Vote rigging still exists in 1997 general election

By Cornelis LAY

YOGYAKARTA (JP): In comparison with earlier general elections conducted under the New Order, the recent election showed some significant improvements.

Golkar's siding with the bureaucracy, an act whose negative effects must be borne by voters and the two other contenders, the United Development Party (PPP) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), was not as blatant as during past elections.

Coercion and the use of force by the state to ensure Golkar's victory, was considerably less apparent. The "silent week", a period used in earlier elections to achieve this end, came closer to fulfilling its true purpose.

The same progress was evident during vote counting. In the past, PPP or PDI ballots could easily be rendered defective. Such cases decreased considerably during the recent election. Generally speaking, manipulative practices to ensure Golkar's victory decreased substantially.

Nevertheless, the recent election was not entirely free from the old flaws that marred earlier elections under the New Order.

In several regions the old negative practices persisted. Application of the punitive authority to mobilize the bureaucracy -- for example by conducting roll calls among civil servants to check their attendance during campaign rallies and by issuing a variety of other instructions -- remained conspicuous.

Election "frauds" perpetrated during the counting of votes -- a perennial source of controversy between the government and Golkar on one side, and PPP and PDI on the other -- similarly remained evident in several regions. PPP, and even the badly clobbered PDI, still complained about acts of fraud and manipulations allegedly hurting their interests.

It is therefore not surprising that demands have come, particularly from the PPP, for a repeat vote in some of the party's stronghold regions. In several regions, PPP functionaries have threatened to refuse to sign the ballot results unless their demand is met.

Compared to earlier elections, a number of distinctions can be observed in the allegations of "cheating" this time. First, the scale of their occurrence is limited to certain, relatively restricted, areas. The "acts of dishonesty" no longer occur on a national scale, but are concentrated in several comparatively small areas. Areas of a rural character far removed from the centers of information or media control and observers are those that are particularly vulnerable to "cheating".

Politically, those vulnerable areas display either one of the two contradictory characteristics: they are either non-Golkar strongholds in which political competition is high (such as Madura) or they are areas where political competition is very low (for example Irian and some other areas in eastern Indonesia).

Second, "cheating" was not merely for a short period of time as was the case in past elections -- during the campaign period, for example, or during the silent week or during the actual balloting or vote counting -- but over an extended period of time.

Golkar began campaigning almost five years ago on the pretext of "meetings with cadres". Similarly, for the same purpose, it began its systematic "yellowization" drive long ago in Central Java. Even various major public programs that have an effect on society -- the presidential decree on aid for backward villages program, for example -- had from the beginning been given a dual function: firstly as an instrument for the eradication of poverty, and second as an instrument to "buy" votes.

The ousting of Megawati from the PDI leadership is one of the most clear expressions of this "cheating" over an extended period of time. As the total collapse of PDI in this year's general election has proven, ousting Megawati has been highly effective -- even excessively effective -- in stopping PDI rob Golkar's advantage.

Third, although the "cheating" this time was much more "delicate" and "civil" in its depiction -- with the crude and Machiavellian traits drastically reduced at society level -- the "cheating" was transformed in such a way as to have become structural and systematic, and therefore much more shattering in its effect than in previous elections.

At society and party level, the response to "cheating" practices this time showed an incredible alteration. In previous general elections, party activists -- or rather, party board members -- plus several news media publications were practically the only instruments of control against cheating.

For that reason, they were quite powerless in the face of pressure and threats. But party supporters began to act collectively, turning themselves into principal components of the forces of control to watch over the election process. More than that, the non-Golkar party supporters were in attendance with a huge reserve of "anarchic" energy that could translate into bargaining power.

At party level, "regional objections" provided central party boards with the foundations of legitimacy and drive to "reject" such "cheating". If in earlier elections "the regions" served as mere embellishments to support party policies devised at the center, now they are being utilized as sources of political energy to exert pressure and to engage in political bargaining with the state. This collective energy, accumulated from various layers of support spread out across the country, is certain to create more pressure for power. But whether or not this will bring about change is still not clear.

The involvement of a large number of non-Golkar political party supporters in "watching" over the election reflects three things. First, it reflects the heightening of courage, awareness and critical judgment of the people as a result of the rapid structural transformation of the past 30 years. Second, it reflects a widening demand for political change, and third, a growing distrust in the authorities as power holders and election organizers.

The presence of such a massive "anarchic" energy highlights the gloomier side of Indonesian politics. It is an expression of the failure of the political institutionalization process toward maturity and democratization.

Despite the fact that political institutions are numerous, their significance is limited in Indonesian politics. This "anarchic" energy has more of a destructive energy than a constructive one.

The writer is a lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University.