Reform After 28 Years: Many Challenges, Yet Optimistic

May is always a special month for the Indonesian nation, where we commemorate a pivotal period in history, namely the 1998 Reformasi.

At that time, students, activists, and the public demanded democracy, open elections, justice for all, and several other agendas.

Reformasi was not merely a regime change, but a collective awareness that this nation needs more democratic, open, and people-oriented governance.

Reformasi brought dreams of change towards limiting power, supremacy of law, eradicating corruption, political democratisation, strengthening civil society, and decentralising government.

So, has the Reformasi ideal been achieved by 2026? Is our democracy maturing?

Is the state becoming fairer? Is the people becoming more prosperous? For us, the biggest challenge today is no longer fighting for procedural democracy, but ensuring democracy works substantively.

Over nearly three decades, Indonesia has successfully built many democratic instruments.

We have regular elections, a relatively open press, peaceful power transitions, multi-party elections, and broader public participation space compared to previous times.

Democracy must be measured by its ability to deliver social justice, people’s welfare, law enforcement, and healthy power governance.

This is where our main problem lies today. To see how far the reform journey has come to this day, reports from Freedom House and the Economist Intelligence Unit can serve as references to some extent.

Unfortunately, both research institutions conclude that Indonesia is now facing symptoms of democratic backsliding or a decline in democracy quality.

The positive news is that this phenomenon is not unique to Indonesia, but also occurs in many other countries.

We see for ourselves how democracy in the United States (US)—a country previously considered a beacon of democracy—has instead shown a tremendous decline in recent years.

Including during the US era under President Donald Trump, which kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and attacked Iran without UN legitimacy.

In Europe, the situation is similar, where democracy faces threats from the strengthening of right-wing groups in many countries.

Larry Diamond introduced an interesting term after capturing all the above phenomena, namely “democratic recession.”

He translates it as a condition where democratic institutions formally still exist, but the quality of their practice weakens.

In the context of Indonesia today, this weakening may be occurring, although the degree of weakening varies.

For example, suspicions of weakening legislative oversight functions, increasing centralisation of power, extreme political polarisation, and declining quality of civil liberties.

Diamond’s claims and indicators from several global institutions are not all accurate.

However, we must acknowledge that some of them are happening around us.