Satish Mishra

Satish Mishra

Head/Chief Adviser of UNSFIR
(UNSFIR is a joint project of the Indonesian government and UNDP)

Countries, like individuals, it would seem, need acclaim and
recognition. When the front cover of the Economist magazine, just
after July 5, 2004, the first round of presidential elections,
carried the caption "shining example", it was taken to signify
that Indonesia had turned the corner in its transition to
democracy.

Since then other achievements have followed: the peaceful
completion of direct presidential elections, establishment of a
second chamber of the legislature, reduced sectarian violence, a
stock market boom, higher investment grades, and continuing
praise by international agencies for Indonesia's fiscal
management. By the end of 2004 Indonesia has good reason to be
feeling proud of itself.

But acclaim is a fickle companion. It can vanish as suddenly
as it appears. Remember those heady precrisis days, as late as
the middle of 1997. External observers, and equally observant
agencies, continued to celebrate the glories of the Indonesian
miracle as a homegrown combination of political stability, record
economic growth and low levels of economic inequality.

This was the best of all worlds. It was widely interpreted as
a testimony to the vigor of the Asian spirit and the genius of
its age-old, consensus promoting ethical values.

What if the New Order was a little authoritarian, a little
intolerant of dissent and open discourse, a little harsh on
socialists and communists and of other such "isms", what if
workers could not strike and newspapers were censored, what if
the military gave up fighting external wars for internal
repression, what if the ruling family treated the state as its
private domain and personal property. How did all this matter?

The Chinese had been through such dilemmas. What mattered,
like Deng Xiaoping's China was that the Soeharto regime was good
at catching mice. Illiberal democracies, Zakaria argues, have
been much maligned.

They might be better at promoting liberal values than
countries whose democratic systems have been captured by the
ruling elite. The great Huntington himself might be tempted to
agree.

What matters most, is not how societies are governed but that
they are governed. Anarchy is the worst human condition. Witness
the failed states of Somalia or the Congo.

But all this acclaim and recognition for the Asian genius did
not help. Authoritarianism was rejected not in the political
debating circles of foreign parliaments or in the boardrooms of
international companies but in the streets and homes of
Indonesian cities and villages.

In the end, the mighty Soeharto was ousted by the shifting
sands of political legitimacy, by the feeling that the time for
dictatorships was over.

Acclaim vanished. Indonesia moved from miracle to basket case,
from a stable autocracy to a confused democracy, from a high
performing economy to one of the four most corrupt countries in
the world, from a united country to one in imminent danger of
fragmentation. Those who cared about external acclaim went
through an enormous loss of confidence and self worth.

Indonesia suddenly vanished from the international radar
screen. From being a country to watch and emulate, it had become
a country to avoid, a country marked by economic recklessness and
political drift.

Yet the question posed by the Economist is relevant even for
those who do not have to put a particular spin on their stories.
Is Indonesia really shining? How far has Indonesia's transition
to democracy come and where is it going? That question is in the
minds of people in those very homes which put an end to the
politics of dictatorship and control. It is especially in their
minds as the popularity of the new, directly elected President
seems to be on the decline.

Have free and fair elections simply resulted in the capture of
state power by the old elite, the same unholy trinity of big
business, senior bureaucrats and remnants of the old military and
police? Has this capture of the state become even easier by the
rapid deconcentration of political power and by the continuing
concentration of large businesses? Within such a quagmire of
Indonesian politics, what is a decent, popular, directly elected
president supposed to do?

These are all rather searching questions. Those who argue in
favor of primacy of economics over politics miss the point that
the crisis unleashed by the collapse of the rupiah in late 1997
was fundamentally one of political legitimacy rather than of
foreign debt or exchange rates.

Three decades of high economic growth could not save the New
Order system from collapse. They might have, if you believe the
analysis of the democracy's Third Wave in Huntington's
justifiably famous book, actually created the conditions for an
exit from authoritarianism.

To stabilize Indonesia, to create the conditions to enable a
new round of economic growth, what needs to be fixed is not so
much the economics but the politics. That means that the task of
consolidating the democratic transition must remain the first
call on public policy.

In fact, we all know that Indonesia's journey to a
consolidated, stable democracy is far from over. The Economist's
praise should be taken with a pinch of salt. International
experience, while confirming the general trend toward democratic
polities, provides ample example of retreats in various forms of
dictatorships.

This reversal of the democratic transitions is more likely in
low income countries with ethnic fragmentation and/or with weak
and divided pro-democracy movements. A large number of countries
have been unable to achieve democratic stability, Indonesia
included, on the first attempt.

Some countries in Latin America and Asia have experienced the
worst of all worlds, of a repeated political dance between
dictatorships. The important point is that a move away from
authoritarianism does not by itself lead to a stable democracy.
All kinds of outcomes are possible; from fascism to a failed
state.

Indonesia has indeed come a long way in its road to
consolidated democracy. Constitutional and judicial reform is
proof of that. Yet a number of key tasks remain. If unskillfully
handled, these might still lead to an unraveling of the
Indonesian democratic transition.

First, as has often been pointed out, Indonesia's political
reforms while numerous lack a sound structure and road map. They
have been done on the hoof, in the rough and tumble of inter-
institutional struggles and adjustment. The most obvious case is
the changing relationship between the executive and the
legislature, and between one level of government and the other.
At a lower level, we have the examples of the separation of the
police and the military, the shifting jurisdiction of the
ministry of finance and of the national development planning
agency and so on.

At yet another there is the famous instance of no effective
arrangements regarding the transfer of power from one elected
president to another. Indonesia's constitutional and political
reform map is full of marks and holes. It is time to identify the
gaps and detail a democratic consolidation program, perhaps
through a task force headed by the Constitutional Court.

Second, Indonesia's policy processes are in need of a major
overhaul. Such reform needs to be centered around the three
pillars of democratic policy making: a strong and closely
coordinated government, an informed legislature, and the
participation of non-governmental agencies and professional
associations early in the policy making process. In addition,
there is the critical role of public dialog to win public support
for government policy initiatives.

More effective and transparent use of consultative processes,
such as White Papers, interministerial working groups and
commissions, independent research groups and commissions of
inquiry, need to be developed as practical conventions and
processes in policy making. Endless attrition between a badly
informed legislature and an arrogant bureaucracy can only promote
disillusionment with democratic politics.

Third, no democracy can be sustained without due attention to
what has aptly been called the "economics of democracy".
Indonesia's 2004 National Human Development Report (NHDR) makes
the point that democracy is not just a matter of organizing
elections. It must also reflect core human values and rights,
including a range of civic rights relating to health, education,
food and physical security for all Indonesian citizens.

Economic policy cannot just be judged in terms of its success
in promoting economic growth and macroeconomic stability. It must
also address public concerns with respect to the supply of these
core public goods. As the new President has himself argued
repeatedly in the course of his election campaign, Indonesian
democracy needs a revised social contract.

Ultimately such a social contract cannot just be legislated
into effect. It must be the outcome of the battle of hearts and
minds which lies at the center of a new political legitimacy. The
NHDR recommends a national summit to broker such a widely agreed
social accord.

Indonesia today has its first directly elected President. He
is the people's president. What better way for him to promote
Indonesia's quest for a consolidated democracy than to lead such
a national summit. If that happens, Indonesia will indeed set a
shining example of how to resist the subtle temptations of a
retreat into a future dictatorship.

The views expressed in this article are totally those of the
author's and do not in any way reflect those of the
institution's.