Slow boat to democracy

Slow boat to democracy

The painfully slow ballot-counting process has dampened, if
not entirely killed, the enthusiasm people showed when the nation
voted on Monday in its first democratic polls in four decades.
That enthusiasm initially turned into frustration, and then
apprehension amid concerns that the delay would open room for
manipulation of the results in favor of certain parties. It is
just one step short of turning into rage if the allegations prove
to be true, or if the results fail to reflect people's
expectations.

That fear is not totally unfounded, even after assurances from
the General Elections Commission that the transparency of the
vote-counting process makes it foolproof against manipulation. It
is founded on the experience of the past six elections, in which
Golkar justified all means to ensure landslide victories. Since
Golkar is still participating in these elections, and since many
of the local administrators involved in the vote-counting process
remain loyal to Golkar, one only needs to put two and two
together to justify concerns that Golkar loyalists may somehow
circumvent the system to rig the outcome.

The delay in announcing the provisional results forced many
people, including foreign observers monitoring the polls, to
qualify their earlier praises that Monday's polling had proceeded
in a free and fair fashion. Their final verdict must now wait
until after the final results are known. Whatever judgments they
pass, Indonesia has lost the chance of using Monday's monumental
event as the turning point for the building of the world's third-
largest democracy.

It remains to be seen whether Indonesia can seize back that
momentum once the election results are known. We still have
several other stages, and four or five months to pass, before we
can form a credible and democratically elected government.

But as we patiently wait for the outcome of the elections,
there are disturbing signs that could threaten the democratic
process. Local independent monitoring committees are reporting
thousands of violations committed by political parties during and
preceding Monday's vote. They may be minor offenses, but they add
up to a lot, enough for anyone, who for one reason or another
dislikes the election results, to use as a pretext for not
endorsing the vote.

In fact, a number of political parties have already threatened
not to endorse the election results at the local level in some
regions, which explains at least partly the delays for the vote
counts reaching the national level. Since the election result is
valid if endorsed by at least two-thirds of the 48 parties
contesting it, then it only takes 17 parties to band together and
derail the entire process. If this could happen at the local
level, it could easily happen at the national level.

The small parties who find themselves without any significant
support after all the votes are counted are the ones most likely
to refuse to endorse the election results. But with the reports
of rampant cheating and violations, some of the larger parties
might also be tempted to jump on the bandwagon and refuse to sign
the results of the election. If that happens, then the entire
election process would be derailed, with all the unimaginable
consequences it could bring for this nation.

As we have said before, the road to democracy is indeed long
and perilous. A lot depends on the nation's leaders. On Monday,
the majority of the people in this country showed that they could
play by the rules of the game of democracy. That day passed with
calm and order prevailing, a great tribute to the people more
than to any others. It is now very much up to the nation's
leaders, in the government and in the political parties, to show
that they deserve the trust and the mandate of the people in
ruling the country. Looking at the behavior of most of our
leaders, they seem to be falling way, way behind their own people
in embracing democracy.