Presidential election shows popular wisdom

Goenawan Mohamad, Jakarta

In his piece, After election euphoria, the pitfalls awaiting Susilo, (The Jakarta Post, Sept. 28, 2004) Harry Bhaskara gives a less-than-optimistic view of Indonesian politics.

I'd like to think of myself as a professional pessimist, but this time I cannot resist telling you one anecdote. The other day, I told a taxi driver that, next time, the Jakarta mayor would be directly elected by the people. The man (who came from a village on the border of Central and West Java) was elated. His answer was: "Great, just like the way we elect our lurah, isn't it?".

That reminded me of something I saw as a kid living in a Central Java village: People did (and in many parts of the country still do) cast their votes to elect their village chiefs. In other words, for many Indonesians living in rural areas, it is the "modern" sector that follows the way of tradition, not vice versa. Without trying to idealize rural politics, I am not of the opinion that political competition is a completely new thing to this country. Perhaps, it is about time we took a fresh look at Indonesian political history.

Harry Bhaskara writes that "it is obvious throughout Indonesian history" that politicians are fond of "revenge" once they are defeated. I beg to disagree. "Revenge", (with its violent connotation) was not a common pattern in Indonesian politics from 1948 to 1958, when a parliamentary system was in operation, when one prime minister lost to another almost on regular basis.

To be sure, there were failed coup attempts and armed conflicts, but most politicians saw these as an aberration, generated by an extraordinary situation, to become a regular feature of Indonesian politics.

This was, however, interrupted by Sukarno and the Army in 1958. Constitutional democracy was abolished. In its place, Sukarno put his "guided democracy".

As I see it, the 1965 massacre (which Harry Bhaskara uses as an example) had nothing to do with "revenge" in the wake of a political defeat. In the first place, there was no political defeat in 1965.

What we had was a totalitarian temper generated by the "return to the 1945 Revolution," (promoted by the Army, the communists, the nationalists and Muslim political groupings), the constant mobilization of militant symbols, (marching youth groups in uniform, etc.), the adoption of the rhetoric of violence (ganyang! or "crush") used by Sukarno, the atmosphere of intolerance (the banning of "counterrevolutionary" political groupings, newspapers, artistic and literary expressions), and the lack of regular and democratic political competition (the Army was afraid that the Communists would win an election, and Sukarno was a president-for-life).

Of course, it is still too early to find out whether the kind of democracy we are now enjoying will last. But I agree with Gwynne Dyer's concluding remark in his piece published on the same day (New President under new era of democracy): "The popular wisdom may not be all that sophisticated, but it probably isn't wrong either".

He is referring to Indonesian popular wisdom in 2004, I think -- not popular wisdom in general. I voted for Amien Rais and to my regret he lost, but I have the impression that Indonesian voters this year have more wisdom than the American ones, who, despite their open political debate on the famous lies and failures of the current administration, still give George W. Bush a strong lead in the opinion polls.

The writer is Senior Editor of Tempo Weekly news magazine.