Road to Indonesian democracy bumpy and full of pitfalls

Road to Indonesian democracy bumpy and full of pitfalls

Dr. Kamal Hossain, a former foreign minister of Bangladesh, is
an expert on elections and human rights affairs. He has conducted
a number of pieces of research on elections; in Pakistan in 1989,
Sri Lanka in 1990 and South Africa in 1994. The senior advisor to
the Supreme Court in his country visited Indonesia recently at
the invitation of the National Democratic Institute and had a
talk with The Jakarta Post.

Question: With the recent political changes in mind, what do
you think of the upcoming June 7 elections?

Dr. Hossain: This election emerges out of what has been a
popular movement for democracy which seems to have been brought
to the surface by a yearning for change widely shared among many
sections of the people.

Therefore it becomes important that through this election
change is achieved. We had our own experience in Bangladesh in
1990. And even the Armed Forces supported this change because
they found that there was a national consensus.

In order for the expectation for change to be fulfilled one
should be learning from one's own situation and maybe some of the
experiences of others will lead to a simpler situation.

Q: Such as...

H: The need to have all sorts of ways of checking. The best
safeguard is to watch the process not only on election day but as
it is unfolding. Are all the people who are eligible to vote
being registered? Will the regulations that are going to be
formulated allow opportunities for everyone who wants to vote to
vote? Are procedures being put in place? How many polling booths
will there be? Who will conduct the elections so that the conduct
is free and fair and if people have genuine complaints and
grievances, will their grievances be redressed?

I expect that there will be opportunities for people to
express their views before the regulations are published.
Suggestions can be made to those who are making the regulations
and in fact you could ask to see the draft regulations. Parties
or other people, civil society groups, human rights organizations
are called and given the draft regulations.

Q: We have only about four months to go, do you think we have
enough time to prepare for a free and fair election?

H: I think you are doing this within a fairly short period of
time and should start effecting all these things right now... to
take an active interest in the election procedures, methods and
arrangements. This type of free and fair election is something
new and people should begin to understand what the choices are
that they will be offered and how to make their own choices in a
way that reflects both their own interest and the interest of
building a democracy.

Q: Do you think a free and fair election possible in a nation
which has just emerged from 30 years of political repression?

H: It's a real challenge. The impression I got is that people
would like the election to be held and sooner rather than later.
So one should use this opportunity to create public consciousness
and awareness about what is important in this election and why it
is important for the people to vote.

Q: How did the military relate to the recent change in
Bangladesh?

H: The head of the military took over in March 1982, suspended
the constitution, proclaimed himself the head of state and held a
referendum.

Then after a couple of years he wanted to go for an election.
So we asked for a parliamentary election first and elaborated
negotiations when we wanted an undertaking that he would not
interfere in the elections, he would not involve the military in
the elections, people would be allowed to go freely and fairly
about their business but, you see, he violated all of those
commitments and the elections were badly interfered with.

So then the real movement started saying that we would not
accept any election until this president went. There had to be a
new administration and we talked to a caretaker government to see
that it would have to take over under the clemency of justice and
the movement was in action for four years. At the end of the day
on Dec. 6, 1990, he was compelled to resign and he went over to
the chief justice.

Q: How do you see the role of the military in Indonesia?

H: Of course you have had the army for a longer period and in a
much more institutionalized way. You have the military sitting in
parliament and you took on a system of the dual role for the army
that has been institutionalized.

Now in Bangladesh this has not been institutionalized but
attempts are being made to do just that. We found for example
that all the important ambassadorial appointments were going to
the people in the military. Headships of a corporation running
airlines, industries were going to generals. Even civil service
positions, head of ministries were going to people in the
military.

So these were things which had begun to happen. The democracy
movement wanted to stop this and the military in 1989-1990
recognized the tide of public opinion and I know there was a
particularly critical day when the whole officer corps met
together and the general appealed to them, saying go and repress
the people's movement and he pointed out the example of Burma
(Myanmar) where they gunned down 2,000 people and finished off
the movement.

But our officers who met in that hall of the chief of the
general staff said this is not Burma. We don't want the blood of
our people on our hands.

That was seven days before Dec. 6, 1990. And that in a way
raised the esteem of the people for the military. This is a
military who will not have the blood of its people on their hands
and instead they told the generals 'it is time for you to
resign'.

Q: How did that come about?

H: This came about because the movement has created a situation.
I remember a case where a brigadier came to drop his daughter at
the university and he suddenly felt that the uniform would
attract adverse reactions so he had to put on plain clothes.

So his daughter said to her fellow students, "Look my father
is feeling ashamed of wearing a uniform." This kind of thing had
a big impact because then the brigadier said, "Look what has
happened. What have I done in my uniform that my daughter was
embarrassed about it?"

This is the kind of impact, because people live in society and
the whole of society forms a particular opinion. The armed forces
can not remain outside.

Of course you have learned that the Indonesian military have
retained their unelected seats in the House of Representatives
and I think you would agree that such a consciousness as you have
in your country has yet to materialize here...

Well, you know, I suppose, the context of the process, it is
again I think the whole of society which has to strive to create
conditions in which you move in the right direction.

The more consensus you have around the direction of and the
goal of change the more likely that the consensus will be
implemented. Consensus building among democratic forces I think
is essential to maintaining the movement of democracy, to
sustaining it and completing the process.

I see democracy building as a process in which the more you
have a united people behind your democratic goals, the more you
can make people aware of their rights.

This is the notion of the bill of rights: the right to freedom
of speech and to freedom of the press and of association, all of
these are very important.

The recognition of this within society gives you the strength
to come together. The individual has rights and this must be
respected by the state. The state is not something that can deal
with human beings in arbitrary way and I think this consciousness
certainly is something that can be nurtured and as it is nurtured
this process goes further and further forward.

Q: What lessons have you learned from the recent changes in your
country?

H: You know I feel now after we have been building democracy
since 1990 that it is very important to start bringing about a
change of attitude because if you have not had a democracy in a
country for many years the people tend to become submissive.

People don't have a sense that they have rights. People tend
not to assert their rights. People don't speak out. Newspapers
are owned by cronies of the ruling forces. They tend also not to
expose the truth.

So all of these things which are the legacy of a non-
democratic past have to be changed and it requires some people to
take the initiative, journalists to have a conscience to start
coming out and putting things forward, moving away from past
patterns and habits.

Citizens have to become active. This is something I feel very
strongly about, that they can't simply feel that because you have
just had an election those who are elected will come out and
deliver all the good things that you wanted to your doorsteps.

Citizens have to continue to be active, to speak out, to
evaluate the performance of the people they have elected, to say
they are not measuring up, are not delivering what was promised.
This should be reflected through the press, radio, television.
The citizens should become more actively involved in discussions
of the performance of the government, in evaluating public issues
and the more actively you involve citizens, I think that the
performance of the public representatives improves.

Citizen activism to me actually is the key and its very
important now to be focusing on a free and fair election but even
that requires citizen activism.

Q: In the form of monitoring and observing the elections...

H: Yes, this monitoring and observation by citizens, the
compliance with rules, because the essence of it is that there
are rules, and rules must be obeyed and observed by all the
agencies and authorities that are involved. No one should be
breaking the rules. And if they can break the rules and nothing
happens then it is meaningless to have the rules. So how do you
ensure compliance, this is again monitoring, watching, reporting
and keeping on the pressure. If you just report and then nothing
happens, you don't sit back but say that you want to see action.
If action doesn't come about, there should be some institutions
working on it, whether the election commission or the supervisory
committee.

Q: Talking about democracy as a process, how long do you think it
will take?

H: I don't suppose one can give a sort of timetable but you can
accelerate the process. The more active you become the more the
movement gets strengthened... the fact that you have had a part
of the movement and if you are able to build up your own strategy
to maintain this kind of a broad unity of pro-democracy forces to
guard against divisiveness and fragmentation.

Because the anti-democracy forces are very good at trying to
fragment the forces of democracy because they feel threatened by
democracy and accountability, transparency in government.

Now I think in the strategy of bringing things to light,
pressing for transparency, pressing for accountability, these are
things that may accelerate the process and by taking recourse to
an audience like human rights institutions to extend the courts
to give you public interest litigation. We have to create this
and start doing it and knocking at the doors until the courts
begin to say 'yes, we will intervene in this process.'

Q: When you started a process of democracy, did you also have
such wrangling over elections regulations as we are having here
right now?

H: Yes, this is inevitable because when you have had an
undemocratic setup for a long time there are people who benefit
from it, some of their benefits in fact obtained in unjustified
ways so they feel any change will raise questions which would be
embarrassing for them. So there are all kinds of reasons they
state to slow down the process or block the process and this is
why this effort at broad unity I think is very important.

Q: But you finally did overcome it?

H: Well, I don't say that has been fully overcome, it's a
continuing process. But among other things in the strategy is a
freedom of information act. Within our own vision we are
realizing that to reach a common goal we should always be
pressing for our right to information.

Now that you are in the midst of democracy building, I think
the information act, which has now been passed in a number of
democratic countries, could be one of your strategic demands.

If there is a publicly owned TV channel, the state channel,
you can insist on autonomy of the channel and insist that
ordinary people's voices should be heard. I saw a very wonderful
development of this in South Africa, that was a very racist, very
authoritarian society, but you should hear of their transition.
They enacted a special law on the media and they set up a media
commission and it has been a remarkable way of opening up their
society.

Q: As an observer, what is your expectation for the upcoming
elections in Indonesia?

H: The level of people's interest is high and I feel much depends
on the extent to which you are able to harness the aspirations of
the people. The fact that there was such a big movement and the
fact that the students who took part in it are still there, you
have to guard against all kinds of strategies that may be used to
try to undermine this forward movement.

Transitions are always a bumpy road, and not without the
impediment of political barriers. The more you can concentrate
your efforts, work together for all the movement, the more
progress you will make. Even today in my own country the biggest
effort is put into trying to start building a unity of pro-
democracy forces.

Q: Do you see a transition towards a better society or a
political setback?

H: I think one should always hope for the best, work for the best
but knowing that as in all human efforts, progress will not
always be in a straight line. I think some wise persons have said
that progress sometimes has to zigzag but so long as your
direction is forward this is still progress.

Q: What are the pitfalls for Indonesia's specific political
situation?

H: What we have heard, this again is something which is common to
many societies and even advanced societies, I mean money
politics, the impact of money and of course what you said about
manipulation and so on. These are things that are part of the
human condition, things there in every society. I don't think
Indonesia is any different from any other society and this means
that you have to be more vigilant and active. (hbk)