It has been a little over 10 years since we chose to adopt a democratic system of government. This deliberate choice has given us remarkably positive international exposure. Indonesia is now highly regarded as the third largest democratic country after India and the United States. In a somewhat similar tone, Indonesia is also applauded as a current example of how Islam and democracy can work and relate quite amicably.
This is due to the fact that Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, and yet it practices democracy. Because of this, rather than the political experiences of Turkey or Pakistan, many believe that Indonesia provides a positive example, regardless of the differences between Islam and democracy, so that an intellectual debate over whether the former is compatible with the latter is no longer relevant.
In short, democracy has given us so much credit internationally. Perhaps this is the only theme we can exploit internationally, following the unprecedented socioeconomic crises of the late 1990s, which we are still now unable to recover from completely.
Domestically, much can be said about the paramount importance of our democratic practices. Our commitment to uphold democracy has liberated Indonesians from the shackle of both Sukarno’s and Soeharto’s authoritarian periods. It has thrown open the country’s Pandora box that has made politics no longer an arena enjoyed primarily by the “praetorian guard.” It has made politics relaxed and unrestricted. More importantly, it has made freedom of expression guaranteed, public offices contested freely and openly. Simply put, no one can deny the rigor of the practice of Indonesia’s democracy especially in areas of political procedure and partisan politics.
Substantively, and especially beyond partisan politics, however, there have been far fewer success stories to tell, the conspicuous evidence of which has been our inability to make “all good things go together” in our democracy: the realization of political stability on the one hand and economic prosperity on the other. These are two areas where we as a nation are still almost endlessly struggling.
Quite understandably, this is what has made many Indonesians seemingly apprehensive of democracy. There are still too many doubters of democracy. And recent developments have made even more question whether this nation sincerely and truly believes in the merit and efficacy of democracy.
Three recent cases can be used to support the above statement. First, the anarchic demonstration that resulted in the death of the North Sumatra Legislative Council speaker, Abdul Aziz Angkat; no one deliberately tried to link the brutal attack by demonstrators on Aziz that cost him his life with bad practice in our democracy. Yet many saw it as alarming evidence that we are actually lagging behind as far as the sociocultural prerequisites of democracy are concerned. Our social capital to practice a full-fledged democracy is very much limited – knowing that for so many years, decades in fact, we had been accustomed to living in a non-
democratic sociocultural and political environment. This history, which to some extent is difficult to forget, only equipped many of us to see democracy in a very primitive way, ignorance of its fundamental value that it has to be exercised peacefully.
Second, the lack of social capital to practice democracy is also demonstrated by the failure of many of our political practitioners to concede and accept defeat. Our success in holding free, fair, and peaceful national and regional elections were often marred by our unwillingness to recognize that our competitors are better than us and therefore deserve to have much more support from the public. This is what we have been witnessing especially since 2004 when the national and regional elections were conducted directly.
A positive note needs to be highlighted, however, particularly for those who contested the election results using peaceful means and proper channels. But repeated protests, as in the case of the East Java gubernatorial election, only strengthens our assessment that we still have very much to learn about how to enrich our social capital pertinent to democratic practices.
Finally, the disheartening state of our democracy can also be measured by the Constitutional Court’s decision on how election winners should be decided. Late last year, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court overturned one important article of election law. Instead of being based on the hierarchic lists, the court ruled that whoever gets more votes wins the election.
In fairness, such is the most appropriate law governing elections. It not only accords with the very basic principle of democracy, but also decency. But, in a situation in which politics is not designed coherently to accommodate that principle, it will only make democracy more expensive.
Each candidate, regardless of his or her hierarchic ranking on the ballot, has to use all of his armory and resources to marshal the necessary votes to win the election. Given this situation, where many voters are fonder of funds than programs, fame than competency, this means a candidate needs to spend more money. And elections become a popularity or celebrity contest. If this is the case, one can only ask: where the future of our democracy is heading?
The writer is a professor of political science at the State Islamic University (UIN), Jakarta.
