Second round threat to democracy

By Sidesh Kaul

JAKARTA (JP): As Indonesia awaits the outcome of its second democratic election since independence (the first democratically held election was in 1955), the aspirations of the people assume frightening proportions. Much is expected out of the new leadership that will be decided in November and the burden of performance is enormous.

These aspirations need to be seen in perspective lest the political elite once again stymie the fledgling efforts at democratization.

In order to ensure a lasting democracy it is necessary to carefully analyze the factors that led to the post-independence movement for democratization and the subsequent and early demise of Indonesian democracy in the years leading up to the era of the New Order.

Contrary to popular belief, the period just after independence was not entirely conducive for democracy. The class structure at that time comprised mainly of a large body of peasants, a middle class comprised mainly of rent-seeking bureaucrats and a small capitalist class dominated largely by the ethnic Chinese.

Large differences in Indonesian society were not because of typical and inherent class contradictions but more along religious and cultural lines. Despite these differences, Indonesia society amalgamated as a whole during the freedom struggle against the tyranny of a foreign oppressor and developed, as a result of this amalgamation process, a collective sense of pride, nationalism and self-confidence.

Political leaders of that period, irrespective of political ideology, responsibly channeled the popular sentiment against colonial oppression toward nation building and thus laid the foundations for a new democracy. Democracy was thus seen as a legitimizing principle and as a means of impacting all spheres of governance -- social, economic and political.

Today, the Indonesian people have risen once again against the excesses of authoritarianism -- and political leaders, once again, have harnessed this power to usher in democratic reforms.

In the early days of the movement in Indonesia, democracy was seen neither as a system of representation nor as a system for majority rule. Minority rights, institutionalized opposition, checks and balances on power and the concept of representation were completely ignored or missing altogether.

For a newly independent country that was poverty stricken, where illiteracy and hunger was rampant and was struggling at managing the plethora of problems, the notion that a responsible political elite had the total mandate for governance perhaps could be excused. Today, after three decades of prosperity, education and exposure, the notion of an unrestricted mandate would be dangerous and totally unacceptable.

The debate on the pros and cons of democracy (Feith: 1970) were mainly within the established political streams during the period 1945-1965 that is Islam, democratic socialism, communism, Javanese traditionalism and radical nationalism. The framework still holds true today except for the fact that communism, as a movement, was eradicated in the Soeharto era.

The late 1940s also saw the emergence of other Asian countries as independent democracies and this was also a major pressure that influenced political leaders to adopt a more pro-people posture. There is no foreign oppressor to overthrow now -- only the tyranny of an authoritarian rule and the burden of an economy in tatters that it has left behind.

Interestingly, while the influencing pressures of today might be similar to those experienced by Indonesia during the period of its early efforts at democratization, the debate on democracy still rages within Feith's framework.

The elections in 1955 were fair and honest, the bureaucracy was strong and vibrant, there was far reaching popular will for the elections to succeed and there was a relative lack of dishonesty and corruption. These were conditions that could nurture democracy. Save for the corruption factor (that has assumed monstrous proportions), similar conditions exist today.

In the 1995 elections, several minority and four major parties gained representation; the nationalist PNI received 22.3 percent of the votes, the Muslim modernist Masyumi 20.9 percent, the Muslim traditionalist Nahdlatul Ulama 18.4 percent and the communist PKI 16.4 percent.

Like today, there was no single party that had the outright mandate of the people. Despite the favorable conditions prevailing in 1955, democracy was unceremoniously dumped in 1957. What were the conditions that forced the political leaders to betray the aspirations of the people in 1957? Did the ruling elite have the political will back then to bow to the demands of democracy? Did power hungry rulers sacrifice democracy on the altar of political expediency? More importantly, could this happen again?

The period under question stretches from 1959, when Sukarno introduced his brand of authoritarianism under the guise of Guided Democracy, to 1965 when the New Order took charge and dumped democracy for good. This tumultuous period saw several conflicts that played a decisive role in shaping Indonesian polity and this can be roughly divided into three sub-periods (Liddle: 1996): religious conflict from 1950-1955; ethnic conflict from 1956-1961; and class conflict from 1961-1965. Superimposed on these periods the era of parliamentary democracy from 1950-1957 and that of Guided Democracy from 1959-1965.

The period from 1950-1955 saw the most important religious conflict within the Muslim community. Muslims then, as even now, comprised the majority of the population and most of them had their hopes pinned on Masyumi. However, the schism between the modernist and traditionalist factions in Masyumi caused the party to be split before the elections and put to rest any hope of a strong and united representation. The split, in turn, spawned secession movements in some parts of the country. In West Java, for example, an Islamic guerrilla group that had fought long and hard for independence proclaimed an Islamic State of Indonesia. Aceh soon followed suit and later formed an alliance with the West Java rebels.

The period from 1956-1961 was witness to an ethnic struggle that was fanned basically by elements from outside Java who perceived the government's Java-centric form of tightly administered, centralized rule as a hindrance. This period also saw the emergence of the communist party (actively encouraged by Sukarno as a countervailing check on the growing influence of the army) as well as a brief period of anarchy when provincial military commanders staged coups at the local level and formed revolutionary governments in defiance of the central command.

Sukarno, in a move that can only be labeled as political expediency, forged an alliance with the army in quelling this rebellion and thus paved the way for the army to be intimately involved in the process of governance. In a strident defense of the perceived threat to his position, Sukarno decreed a return to the 1945 constitution thus giving the executive branch of the government dominance over the legislative.

There were pressures on the economic side as well and the brief period of representative democracy, owing to its fragmented nature, could not cope with the challenges. Policy inconsistencies, a weak executive and a sharply divided polity appeared to provide enough evidence that democracy had failed and it was time for decisive leadership to emerge. Unchecked and surrounded by a weak opposition, Sukarno seized the opportunity to usher in authoritarianism thus setting the clock back for Indonesia's democratic efforts.

We see the emergence of similar pressure factors (except that these factors seem to be at play all at once) even today and the concern is that, like in 1957, democracy faces the danger of being abandoned once again. Religious and ethnic conflicts in Aceh, West and Central Java and Ambon; persecution of minorities; a divided polity; rampant corruption within the government and bureaucracy; a disunited army; separatist movements in Aceh and Timor; and a weak economy: These are the very same factors that stalled the emergence of Indonesia as a democratic power in the mid-fifties.

The writer is a commentator on economic and political affairs based in Jakarta.