The price of neglecting local elections in Indonesia

Many questions still surround the government's decentralization plan. The Jakarta Post recently talked to lecturer of politics Pratikno about the upcoming regional autonomy. Pratikno, who lectures at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, was involved in its recent study of local democracy in the post-Soeharto era. The following is an excerpt of the interview:

Question: What do you think of concerns that the new laws on regional autonomy and fiscal balance may shift corruption and authoritarianism from the central government to the regions?

Answer: Democracy here has only reached a procedural level ... so a control mechanism over the government has not been built.

Where democracy does not work in substance, corruption and authoritarianism will continue, despite the 1999 democratic elections, and despite the new democratic relationship between the legislative and executive branches.

The relatively democratic general elections have not resulted in a democratic government because we have given no attention to the local elections.

Voters' only concerns were electing a presidential candidate -- Megawati Soekarnoputri, Amien Rais, or Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur). We have never cared about building a representative government at the local level.

If we ask local legislators who they represent, they'll probably reply that they represent all the people -- meaning nobody...

If we had a district system of elections that situation would automatically change because voters would be faced with candidates who are familiar to them; they would no longer be focused so much on political parties and symbols.

Our research found a notable phenomenon in a regency in Yogyakarta. A number of respondents were surprised that their neighbor, who had been declared unqualified to become a candidate, was now a local councillor.

The respondents had voted for the party which nominated that candidate -- showing that they had not paid attention to the list of regional candidates from the parties.

This illustrates that the public is not experienced, and ill prepared to control local governments, including the performance of their local legislative councils.

Consequently, the opportunity for corruption is commonplace, more so if legislators, authorities and bureaucrats are involved in collusion ... This is why we cannot give all the power to the local legislative bodies, as stipulated in the 1999 law on regional autonomy.

With all that power the local legislative bodies will become sole, unrivaled authorities. So there should be a diversion of public representation to a number of institutions.

What would be the role of direct elections of regional and provincial heads?

There would be two democratic institutions with the same legitimacy regarding public representation: the local council and the regent. So there's a distribution of power between those institutions. The local council would no longer be the sole authority because it wouldn't be able to arbitrarily fire and elect a regional head.

What about the political parties? Should the "recall" mechanism be revived to let parties withdraw their members from legislative councils, if for instance they're said to be corrupt?

The recall mechanism was actually positive if it was not abused like it was under the New Order period (when outspoken legislators were ousted from the legislative bodies by their respective parties) ... I think the same mechanism could apply, but only after the concerned legislator is proven guilty.

Many legislators have asked for wages as high as governors or regents. What do you think of that?

In a number of other countries a local councillor is a part time job. They do not earn a salary and are only paid compensation for, say, meetings. In such countries people cannot become national level politicians without having politicians at the regional and local levels.

We don't have that tradition. Many councillors think the peak of their career is becoming a member of the local legislature. So they do not think of investing (for their future career) and therefore do not think of sacrifices.

Also, the shift of power from the local executive to the legislative branch is interpreted as the shift of all the perks that the executives enjoyed in the past.

They think that if the executives and bureaucrats used to get money so easily then they ought to be able to do that, too.

The salary of local legislators should first involve an evaluation by outside parties of what the feasible level should be. Legislators cannot just make up the amount of their own salaries. It is unethical and ridiculous ...

If their demands for wages were met wouldn't it take up to 40 percent of a local government's revenue?

That's right. Say they're demanding a monthly wage of Rp 5 million, or Rp 200 million if one regency had 40 legislators. Up to Rp 2.5 billion a year would be needed for the local council's salary in one regency alone.

Whereas a regency like Kulonprogo only has an annual income of some Rp 6 billion, so there would be only Rp 1 billion left for the people. And the people wouldn't know that their money was spent for politicians if the issue wasn't made public.

But based on the new fiscal balance law, the regions get a subsidy of 25 percent from the national income.

But because of the relatively small national income, that 25 percent becomes tiny when distributed equally to all autonomous regions. Besides, the distribution formula is yet to be clear; we only know so far that it will be based on the total population and size of given regions.

"Money politics" was reported widely among the election winner, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan); there were many of their candidates who lost elections for governors and regents while they had a significant number of seats in the councils. Your comment?

Because PDI Perjuangan is the biggest party, the political economic explanation would be that they obviously seized the opportunity to enrich themselves.

But what is actually more important is that all this shows that we don't have a mechanism to avoid things like bribery.

And, if the reports were true, what if all legislators were involved, such as in Medan (North Sumatra, regarding the mayor's election)?

So the local legislators seem to have made us into hostages because political procedures cannot stop them. How can we take all legislators to court if they're all involved in bribery?

If we don't take care of this problem soon, at least once a year the councillors will have the chance to blackmail the regent. The regent must report to legislators each year and he or she has to make corrections if required by the local council.

If the report is still rejected then even the president will not be able to help the regent. So if he wants to keep his job he'll have to bribe the legislators, if they are willing.

Does that mean an even more ruthless moral hazard in the regions? Won't that frighten foreign investors who have to deal with local authorities?

Exactly. This condition can be even more scary to investors as they would have to directly face the masses at the local level, including mass organizations ...

Decentralization of power through this package of regional autonomy is indeed not the best choice for now, but we will have to scrutinize it.

So the laws on regional autonomy and fiscal balance still have many weaknesses in the rush to issue them?

Yes, I think we need to constantly evaluate the laws. But I don't agree that they should be delayed either ... tension between the central government and the regions would increase.

However, there should be a national commitment that while we implement these laws, we intensively evaluate their performance in facilitating decentralization and democratization at the regional levels, and also in facilitating public services in the localities.

The central government has the moral obligation to create "corridors" (or mechanisms -- Ed.) at the national level, to ensure that decentralization of power and authority will be in line with the process of democracy and the increase of public services.

... meaning the central and local governments are far from ready now.

Well, the key is constant evaluation of the progress of both laws. It has to be evaluated whether the laws solve national problems, e.g., has our nation building improved? One would assume that regions have rebelled because of the centralized power ... but the problem has been more a result of undemocratic governance. Decentralization has no benefit if regions don't really have access to influence national policy.

Regional autonomy should also become the momentum to provide larger space for social institutions to grow ... (to) enable control of local governance; traditional institutions should also improve themselves to become more democratic because customary institutions are usually less adaptive and undemocratic ...

Decrees are being prepared to support the laws. Would those instruments provide the corridors you mentioned?

Yes, but they would be on the level of government decrees that legally should not be used to regulate regencies or townships, which have become autonomous.

Such areas should be regulated by law, which is higher than a government decree.

This is indeed a serious problem. Decrees are only to regulate technical matters like procedures for installing officials.

What I mean by "corridors" is very substantial, e.g. the prevention of power abuse by local legislators in determining their wages.

There must be such a national (mechanism) to control the maximum wage of a local councillor, for example, the amount must be so and so percent of regional revenue.

If the problem is so elementary -- the inconsistency between the systems built by the new laws with election results -- wouldn't it still be better for the laws to be delayed?

I personally agree that both laws have a very high democratic spirit, at least regarding procedures at the township and regency levels. So the laws should continue to become effective (as planned), with the above commitments ...

A number of regions have proved to be dissatisfied with the laws, demanding even more. The Yogyakarta administration initiated their own draft for the province's regional autonomy.

Could you elaborate?

The proposed draft from Yogyakarta neglects the democratic spirit contained in the new laws in the process of the governor's election, although I'm not saying that it's bad in this respect. The draft requires that a governor be recruited from the royal family ...

There is indeed the spirit to stress autonomy more at the provincial instead of the regional level. So both laws have met a variety of responses from different regions.

The Aceh (administration) has also drawn up the Aceh Darusalam State draft law. The draft demands more for Aceh than provided in the laws, such as autonomy in religious and fiscal affairs.

In its governmental structure, the draft law on Aceh proposes innovative institutions such as a council of elders.

A new tendency is emerging, evidenced in Bali, which has asked for the same level of provincial autonomy as Yogyakarta, though with a different form of government.

Many Balinese wish to combine democratic principles with traditional leadership to accommodate customary governance.

In Aceh ...they have the ulema (council) which does not disrupt the democratic process except in emergency.

In Bali there's something similar, a council of elders which is higher than the local legislature.

What are the considerations of Yogyakarta and Bali requesting provincial autonomy?

There are many, such as higher bargaining position against the central government compared to that of regions or townships.

The provinces could then mobilize bigger resources. Besides, such areas have more solid social and political entities at the provincial level.

If autonomy was concentrated at the regency level this could actually make the administration closer to the people, but its bargaining power would be less; still, this could be overcome if regencies have a common stand against the central government.

This would be possible if an association of autonomous regions were set up, which is referred to as the interregional cooperative body in regional autonomy law no. 22 1999.

What has been the specific response to law no. 25/1999 on fiscal balance?

Response has varied. Areas poor in resources have said the law gives too much authority to such regions, as if the central government wants to let go of its responsibility to people in those areas.

Law no. 25 introduces two important economic innovations. It ensures that 25 percent of domestic revenue goes to autonomous regions in the form of block grants and the principle of sharing revenue from local income.

But it turns out that this law on fiscal balance can also result in new tensions.

Areas which are poor in natural resources but which feel they have a significant contribution to the national tax have protested because of the possibility that they will not get shares from the taxes. While actually, both areas, rich or poor in natural resources, contribute to the national government.

Could you give an example?

For instance regencies rich in industries like Gresik in East Java have a large contribution to domestic revenue from industry taxes, and also from income tax.

But Law no. 25 does not give anything to the local administration from industry taxes and income taxes in Gresik. This is unlike areas rich in natural resources such as Aceh and Kutai in East Kalimantan which would gain larger shares.

Naturally Gresik protested, pointing to why the law did not take into account the balance of income from non-natural resources.

So autonomy and fiscal balance would take many forms?

I suggest we make one main law regulating very principle issues, stating that the principles of regional autonomy must prioritize harmonious relations between the central and regional governments; and that regional autonomy must build democracy at the regional level in line with the increase of public services.

The same would apply to the law on fiscal balance.

The laws would then serve as guidance to other laws derived from the above principle laws on regional autonomy and fiscal balance.

Such a guidance law, on the same level in our legal hierarchy with the other laws, would accommodate our heterogeneity; it would be impossible to regulate details in laws number 22 and 25.

The derived laws would have to accommodate the various structures of regional autonomy. Structures of regional governments offered in Law no. 22 may not be conducive enough to realizing local and traditional institutions in areas like Aceh.

In Aceh, apart from the local legislative council there may have to be a council or representative board for ulema to play a role in Aceh politics.

Also in Bali, there might have to be a council to accommodate the elders of traditional communities.

This is important to avoid damaging the unique social relations in Bali, for instance. Such an arrangement would also ensure that a local government is representative ... more so because more charismatic institutions among society are those outside democratic, modern institutions.

Acehnese maybe would not want to listen to their legislators compared to their ulema.

Are there experiences from other countries regarding variety in local governance?

Norway in 1992, for instance, issued a regional governance law which essentially gave freedom to each county to conduct political experiments to achieve democracy and to increase public service.

Wouldn't that make administrative matters and supervision difficult for the central government?

Yes; supervision is easy when everything is uniform. With decentralization, the central government's supervision would only be general. Here the importance of cooperation between the government and independent institutions comes in, to evaluate local governments ...

For instance, look at demands to form new provinces like Riau and Manado (North Sulawesi) and Banten (West Java). The national government and the House of Representatives tend to give in.

But the missing question here is what is the implication to the people if they were to have a new province, a new region?

If we asked the elite of respective regions, of course the answer would be that they want to rule themselves in the name of democratization. This means more seats for the governor's office, legislative body and for the regency post to be fought over ... Democracy and autonomy would have the main impact of sucking more money from the people for government operation costs ...

So there must be evaluation. If not, eventually all the process so far will be out of narrow political interests. (Agus Asip Hasani)