Political alienation and antipathy rules

Political alienation and antipathy rules

Mochtar Buchori, Legislator, Jakarta, mbuchori@indo.net.id

Antipathy toward political parties among the Indonesian public
has been growing rapidly. All political parties, big and small,
have managed somehow to alienate themselves from the public. This
will have grave consequences for the projected 2004 general
election. It is feared that the percentage of people abstaining
to vote will be very high this time. Some estimates put this
figure at more than 50 percent of eligible voters.

Why does this happen? I think the political parties have only
themselves to blame in this regard. While during the short-lived
reformation era people lauded political parties for their firm
stand against corruption, collusion, and nepotism, now they are
looked upon as inheritors of this mischief.

Right now people are convinced that political parties will not
be able to improve their lives. Worse still, many think that our
politicians now have neither a plan nor the intention to
eradicate poverty and misery, and to improve the welfare of the
people. They are there to serve their own interests and the
interests of their respective parties.

Criticism of and disapproval toward politicians have gone so
far that many people loathe legislatures and legislators, both at
the national and the local levels. In their opinion these
institutions completely ignore public interests and aspirations,
and instead at times behave as adversaries of the people. There
are legislators who are quite aware of this public sentiment, but
their number is very small. These politicians try hard to
camouflage their identity as legislators, and are embarrassed
whenever someone recognizes them as such.

It should be mentioned in this connection that a great number
of political personalities have become instantly rich; while at
the bottom ordinary people suffer more and more. This creates
anger, frustration, and impatience within society. This makes the
public, initially distrustful of political parties, but later on
this sentiment develops into dislike and antipathy.

The current political climate has made many people decide, at
least for now, that they will not vote in the 2004 general
election. This situation is aggravated by the fact that some big
political personalities have either lost much of their popularity
or completely lost it. While during the political campaign for
the 1998 general election people rallied themselves behind big
personalities like Abdurrahman Wahid, Megawati Soekarnoputri,
Akbar Tandjung, or Amien Rais, at the moment there seems to be no
single politician, sufficiently known to the public, whom the
public considers their idol.

How will the public decide which party to support? Casting a
vote on the basis of ideological considerations is very unlikely,
because knowledge and consciousness of political ideologies is
very low among the public, if not non-existent. Besides, all
political parties have, failed to formulate their party's
ideology in terms that are sufficiently clear and unambiguous to
the public.

We can ask for example, "What is the main ideological
difference among Islamic parties?" No one can give an unequivocal
answer to this question. The name Indonesian Democratic Party for
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) suggests that the party's ideology is
democracy. Is it? Or is it nationalism? And what is the ideology
of the Golkar Party, the party that ruled during the entire New
Order era? And in what way has this ideology reformed? Again, no
one will be able to give a satisfactory answer.

This difficult situation is compounded by the unbelievable
rise in the number of political parties. According to one member
of the General Elections Commission (KPU), there are at the
moment about 240 registered parties in the country. Even if only
half of these registered parties do qualify for the upcoming
general election, it still makes the situation very confusing for
the public.

The only way for Indonesian political parties to draw sympathy
from the public is by improving their image. But after they have
ruined it during the last two-and-a-half years, improving their
public image will be very difficult and will take time. Political
parties can only restore their damaged image if they can convince
the public that they are not as bad as the public suspects; that
there are still good, honorable, and competent people among their
ranks. At the same time they must push notorious personalities in
their parties into the background, to make them invisible to the
public.

Some people worry about the further consequences of the
present situation. In their opinion, what is at stake is the
future of democracy in Indonesia, and the future of the country
itself. If the majority of the public no longer trust political
parties, and the people and the society become unthinkably
restless and unruly, what will happen? We should not forget in
this regard that people at the grass roots still prefer "good
life" to good governance or democracy.

It is not unthinkable that in a situation like this people
will welcome any change that in their opinion promises a speedy
improvement in their lives. Even military rule or any other type
of totalitarian rule will be welcome!

Frightening, isn't it?