there has shown that those who refuse to take part in the election usually come from middle class families and are mostly young people who are concerned with political and social issues. They are either graduates or at college. They do not vote because they have discovered that years of participation have little permanent impact on the system.

Keeping this in mind, it is very clear that nonparticipation is a product of experience. In the context of Indonesia, the nonparticipation could well be a result of the government's stance in the PDI internal conflict.

By siding with Soerjadi -- who seized power from Megawati with government backing -- the government has indirectly taught people a misguided political lesson. For some, especially middle class people in urban areas, such intervention has taught them that political ethics in Indonesia is nothing more than immoral power politics.

By the same token, they may have observed and witnessed how the bureaucracy has nakedly used the language of power to unilaterally shape Indonesia's political system. They may have also learned that the best way to articulate and channel their political interests is now not by voting but through nonparticipation.

Increasingly critical political awareness is evident not only in the middle classes, but also among laborers. As strikes have become more frequent, one can also say that labor has become more active in channeling its demands. Seen from a historical viewpoint, there is no doubt that the labor sector has become alienated from the political system.

In 1967, there were 1,501 registered labor unions and most were affiliated to a political party. This large number of labor unions can be attributed to the moderate government regulations.

In the past, it was legal to establish a labor union even if there were only ten members. The regulations subsequently imposed by the New Order government, the so-called state corporatism policy, have blocked the establishment an effective recognized union. The only official union is the All-Indonesia Workers Union.

Moreover, the simplification of party politics in 1972, by reducing the number of minority parties from 10 to two, hijacked organized labor's political struggle. To some extent, the simplification has created a feeling of losing an "adopted father" among Indonesian workers. Furthermore, there has been a tendency that any organization and people that are sympathetic to the labor struggle tend to be branded leftists. These are more often than not prohibited in Indonesia. As a result workers has become more and more alienated from the system.

This does not mean to say the government has not made attempts to lessen labor dissatisfaction. Indeed the government has enacted a daily minimum wage and revised it almost every year. However, since the cost of living in big cities has increased because of inflation, the higher wages do not mean more money in real terms. Therefore, it has come as no surprise that labor strikes continue unabated. In Surabaya, for example, there has been one strike almost every other day for some time.

Considering this imbroglio, it is possible that labor, along with Megawati supporters and a significant proportion of the middle class will not vote. Though the government has suggested repeatedly that everyone should vote, it remains a big question whether the voter turnout percentage will be higher than in 1992.

If the percentage is low, it would not be an exaggeration to say that "the white group" exists as a political force in Indonesia as a symbol of silent disobedience to and disillusionment with the system. In the final analysis, however, it seems to be a matter of political ethics what sort of impact this will have on Indonesia.

The writer is a lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Airlangga University, Surabaya.