'Success' vs success
The first week of the election campaign ended yesterday on an encouraging note. It had proceeded relatively peacefully. Except for the few skirmishes or clashes in some regions, we have not seen any violence of the scale many of us had feared. In retrospect, we may have overplayed our own fears, although they were not totally unfounded. When the campaign period began, the nation was still haunted by the disturbing images of ethnic strife in Ambon, Maluku, and in Sambas, West Kalimantan, and precampaign clashes in the Central Java towns of Jepara and Pekalongan, and in Buleleng, Bali.
All things considered, we could certainly call the first week a "success" from the security point of view. By and large, the 48 political parties have abided by the rules, and their leaders and supporters have shown great restraint. The hundreds of thousands of supporters of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) who flooded the main streets of Jakarta on Sunday even turned the campaign into a family picnic atmosphere.
It is, however, premature to completely let our guard down. There are 10 more days of campaigning, and the way things have been going in Indonesia, anything can still happen. But if parties, their supporters and the security apparatus can keep this up for the remaining campaign period, then Indonesia is well on its way to its first ever democratic election in four decades.
While peace is absolutely crucial in ensuring that the June 7 elections take place, security should not be the sole criteria to judge the success of the campaign period, lest we have all been brought up to think like members of the military. Equally important, if not more, is whether the political parties have done their job in getting their political messages across to voters. In other words, we need to look at the substance of the campaign itself.
The experience of the first week of the campaign period was not encouraging. The quality of the campaign, including the organization, has been appalling to say the least. The nightly TV monologs were dull and monotonous, and the TV campaign dialogs were poorly organized (or more aptly choreographed). Campaign rallies in open fields, with all the security hazards they posed, fared only slightly better because some exchanges between party leaders and supporters still took place. But they are limited to shouting slogans and symbols, and singing nursery rhymes. There is little intellectual content in most of these campaigns.
This is, however, more a reflection of the organizers, party campaigners and their candidates, and not of the public. They need the political education much more than the voters do.
An aggressive public service advertisement has succeeded in getting the message across to the people that they have real and genuine choices to make in the elections. But it is uncertain whether the political parties and their leaders are really reaching the voters with their messages. This poses the question of whether voters will really make informed choices, which is what a democratic election should really be about, on balloting day.
At the very least, this campaign period has brought home the sorry state of Indonesian politics: there is a dearth shortage of good and truly tested politicians. Few of them have the communication skills which are essential of politicians, especially in this information age. None match the eloquence and the oratorical and debating skills, or the depths of Indonesia's founding fathers like Sukarno, M. Hatta and Sutan Sjahrir. Most present political leaders, including the few presidential wannabes, have rarely moved out of their respective comfort zones. Unless they begin addressing the entire nation, then they will remain leaders of their own groups, but not of the entire nation, even after they get elected to office.
These shortcomings are the legacy of the rigid political system of the New Order, where politics were the privilege of a few select people. The rest of the nation was depoliticized. It will take a long time to undo the damage that the 32 years of the New Order regime has done to our political culture, traditions and even mentality. The first week of the campaign period has shown that we have barely moved away from the starting line of a very, very long learning curve to democracy.