Democracy in Indonesia
The Promises and Perils of Democratic Transition in Indonesia
Landry Subianto
A while ago, Thomas Friedman epitomized a gloomy illustration on Indonesia—a fledgling democracy in the heart of Southeast Asia—as a state that is "too big to fail; too messy to work with.” Obviously, this is not an image with which a nation wishes to attach—and even more so for Indonesia, often referred to as the last bastion of democracy in the turbulent region.
While the illustration might aptly capture most of Indonesia’s state of affairs ten years ago, the recent development on the ground has been by any standard far more promising, and indeed, progresses are continued to be made. A hard won democracy seems to find a fertile soil in the psyche of Indonesia’s politics and its polities.
The political and social transformation of Indonesia to become a democracy is stunning for many reasons. The political reform or Reformasi that was initiated at the outset of economic crisis in 1997, and culminated a year later, serves as the milestone and also benchmark of the progress the nation is making in its democratic endeavour.
As democracy is often understood within two contextual categories—namely thin, procedural democracy, and thick, substantive democracy—Indonesia too gains promising scores on both.
On the notion of procedural democracy, within the span of ten years, Indonesia successfully held three consecutive general elections respectively in 1999, 2004, and recently a few months ago in 2009. All were internationally assessed as free, fair, democratic and peaceful elections. In 2004, the country held its first-ever direct presidential election, resulting in the landslide victory of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Jusuf Kalla, who were later elected as President and Vice President. Another presidential election was held in July. This time, the re-elected President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono picked an economist—Boediono—as his running mate to run the office until 2014.
In addition to the national and local legislative as well as presidential elections, the beholders of public office at the provincial down to municipal and regency levels are now directly elected by its constituents. With more than 300 elections in a period of time, the World Bank crowned Indonesia “the capital of world’s elections,” in addition to its title as the world’s third largest democracy only after India and the United States.
In practice, democracy is indeed costly and administering elections with more than 170 million voters is a logistically herculean task. But the logic of success is quite simple here. Democracy significantly augments public participation, and simultaneously enhances public accountability. Accountability, in all its aspects stimulates progress of a modern, just, and prosperous society. Put it more simply, democracy is our avenue to become one of such nation.
Having said that, democracy that we practiced in today’s Indonesia is far beyond a mere electoral management. Within the context of thick and substantive democracy, we managed to transform the conduct of our political culture and institutions into more democratic ones. It is true that democracy is not an end in itself. For a democracy to flourish, it must be harnessed by, inter-alia, the rule of law, good governance in the forms of transparency and better accountability, and tolerance.
In the end, democracy will only be meaningful for the polity if it delivers its promise of just and prosperous society. Democracy must be functioning, as it must delivers. Democracy that we embrace must liberate, yet, it must regulate and discipline our people at the same time.
Departing from the need for tangible deliverables, democratic transition is now being translated into a series of political, economic, and social development in Indonesia. We tremendeously overhaul our political institutions, its mechanisms and rules of the game. We ensure that checks-and-balances is effectively working under the purview of the primacy of constitution and rule of law. Indonesian press today has never seen any higher freedom than we they are enjoying now. No longer we are plagued by communal conflicts, and insurgency, that nearly crippled the country a few year ago. We ensure the ultimate respect for human rights, and are confident to even champion it in our region and beyond.
The promise of democracy will be further ensured through the practice of good governance. We launched a massive and most aggresive anti-corruption campaign in our history. Any wrongdoers cannot go unchecked, but at the same time, we continue to strengthen our accountability act, at all levels across the country.
The dreams and promises of democracy has so far brought us afar. We believe that democracy cannot be imposed by an outsider. It must be home-grown from the vernacular of its people. While it cannot be forced, democracy can be shared and we can learn the good practice from one another. This moral ground motivate Indonesia to launch the Bali Democracy Forum in 2006, first of its kind where Governments of the Asia and Africa can exhange success stories, perils and promise of democracy. For the first time ever, democracy is adopted as strategic agenda of Governments in these vast continents, without any imposing tone heard whatsoever.
