Old faces won't bring back the New Order govt

Christian Chua, Jakarta

There are many candidates for the post of Indonesian president. To have a choice is good, and indeed, for a functioning democracy, it is essential. However, looking at the candidates, their backgrounds, political upbringing, programs and promises -- as they are known up to now -- doubt continues to exist about whether there really is a wide range of politicians and politics from which to choose, or if actually the Indonesians have been left without a real alternative.

Of course, the outcome of the presidential election is important. The only question is: primarily for whom? It will change lives -- the lives of the candidate who manages to get into the highest office and her/his (future) cronies. It matters for Jakarta's tiny elite, but for the remaining 220 million Indonesians it hardly makes any difference.

Admittedly, it depends on the person, personality and political affiliation of the future president as to whether X law is implemented, if Y money is spent for education, or if Z investment is done. These, however, are only cosmetic modifications.

This is not to say that such decisions are unimportant. They are just not of utmost relevance in the run-up to the election, when people need to know for which kind of policies a candidate stands.

In internal party primaries or in daily politics such issues need to be discussed. But for presidential elections there should be drafts and counterdrafts, programs and their alternatives, not just seven versions of an otherwise similar platform, where differences are beyond recognition.

In many democracies people do not have a real choice: Kerry or Bush in the United States, the Christian or Social Democrats in Germany. Who cares? If two-thirds of all eligible voters turn up for elections, it is already celebrated as a magic moment for democracy.

Only six years after the end of Soeharto's New Order, these elections seem to be finally killing the reformasi movement. The country's first ever direct presidential election is disguising itself as the final destination of the democratization process. What a pity, because it ought to be the beginning, not the end point of the slow process toward a more democratic, more open, more equal and more just society. But the once dynamic reform movement of 1998 seems to have vanished forever.

The superficial ways the candidates are presented and present themselves fit well inside this picture. Content is, at best, secondary. Image is what counts. To be a good singer or to have the looks of a "poster boy" suddenly has become a vital quality and more relevant than programs. But this is the presidential election, not Indonesian Idol. It is all about style. The substance of the system remains undiscussed and, in the end, untouched.

There are important interests behind this that want the old system to live on. These interests are either so powerful that even a president cannot rule against them -- or, more likely, are shared, exploited and furthered by the highest office itself, whoever may hold it.

Not even the rather unconventional Abdurrahman Wahid managed to isolate himself as president from the structures, forces and traditions of the New Order, even though he used to be one of its major critics. He encountered too much resistance and too many hindrances for reformasi, and finally got embraced by the temptations and necessities of a still prevalent system with well-tried dirty practices.

All of the candidates are long-established politicians. Whoever will be in power in the future, a real disruption of political continuity cannot be expected. In the worst case, the main pillars of the old system will officially return to power: Golkar and the military. But the worst case is not much worse than other probable cases.

Nobody yet has forged a platform that genuinely represents the long-excluded masses, that revives the demands of the reformasi movement and that will bring about substantial change. All we can expect is, at most, some new (or not so new) names and faces that will not challenge the fragile post-Soeharto political accommodation.

Indeed, by only meddling with the symptoms of a rotten system they guarantee a survival and recovery of old-style alliances between political powers and big business, a collusive partnership that ruled Indonesia from the mid-1960s on. Real change is not an option for the actual political elite, because genuine reformasi will threaten the very interests of the new powerholders.

The number of people wishing back the good old days and the New Order continues to grow. They need not worry too much. Whoever wins the presidential election, the new order won't be as new as the ones who personate it want us to believe.

The writer (g0203849@nus.edu.sg) is a sociologist at the National University of Singapore.