Political institutionalization spurs democracy: Scholars
Political institutionalization spurs democracy: Scholars
A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Scholars called on the government on Wednesday to push ahead to
create and enable a political institutionalization drive -- a
stronger respect for the nation's democratic institutions -- in
the country, saying, it was a necessity to achieve democracy.
If everyone heeded the democratic principles and rules in
every aspect of life, achieved through political
institutionalization, the situation would ease away from a
possible emergence of authoritarian leaders and would later offer
a stable democracy, they said.
"Changes in national leadership will not pose a problem to the
democratization process if the country has mature institutions
and respects democratic rules," noted scholar Frans Magnis Suseno
said in a seminar here on Wednesday.
A leadership crisis has characterized Indonesia since the
forced resignation of former dictator Soeharto in May 1998.
Magnis said the governments of B.J. Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid
and Megawati Soekarnoputri had all failed to lift the country out
of its prolonged multidimensional crisis.
"Even worse, all walks of life, including those in power, do
not respect the prevailing democratic principles and rules at
all," Magnis said, adding that respect for law would reduce the
tendency among leaders to use their power to act against
democratic principles.
"The rule of the game, including the law, will limit personal
power of the leaders, and this will be useful to prevent power
abuses carried out by those leaders," he said.
Meanwhile, another speaker at the seminar Bima Arya Sugiarto
from the Center for Government and Parliamentary Studies said
that Indonesia, which was in a transition period toward a
democracy, still had failed to carry out political
institutionalization.
The recent internal splits afflicting many parties was
evidence that those parties were not practicing democratic
principles even within their respective party.
"Once they disagree with others, they simply quit the party,"
he said.
Bima lashed out at the tendency that people depended on
charismatic leaders, instead of basic rules.
"This tendency could lead to absolute power enjoyed by party
leaders and that is a threat to democracy," he said.