RI's democracy held hostage by undemocratic parties

RI's democracy held hostage by undemocratic parties

Berni K. Moestafa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia's nascent democracy will remain fragile if political
parties continue to show little respect for the democratic rights
of the members of their own organizations, according to a new
book examining the history of the country's general elections.

The power of political parties is too centralized and this
failure to share will "continue to corrode the public's support
for a democratic political system", said author Kevin Raymond
Evans.

His book, The History of Political Parties and General
Elections in Indonesia, was launched on Wednesday.

Sustaining the centralistic culture was the election system
under which the parties rather than the voters have elected the
country's legislative.

"Given the absence of direct political accountability to the
public, the relationship of politicians to the electorate might
at best be described as noblesse oblige," Evans said.

The consequences, he added, could range from voters staying at
home during the next elections to "burning down or blowing up
their local parliament houses".

But parties also are centralistic because the laws have failed
to change this trait, he said.

For example, Evans said, the 1999 electoral system required
parties to be headquartered in Jakarta.

The same system also allowed the central board, instead of the
voters, to select who would sit in the legislature. Therefore, it
is not surprising that 30 percent of the members of the House of
Representatives are from political parties' central boards.

Evans said that because the central boards are so powerful,
the struggle to seize control of the boards is paramount.

"Failure of some group or other within the party to win the
key positions at party conferences tends to be followed by
walkouts and the establishment of rival parties essentially
working the same part of the electoral market," he said.

New electoral laws have improved some of the flaws,
introducing for the first time an open-list system where voters
can actually choose the name of the legislators they want to
represent them.

Still, analysts have warned of more people foregoing their
right to vote during next year's elections.

Members of East Java's Student Executive Board agreed on
Tuesday to abstain from voting next year, in protest of the
recently passed electoral laws.

A number of studies on the outlook for the 2004 elections have
all indicated a similar indifference. They cited, among other
things, the widespread disappointment over the performance of
political parties and a lack of representative choices, and noted
that apathy was higher among voters in cities.

Speaking during the book launch, Evans said anti-party
sentiment was recurrent in Indonesia's electoral history.

Although hailed as free and fair, the 1999 general election
was based on a poor electoral system that maintained undemocratic
traits within the political system.

"The electoral system used in 1999 was actually more or less
the same as the first used in the first New Order elections of
1971," he writes in his book.

So even if the election was held transparently, the outcome
did little to improve the performance of the political parties.

The House continues to come under fire for failing to connect
with the people. Although this time, this is more the result of
internal politicking rather than from bowing to pressure from the
government.

And while intervention in the House has more or less ceased,
the government is also a step ahead of political parties in
sharing its power.

Evans suggested that parties follow the government's model of
decentralization.

"The current government now sees autonomy and decentralization
as a way of maintaining the unity of an organization," he told
reporters on the sidelines of the book launch.

Local governments now have a greater say in managing their own
affairs, but this has not been matched by the ability of
political parties to work on local issues, he said.

Evans fell short of suggesting the creation of local parties,
an idea legislators have dismissed due to fear of national
disintegration.