The new political landscape: Triumph of pragmatism in the 2004

The new political landscape: Triumph of pragmatism in the 2004
general election

by Chusnul Mar'iyah

For someone who has experienced working in conflict zones like
West Kalimantan, Ambon, Poso and Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, and
who worked with the student demonstrators in 1998 to bring down
the Soeharto regime, both as a woman and an activist, the sense
of deja vu that accompanied the unfolding of the "civil war" and
my involvement as a member of the electoral commission (KPU,
2001-2006) in conducting the 2004 elections was overwhelming.

This ranges from the visual impact of the bombing in Jakarta
in front of the KPU office (the Philippines' ambassador
residence) in 2001, the 2002 Bali bombings and the bombing in
front of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004, to the
apparent enthusiasm of numerous groups to establish new political
parties and the newfound press freedom, all of which served as
the background for social, economic and political uncertainty
from 1999 to 2004.

This also includes individual scenes of cruelty (people
killing each other, rapes, the burning down of houses) and the
far more dramatic and collective practice of "ethnic cleansing"
in parts of Indonesia.

In early December, I visited Sampit in Central Kalimantan,
which according to the regent is 75 percent Madurese. About
6,000 Madurese were killed in an ethnic conflict with Dayaks in
2001. Some Dayaks were also killed. This conflict from 1999 to
2001 also displaced about two million people.

The elections in 1999 brought hope that the nation's political
problems would be solved, but the expectations were too high.
People tend to look for instant remedies to cure our acute
diseases.

There was more hope in 2004 as the General Elections
Commission (KPU) conducted three elections. For the first time in
its history, Indonesia was going to hold a direct presidential
election.

Against the backdrop of social, political, economic and
security issues, the newly independent KPU was to conduct the
elections. This independent body had many challenges.

Despite much criticism, the KPU managed to hold the most
complex election in the world. Disputes between political parties
were brought to the Constitutional Court. The public had access
to quick and accurate election results through television
stations and the KPU website (http://tnp.kpu.go.id/), because the
results were displayed and submitted from each polling station
through the KPU's information technology.

There was little violence during the elections. Compared with
the elections in 1999, the 2004 elections were successful. The
polls in 1999 were more about changing the regimes of Soeharto
and then Habibie. The elections 2004 were a truly democratic
process.

Pre-election climate: KPU

The KPU is the center of the legal and political rules of the
game. As a new institution, the KPU has many weaknesses due to
the time constraints placed on it since the completion of the
electoral regulations in March 2003. In spite of these
constraints, the KPU managed to achieve the objective of
peacefully conducting the 2004 elections. The body received a lot
of criticism from NGOs, political parties and individual
candidates, who expected the KPU to be able instantly to remedy
the acute problems.

The commission faced unresolved issues in electoral
regulations. This forced the KPU to make 32 injunctions on
districting and to establish new regional KPU branches at the
provincial, regency/municipal levels.

Prior to the elections, the majority of the media doubted the
elections would be peaceful and smooth. Of course, logistical
problems were one major reason. The number of voters for the
legislative election was 147 million. The KPU produced about 662
million ballot papers for 24 parties and individual candidates.

It was not easy to convince people the KPU was working very
hard to distribute voting materials to all of the polling
stations on time. Only 1,176 polling stations out of 559,770 (0.2
percent) did not hold the legislative election on April 5. A day
after the polls, newspaper headlines stated that thousands of
polling stations failed to conduct the election. However, no
papers reported that 99.8 percent of polling stations held the
vote as scheduled on April 5.

Transparency of election results: KPU information technology

Despite some controversy, the KPU used information technology
(IT) to report and tabulate the election results in parallel with
the manual vote count.

The commission developed a new IT infrastructure that spans 32
provinces, 440 regencies and 4,167 municipalities. The IT system
was established to help achieve the objective of conducting the
elections peacefully without political unrest.

The system emphasized transparency so the vote counting
process and results were credible. During the Soeharto regime,
the ruling party regularly received an unbelievable 99.1 percent
of the vote in many regions.

In the 1999 elections, it took 68 days to complete the vote
count. We could not afford to have such a long delay in obtaining
the official results in 2004. Particularly because the results of
the legislative election would determine the candidates for the
presidential election. Therefore, it was very important to get
the results as soon as possible.

The results of the legislative election and the first and
second rounds of the presidential election are shown in Table 1.
In the legislative election, when the IT system was used for the
first time, results from 81.14 percent of polling stations were
submitted electronically to the KPU Data Center. This figure
represents closely the percentage of municipalities equipped with
telecommunications and computing facilities. The percentage of
polling stations, voters and municipalities increases in the
first and second rounds of the presidential election.

Table 1. Results of 2004 elections

Even though the percentage of data submission improved
significantly, data from certain polling stations was not
submitted electronically due to a lack of electricity and
geographical difficulties. Despite this, the accuracy of the data
was very high.

The difference in percentage of vote results for each party
submitted manually and electronically in the legislative election
was 0.2 percent, as shown in Figure 1. In the first round of the
presidential election it was 0.047 (Figure 2) and in the second
round of the presidential election it was 0.258 (Figure 3). These
differences are insignificant because the gaps in vote results
between candidates are significant. For example, in the second
round of the presidential election, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
received 60.624 percent of the vote and Megawati Soekarnoputri
39.376 percent.

Figure 1. Legislative election: Manual and IT vote results

Figure 2. Presidential Election I: Manual and IT vote results

Figure 3. Presidential Election II: Manual and IT vote results

The rate of election results submission from polling stations
is shown in Figure 4. It can be noted from the figures that the
rate of submission improves significantly in the final round of
the presidential election. In the legislative election, results
from only 3,773 (0.67 percent) polling stations were collected on
the day of the election, while in the first and second rounds of
the presidential election 45,083 (7.98 percent) and 206,457
(36.37 percent) polling stations respectively submitted their
results on the day of the vote. Four days after the second round
of the presidential election, 539,901 (95.10 percent) polling
stations had submitted their results.

Figure 4. Number of polling stations submitting results on day of
election

The legislative election results: Golkar fights back

Despite a very pessimistic scenario, Golkar performed well in
many regions in the legislative election. The election results
found Golkar receiving the highest percentage of votes. In the
1999 elections Golkar won 120 seats in the House of
Representatives, and the party garnered nine more seats in the
2004 elections.

This same trend was seen at the provincial and regency/mayoral
levels. For example, in Bali, a power base for the PDI-P, Golkar
increased its number of seats in the provincial council from five
to 14.

The outgoing ruling party, PDI-P, lost votes in many regions.
The PDI-P collapsed everywhere, at both the national and regional
levels, falling from 34 percent of the vote in 1999 to 19 percent
in 2004.

A new party that gained significant support was the Democratic
Party, which secured 10 percent of the vote and 57 seats in the
House. One could argue that the Democratic Party took votes from
the PDI-P in some areas thanks to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Another party that significantly increased its seats in the House
was the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). In 1999, the PKS had 38
seats in the House, but in 2004 it ended with 52 seats.

Another party that did well for itself in 2004 was the
National Awakening Party (PKB) with 56 seats in the House.

Observers believe there is still a mixture in Indonesia of
secular-nationalist, religious-nationalist and religious parties.
However, the elections suggested the triumph of pragmatism in
politics. There were electoral trends in 2004 that help explain
regional variations in the swing toward Golkar and other
political parties such as the PKS and the Democratic Party.

The presidential election

Winning the most votes in the general election did not
guarantee the Golkar candidate victory in the presidential
election. For the first time in its history, Indonesia held a
direct presidential election.

Even though the laws governing the election were not ideal,
for example, candidates could only be nominated by political
parties, the citizens of Indonesia participated in the election
enthusiastically and peacefully. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and
Jusuf Kalla were elected as president and vice president in two
rounds of the election. Five candidates contested the first round
and two candidates the second.

Voters were more inclined to vote for the "embedded elite"
rather than the "floating elite". Presidential candidate Amien
Rais can be classified as a floating elite. On the other hand,
Yudhoyono is considered an embedded elite because he has held
various government positions.

A new political landscape: Politics of pragmatism

In the past, when a new session of the People's Consultative
Assembly opened it usually was to choose a new president.
However, this time the president was directly elected by the
people. Therefore, this is the first time in Indonesian politics
where there is a real system of checks and balances between the
legislative and the executive.

The role of the House is challenged by the Regional
Representatives Council (DPD). However, the House continues to be
the whip hand of the Indonesian political system. The members of
the DPD are in a sense very difficult to control, but this is
also the weakness of the council in consolidating its power.

The continued amendment of the Constitution seems like opening
Pandora's box. On one hand, we need to finish the amendments; on
the other hand, under the leadership of Assembly Speaker Hidayat
Nur Wahid from the PKS, many people doubt whether the Assembly
will review Chapter 29 of the Constitution. Some still suspect
there is a move afoot to establish an Islamic state in Indonesia.
However, with the House leadership in the hands of Golkar, the
role of the Assembly as the supreme law-making body in the
country will be challenged by the House and to a certain extent
by the DPD.

I still believe the DPR will be the whip hand in the political
dynamism. We are still looking for House members to take the
initiative to overcome the challenges the nation now faces,
including institution building, corruption, human rights,
economic recovery, security and good governance.

The elected president has a strong mandate because Susilo
received 60.8 percent of the vote in the second round of the
presidential election. Susilo has ample opportunity to set up a
good and clean government even though he has a minority support
from the political party that nominated him for the presidency,
the Democratic Party. However, his political grip will be
challenged by Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who was recently
elected Golkar Party leader. The executive will now have the
leverage of the political machinery of the House.

The future of democracy in Indonesia: A crisis of trust

The performance in its first 100 days in office is the
challenge for Susilo and his government. The President's
credibility in combating corruption, on the Munir death probe,
the issue of migrant workers and the issue of the deportation of
hundreds of Muslims from East Timor to Indonesia is a question.
Does it look like a successful time for the government?

Not necessarily. The danger that the government now faces is
that the public response to recent events will see the standing
of politicians slump to new lows. Sure, voters may think less of
Susilo, but it is possible that the recent issues may also lower
their opinion of all politicians. I suggest three factors that
may explain why trust in politicians has collapsed.

First, the past few decades have seen a "social-capital
crisis" in Indonesian politics. We are less likely to join
organizations because of the co-optation by the government of the
day, less trusting of our neighbors and less involved in
politics.

The same factors that led us to disengage from civic life have
probably also contributed to our tendency to trust our leaders
less, especially political leaders.

The second major change is that politics has moved away from
focusing on issues which the voters are concerned with,
consequently leading voters to feel that none of the parties
really represent their values. The first 100 days in office is
the test for the new government to be concerned with the
interests of the voters.

The issues of human rights and corruption, especially how to
clean up the police and the courts, are two challenges for the
government.

Third, changes in the way the media reports on politics have
affected the standing of politicians. With a greater focus on
conflict over substance and personalities over policy, media
reports have become more critical of politicians.

Many reports in the media are baseless. In the words of one
media commentator, many journalists today "presume to lift the
curtain on the wizard and reveal the charlatan behind it". The
more voters distrust politicians, the more they may come to
decide that the government is ill equipped to solve the problems
of society. The result? The government will suffer the greatest
harm.

Closing remarks

Democracy is a process. The KPU has successfully carried out the
democratic process of elections, an achievement that the
international community recognizes as a foundation for further
development in other sectors.

Meanwhile, politicians will not earn the trust of voters with
words alone, but with decisive action.