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.