State's role too strong, scholars say
State's role too strong, scholars say
KUPANG, East Nusa Tenggara (JP): A number of political scholars said yesterday that Indonesia's government is domineering at the expense of the development of society itself.
Members of the Association of Indonesian Political Scientists scrutinized the role of the state at a seminar yesterday and found that the central government is too strong for the nation's own good.
They found that there is still too much central government control over regional administrations and political organizations.
Two prominent academics, Syamsuddin Haris and Kris Nugroho, underlined the meddling in the internal affairs of political organizations to support their argument that a civil society was still elusive.
They said the laws hinder the public from being creative and freeing themselves from interference -- the prerequisites for the development of a civil society.
Syamsuddin, a researcher from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, said that state domination is strengthening in newly industrialized countries in the Third World.
"The New Order government is enjoying enormous power to control the people's economic and political activities," he said in the three-day seminar opened by the Governor of East Nusa Tenggara, Herman Musakabe.
Legislation passed in 1985 virtually gives the government the option to intervene in the internal affairs of any political organization, although the law justifies intervention only if the organization challenges the state ideology Pancasila and means to replace it with other doctrines, such as communism.
"The fact is that none of the conflicts that have riddled the Indonesian Democratic Party, the United Development Party and the government-backed political grouping, Golkar, over the past decade are ideological in nature. It's simply a battle for leadership," he said.
The system that justifies the state's meddling proves to have crippled political organizations as a means for the people to channel their aspirations, he added.
"Therefore if the democratization drive only results in the government's tightening control over society, there won't be democracy in the foreseeable future ...," he said.
Kris Nugroho, a lecturer at the Surabaya-based Airlangga University's school of social and political sciences stressed that an overly-strong government was to blame for the weakening of political organizations in Indonesia.
The might of the government is not balanced out by strong political parties that play the role of check and balance mechanisms.
"This makes a flimsy foundation for the development of a civil society. Besides, the strong state over the weak society creates a political climate which is unfavorable for change in the top national leadership because the ruling elite considers any move to change the system a challenge to their establishment," he said.
The overly strong government, he said, makes the transformation into a civil society a longer process. (pan)