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