Save Our Sovereignty

Save Our Sovereignty

While both the 1945 Constitution and the state ideology,
Pancasila, specifically state that sovereignty lies in the hands
of the people, a handful of politicians, or nearly 500 to be
exact, are now about to subvert the right of more than 210
million people. As deliberations on the bill on general elections
in the House of Representatives come to an end, it is becoming
increasingly clear the political parties will take that
sovereignty from the hands of the people.

The factions deliberating the legislation have reached a
"compromise" to adopt proportional representation (PR) with what
they call an "open list of candidates" system. This means that
voters will choose a political party, rather than a specific
candidate, but they will have a glimpse of the candidates of the
party of their choice, and its order of preference, in the
designated regions. The final say of who represents the party in
the legislature will still lie in the hands of party bosses.

This, so the major factions in the House claim, is a
compromise, because PDI Perjuangan (the Indonesian Democratic
Party of Struggle), as the largest faction in the House, had
earlier insisted on PR with a "closed list of candidates" system,
where voters would have had even less idea about who would get to
represent them in the legislature.

Just to ensure that party bosses hold the real political
power, rather than the elected candidates or their constituents,
the bill also revives parties' rights to recall their
representatives from the legislature, for whatever reason.

This clause was removed from the 1999 general election law,
thus allowing elected representatives to dissent or break away
from party lines without fearing repercussions. Over the last
four years, we have seen one or two legislators defy their own
party on several issues because they felt that they owed their
allegiance more to the public than their party.

Alas, we won't see this happening after 2004, if the bill on
general elections is endorsed in its present format.

Clearly, the spirit of the legislation on elections, just like
the law on political parties endorsed in December, was to give as
much power to the political parties vis-a-vis the people.

The alternative system, where people vote for candidates
rather than political parties, was never even considered by the
House. Yet, this is the system that fulfills most closely the
spirit of Kedaulatan Rakyat (People's Sovereignty) recognized in
the Constitution, and in the fourth tenet of Pancasila.

This "district electoral system" has the appeal that it would
significantly remedy all the political ills that we have seen
under the present system.

The district system will bring constituents and their
representatives closer together. Constituents can exercise some
control over their elected representatives. This system ensures
greater accountability on the part of politicians to the people.

This is the system that is best suited to promote
participatory democracy, in which the public can actively
participate in national decision-making processes all the time.
The PR system only promotes representative democracy, in which
the role of voters is largely confined to what happens on
election day. Once they have exercised their voting right, the
elected parties can afford to ignore their opinions completely,
just as they have been doing all these years.

There is no doubt that the district electoral system best
guarantees the sovereignty of the people. The reasons why this
option was not even considered in deliberations on the bill vary,
but all are feeble and boil down to an excuse not to return
sovereignty to the hands of the people.

Most political parties, even those that profess to be pro-
reform, say they are not ready for an overhaul of the system.
Others say that the public is not educated enough, or ready for
radical change. Some say the district system would ensure victory
for Golkar, and is therefore against the interests of political
reform. Others also say that a PR system reflects better the
diversity of the political spectrum in Indonesia.

But this is not so much a question of whether or not the
nation is ready for change, because the reform movement launched
in 1998 was about fundamental change in the first place. This is
more a question of whether or not politicians are willing to
relinquish power and return it to the people.

Unfortunately, this bill looks set to be endorsed by the
House, under pressure to complete it quickly to ensure that the
nation can organize the 2004 general election in time. Once
again, the need for political expediency is overtaking the need
to ensure that changes are in place that are crucial for
Indonesia to become a genuine democracy.

It is now clear that the greatest danger to our sovereignty
does not come from external forces, as some narrow-minded,
nationalist politicians would have us believe. It comes from our
own power-hungry politicians, who are taking sovereignty from the
hands of the people right under our very own noses.