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.