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.