World's third largest democracy

This is the first of two articles on the prospect of democratization in Indonesia by Olle Tornquist, a professor of politics and development at the University of Oslo.

OSLO (JP): It was a boring election, for parachuted journalists. Too little violence and cheating to report, and too little knowledge to explain why. Comparatively, democratic rules of the game forced much of the Indonesian elite to temporarily compete by mobilizing votes rather than manipulating in closed circles and provoking religious and ethnic groups only. That was a victory of sorts.

Except in East Timor, Aceh, Irian Jaya and a few other places, some 100 million people finally felt that their vote did matter. In a way, we witnessed the birth of the second rather than the third largest democracy in the world, since so many Americans do not even bother to cast their vote.

But while the very elections were rather free and fair, the context was not so just and the substance was shallow. There was a lack of reasonably equal opportunities to make use of political liberties and many fundamental problems were swept under the carpet. This will hit back, and this is, therefore, what we should focus on, if we are interested in the prospects for stability and democracy.

First, the unjust electoral system. One result was not delayed: The Indonesian Military would receive 7.6 percent of the seats in the legislature (more than major reformasi [political reform] leader Amien Rais' party now seems to get in the open elections).

Also, 36 percent of the delegates who will later on select the new president are not elected but will be appointed by the military and by the political elite in closed smoky provincial and metropolitan rooms. And, beforehand, former communist as well as local parties were prohibited, and, remarkably, many seats were allotted to provinces where the machinery of the current ruling party, Golkar, remained intact.

Second, the unjust preconditions. While Golkar made good use of the state apparatuses and control of foreign-funded credits for cooperatives and social safety net programs, especially on the outer islands, self-asserted Western democrats gave priority to stable government through instant elections of "legitimate" rulers rather than democracy in terms of people's rule and stability through acceptable chances for everyone to influence politics and keeping track of elected politicians.

Foreign support for democratization was limited to electoral arrangements, technical information and some promotion of civic virtues through non-governmental organizations, while critical voter education of the actual political forces involved was scarce, and promotion of democratic organizations among laborers, farmers, civil servants and employees was almost absent -- not to talk of parties on the basis of ideas about how societies work and may be changed.

Such priorities may be in line with a vulgarized version of democracy, where parties are just machines for the election of elite politicians and people can only make some difference through a myriad of single issues and special interest groups.

But it is a bit removed from a more informed understanding of the dynamics involved, and definitely, for instance, from European, Indian or South African experiences, where broad popular organizations and parties were essential for the birth and growth of democracy.

Predictably, on the one hand, the Indonesian outcome was, thus, top-down mobilization of votes on the basis of populism and patron-clientism through the established political machines (Golkar, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle [PDI Perjuangan] and the United Development Party), and the established socioreligious organizations (like the Nahdlatul Ulama with its major party Nation Awakening Party [PKB], and Muhammadiyah).

On the other hand, the exciting attempt to form a new liberal middle-class party, the National Mandate Party (PAN) -- with secular center-left politics, Muslim values and reform leader Amien Rais as a locomotive -- proved much more difficult. The students, moreover -- who forced the elite to do away with former president Soeharto, who were in the forefront for the reform process and who put pressure on the traditional politicians -- lost momentum and were marginalized.

And, since way back, genuine development, human rights and democracy activists often say that their attempts to help people themselves to organize are now distorted by the neotraditional political competition.

Third, then, is the shallowness of the elections. This is not to agree with the many observers who talk of excited masses in support of a weak woman and a blind man without real programs.

The largest and second largest democracies in the world, India and the United States, have elected and survived equally odd leaders.

And even aside from PAN's educated middle-class program, certain issues did play an important role in terms of people's expectations and trust in Megawati Soekarnoputri of PDI Perjuangan and Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid of PKB as symbols of dignified resistance against Soeharto and peaceful improvement without religious and ethnic conflicts, along with old ideals from the struggle for independence.

No, the major problem is, rather, that it will be very difficult for the essentially traditional and conservative politicians now elected to live up to the expectations of ordinary people, especially of the broad and essentially unorganized social movement around PDI Perjuangan and Megawati.

There might be a rather long honeymoon, especially if the economy picks up a bit, but the fact is that voters in the new instant democracy have been mobilized through old machines and traditional loyalties which do not correspond with and may not be able to handle the new major conflicts and ideas in society. Let me point to some tendencies:

* The grievances and aspirations in East Timor, Aceh, Irian Jaya and certain other areas were virtually removed from the established political agenda as local parties were not even allowed in local elections. So, now the problems will pop up outside the new democratic framework, where they may be even more difficult to solve. Fortunately, East Timor may be an exception -- if proindependent leader Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao proves right in "trusting the alternative institutions of the international community".

* Even the International Monetary Fund's fundamental structural adjustment program was kept outside the election campaign, and even the Asian Wall Street Journal (June 21, 1999) questioned the fact that the Indonesian people were not allowed to take an independent stand on such a vital issue in its democratic elections.

But there seems to be a basic consensus between Washington and the Indonesian elite. So, neither can the new instant democracy offer an institutional framework for the handling of people's socioeconomic hardships and protests.

Meanwhile, genuine labor activists find established politics irrelevant, "as it does not matter much in workers' daily lives". And employers make up for the loss of outright military intervention in labor disputes by drawing on their market bargaining power in times of crisis, establishing fake "unions" and setting up their own security forces with police and military personnel as part-time "consultants".

* In view of the irony that Western craftsmen of middle-class democracy did not manage to make life easier even for the new liberal PAN, the party's own performance, abandoned as it was by Muslim stalwarts as well, is a clear indication of the increasing importance of urban and semiurban intellectuals, professionals and educated businesspeople.

Some of the democratic potential of the new middle class may now be lost, however, because of the problems of making a difference within the neotraditional political framework. "Alternative" cynicism and preference for extra legislative lobbying and pressure group activities do not automatically promote democracy.