Postscript to a popular festivity of democracy

By Marianus Kleden

KUPANG, East Nusa Tenggara (JP): The bloodshed feared by many analysts and by the public did not become a reality during the last political campaign. Peacefulness and brotherhood expressed in the concurrent rallies, simultaneous hoisting of party flags, the talk on coalitions and the signing of communiques were unprecedented.

It is true that there were minor conflicts between party adherents and harassment of some parties by other quasi-party fanatics, but a greater part of this unpleasant political by- product was better explained as political fabrication rather than by inferring the presence of tense animosities between parties. It was Gus Dur who pointed out the involvement of "hired ulemas" behind the clashes ((The Jakarta Post, May 31, 1999).

Another laudable occurrence -- so long championed by human rights activists and freedom fighters -- is the free, honest and fair general election. Except in Aceh and insignificant transgressions in some of Habibie's strongholds, the predicted intimidation, the "dawn raids" -- terminology for the ruling party's usual practice of browbeating bribery just hours before the vote -- and cheating in ballot counting so far have not been validated.

Despite Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung's reluctant acceptance of the preliminary results, many party leaders welcomed them with smiles. The preliminary results also indicate that efforts to engineer an authoritarian conscience, that is a conscience formed through an introduction and inducement of values, views and norms from without while ignoring the internal independence, and using religious sentiments, were ineffective.

If there is anything regrettable about the recent campaign and general election, then it was not the clashes, harassment nor the inducements, but the unnecessary hara-kiri of party supporters leading to a total death toll of at least 40.

Several important points can be inferred from the national festival of democracy.

First, through a random but quite representative sampling, we can see the satisfaction of voters as they expressed that the general election was conducted in an honest and fair manner. This is the first real general election carried out after 45 years, some observers said.

A new democracy is coming into being and this is the first important step. Referring to a booklet What is Democracy? recently published by the U.S. Information Agency, Indonesia can rightfully be described as making meaningful progress in securing the birth of the third largest democratic country after India and the United States.

A democracy is characterized by people's sovereignty as long as it is manifested in a government with consent by the governed. But since the consent cannot cover every individual in the whole country, it is represented by the majority without ignoring the rights of minorities, which implies a tolerance for political, economic and social pluralism as well as a readiness for cooperation and consensus.

A democracy also would guarantee basic human rights, equality before the law, a transparent and appropriate legal process and constitutional limitations on terms in office.

We are grateful to Habibie for the courageous steps he has taken in incorporating various political groupings in governance, in securing freedom of speech and assembly (including freedom of determination for East Timor), in creating an atmosphere for a free press, in releasing political prisoners and, most importantly, in maintaining free and fair elections.

However, all this progress is counterbalanced by his awkwardness in Soeharto's case, which does not do any better concerning the principles of equality before the law and a transparent legal process, which places him in a difficult position to retain his presidential position.

The second point has to do with Akbar Tandjung's reluctant acceptance of the preliminary results of the ballot count. His reluctance gave some hints of an anticipated post power syndrome. But the fact that there was no blatant rejection of the results insinuates a dilemma between Golkar's past effectiveness, which was target-oriented, and the General Elections Commission's present efficiency, which is process-oriented.

The dilemma positioned Akbar in acrophobic disorientation. Placed in the national context, this also is a dilemma between an ambitious target-oriented attitude in any aspect of development or pragmatism usually practiced in the past, and a similar ambition to ensure a correct process and procedure in running the country which can be equated to idealism, despite the fact that it slows down the pace of development.

Which one is better? For the future government, neither the Machiavellian maxim "the end justifies the means" nor the Platonic ideal is applicable.

Thirdly, the current pseudo-grouping of political parties -- popularly known as pro status-quo and proreform -- will eventually evolve into a real regrouping which would gradually revive the old political order known as nationalists and Islamists.

A student protest in Ujungpandang exhorting voters not the vote for a female leader nor a party consisting of non-Muslim members gave us some clues to this old alignment. Does it make any relevance for the common good of the country?

Sukarno made his political debut as a nationalist but later became a syncretic, culminating in his promoting a possible blend between nationalism, religion and communism popularized under the acronym Nasakom. Soeharto came forward as a nationalist but as his power was increasing in an incredible fashion, he began to mutate into a pseudo-nationalist. In fact, he was a real pragmatist for almost his entire tenure in that his economic program justified the stability and the stability measures justified the oppression and suppression.

His pragmatism also was observable in his practical interpretation of holistic prosperity. Without theorizing too much, holistic development of human beings is something like plowing a rice field while building a mosque or a church, or erecting a huge statue of Christ in East Timor after a systematic genocide.

In the last years of his office, when his power was declining and challenges threatened his rule, Soeharto adopted a typically Islamic name and lived a seemingly pious life.

Habibie, with a strong German background, came to Indonesia as a technocrat, became the chairman of the Association of Muslim Intellectuals, took over the presidential post from Soeharto, but what is his political orientation?

It is not that clear. What is all this about, after all? Analogously speaking, it means that as far as humanity is concerned ideology is very relative and that we are not serving the ideology, but the country and the people.

With this in mind, we may conclude that recent concurrent rallies and simultaneous hoisting of party flags were nothing but a foresight of future governance where democratic principles are secured.

The government does not become acrophobic because of an ideological discrepancy, but is guided by the principles of effectiveness and efficiency in bringing about a newly interpreted holistic prosperity.

The writer is a social science lecturer at Widya Mandira Catholic University in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara.