Presidential elections and threat of voter boycott

Presidential elections and threat of voter boycott

Max Lane, Murdoch WA, Australia

Thousands of farmers demonstrated in Jakarta last Tuesday and
Wednesday,vowing to boycott the country's presidential election
unless poor farmers are given ownership of the land which they
work. But to date very little attention has been given to the
massive figures for the number of registered voters who did not
vote in the recent parliamentary elections.

According to data from the General Election Commission (KPU)
published in an article in Kompas on May 10, around 23.5 million
or almost 16 percent of registered voters did not vote in the
last election and nearly 11 million votes or 8.8 percent were
classified as spoiled due to various reasons.

This 34.5 million represented 23.3 percent of registered
voters. This percentage is larger than that which voted for
Golkar, the party which scored the largest vote at just over 21
percent. The percentage of non-voting registered voters was
highest in Jakarta and West Java, reflecting the political
volatility in the sprawling urban population of Jakarta and its
surrounding satellite towns (Jabotabek).

These figures emphasize again the overall volatility among the
public, based on a generalized rejection of or alienation from
all the major political parties. Beside the high non-voting
figures, we also saw the surprise very high votes for the
Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the Democratic Party of Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono in the Jakarta region. The collapse in the vote
for the Indonesian Democrat Party of Struggle (PDI-P) --
involving a drop of close to 50 percent -- was another sign.

Even Golkar, despite its extensive political machine,
influence in the bureaucracy and financial resources, was hardly
able to maintain its 1999 vote. In Jakarta too, Golkar was
pummeled by the new voting pattern for PKS and Susilo's party.

One feature of this high level of non-voting was that it was
accompanied by virtually no overt political campaign advocating
boycott or golput. Anecdotal reports describe the mood regarding
the elections among the non-voting public as malas
(disinterested, couldn't be bothered) rather than as concerned to
make a specific political statement of rejection of either the
electoral process or the existing parties.

This lack of a widespread open golput campaign, or other
political manifestation of non-voting as a protest, does not
mean, however, that these figures have no political meaning. The
high non-voting figures, as well as the votes for PKS and for
Susilo as "new" players, confirm the existence of a deep
alienation from a large section of the public and the mainstream
political processes and established parties.

The farmers' demonstration is a new phenomenon -- an open
statement of boycott as a form of political protest.

Among the mass of the population's open signs of discontent,
and even anger, are everywhere. Whether it is the workers at PT
Dirgantara, or in some of the smaller factories, or farmers
protesting about imports of sugar, rice, soybeans or tobacco, or
students protesting tuition rises, neighborhood communities
protesting kampung demolitions, or migrant workers and their
families demanding protection, social protest is now endemic.

Reading the newspapers and watching the TV news (via website)
gives a kind of surreal impression as if most of these protests
are taking place as though the Presidential elections were not
happening. The reality is that the various electoral campaigns
are not connecting or engaging with this discontent. A genuine
engagement is difficult, of course.

Most of this social protest is response to the impact of
economic policies formulated and implemented within the framework
of the International Monetary Fund's and World Bank's neo-liberal
prescriptions. None of the various candidates have challenged --
at least not yet -- this general framework.

Such a challenge would require adopting policies re-
instituting price subsidies on basic commodities (sembako), re-
building (an incorrupt) BULOG or some other instrument to protect
Indonesian agriculture and plan an orderly import policy, and
finding ways to increase investment of resources in the real
economy, to move away from what the United Nations Industrial
Organization (UNIDO) described as Indonesia's shallow
industrialization. These policies would put any government that
implemented them in conflict with the IMF and World Bank, and
therefore also Washington, London and Canberra.

The only way of financing subsidies, agricultural protection
and the probably necessary state investment in industry would be
to unilaterally reschedule foreign debt repayment, introduce
currency controls so as to reduce the high levels of foreign
exchange reserves required to insure against a run against the
currency, and seize the productive and cash assets of most of the
Soeharto era crony conglomerates.

Such policies would be strongly resisted by the IMF and the
Western governments. But only such policies will give any future
government the ability to deal with the concerns and needs of the
population.

So a huge gap between the concerns and needs of the mass of
the population and the programs of the existing parties is
widening. In recent days, not surprisingly, there have also been
newspaper reports of the extensive personal wealth of some of the
candidates.

This too will widen the sense of gap. If whomever wins the
election continues with the IMF prescribed programs implemented
to date by the government of President Megawati Soekarnoputri,
then there can be little doubt that quite quickly social
discontent will inevitably seek a more explicit political
manifestation in new political parties or movements.

The writer is a Research Fellow of the Asia Research Centre at
Murdoch University