'Success' vs success

'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.