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Indonesian parliament in SBY's second term
"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately
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"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
Oliver Cromwell, the dictator of England, said those words when he dissolved the parliament in 1653. The Indonesian voters did the same thing in the 2009 legislative election when they voted out 70 percent of the members of parliament and replaced them with new faces, including those of actors and comedians.
This massive turnover of the parliament was understandable considering the fact that only very few voters really knew who the most effective members of parliament were. The majority of the members of parliament were virtually unknown, owing their seats to their party membership.
Therefore, in the 2009 election, as people voted based on how much they recognized the names on the ballot, it led to the high turnover rate.
This is both good news and bad news for Indonesian democracy.
The good news is that this shock will help improve the quality of the parliament.
The representatives will have to start paying attention to what their constituents really want.
It is clear from the election results that voters simply could not identify who was supposed to represent their home regions. Most incumbents came from Jakarta. Very few of them maintained their residency in their home constituencies. Even fewer knew what was going on in their home districts and what the main concerns of their constituents were. Not surprisingly, in LSI's survey taken after the parliamentary election, only 18 percent of respondents felt close to a particular political party.
Therefore, the newly elected legislators have to start taking their job seriously and to start paying attention to what voters really want if they want to retain their seats in 2014.
This means politicians will have to start tackling issues that people really care about, such as poverty, economic development and the rule of law, rather than wasting their time working on divisive and unnecessary laws such as the pornography law.
The bad news is that this period will be a huge challenge to the parliament and to the future of Indonesian democracy. As these new, inexperienced members are learning the ropes, unsure about their roles and responsibilities, they will be prone to the manipulation of more experienced politicians.
It will be a while before any new members will be able to understand their roles properly and to assert their own independence.
This spells a huge problem, considering the fact that the role of both the parliament and the judiciary is to check and balance the power of the executive branch. Compounding the problem is the fact that the parliament is very unpopular in Indonesia.
According to a study by Transparency International, the parliament is seen as the most corrupt institution in Indonesia, closely followed by the judiciary.
With a popular president on the executive branch, it will be difficult for the inexperienced parliament to assert its authority as a check against the executive.
Further complicating the matter is the fact that virtually every political party represented in the parliament is interested in becoming a part of SBY's new Cabinet, and thus do not have much incentive to oppose the president.
Without a credible opposition, the parliament will be completely beholden to the will of the president, thus damaging the constitutional role of the parliament. At that point, the parliament will no longer be a relevant political actor in Indonesia and this will damage the future of democracy in Indonesia.
The question then, what is to be done?
First, members of the new parliament must realize they have a moral duty as the representatives of the people, rather than advocating their own interests. As a result, they must try to connect and to gauge what their constituents really want.
Second, the parliament must institute ethical reforms in order to restore public trust in the body.
Third, they should keep in mind the fact that the constitutional role of the parliament is to be both partner and main critic of the executive branch. Even though parties have seats in the Cabinet, they have to understand that in order for democracy to be effective, the parliament has to maintain an attitude of being a loyal opposition.
Finally, coming back to Cromwell's quote, that quote basically signaled the dissolution of the British parliament and the beginning of Cromwell's dictatorship that lasted from 1653 to 1658. Therefore, without these changes in attitudes, the performance of this newly elected parliament will be much worse than in the previous period. This would be a huge blow for Indonesian democracy.
The writer is the executive director of the Center for Democracy, Integrated Peace and Security Studies. He received his PhD in International Relations from Ohio State University.
