The one year anniversary of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono administration was marked by many demonstrations showing the people’s disappointment.
There was little appreciation shown by the people. Even though Yudhoyono has conveyed to the public a variety of achievements by the government within one year, it is a bit difficult to give positive feedback on the government’s performance amid piling problems.
Before the anniversary, people had actually been “rewarded” with the increase in the prices of basic needs and in the basic electricity tariffs. Gas canister explosions have been sent to people homes.
Whereas the problems of poverty, unemployment and corruption should be urgently dealt with. These problems show the government’s weak performance.
It is fair to say that the level of public satisfaction of the SBY-Boediono government nowadays has declined. The indicators of the decrease in the public appreciation of the performance of the government can be seen from various survey results.
If the government’s performance photographed from the survey results were still considered low and unworthy of appreciation, then how about the government’s performance viewed by a more substantive approach; that is, the experience felt directly by the people?
Although, there had been some achievements and accomplishments of the government, generally the SBY-Boediono government’s performance was tainted with red marks, especially the performance in the fields of law and the economy. There are still some cases showing the red marks of the government’s performance.
Regarding the field of law and the fight against corruption: Some cases that have attracted public attention – such as the cases of Bank Century, fat accounts of police officials, the case of the criminalization of two leaders of the Corruption Eradication Commission, the persecution of an anticorruption activist from ICW – have not been resolved yet.
On several occasions, in his speeches, SBY emphasized that the eradication of corruption would be led directly by him. The eradication of corruption is still limited to rhetoric.
The performance of the government in the economic field is also not too encouraging. The issues of poverty, high unemployment, electricity crisis and the infrastructure problem that should be taken care of by the government have not been improved.
Society is confronted with many difficulties such as the increase in the prices of basic needs amid the low purchasing power.
One cause of the underperformance of the government and the unfinished issues is due to political hostage. This has led to less effective and efficient government work. There are at least four potential political hostage cases: The political image that SBY is the leader of the government, the accommodative politics that SBY takes in building political legitimacy, political compromises that give birth to a compromised Cabinet, and transactional politics that are used as the base for relations among coalition partner parties.
A political image has been maintained by SBY since he was a presidential candidate during the election period until he was elected as President.
The view that the political perception is far more important and determining than the actual reality, which should only be used as a paradigm in the election campaign, is still being used as the paradigm of SBY in leading the government. This has caused the government to be a political hostage.
Accommodative politics that put great importance on balance and harmony has caused SBY to accommodate all parties in the government. This accommodative politics tends not to accept any “opposition”, prioritizing the safety of the political coalition.
There are options to expand the coalition by embracing the Golkar Party – even the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) – to strengthen it. This has made the posture of the coalition big (an oversized coalition), controlling 75 percent of the seats in parliament.
The oversized coalition, with many different interests, has caused the government to become hostage to the interests of the political parties.
Advanced political compromises, which included the leaders of political parties in the Cabinet, do have a mutual relation. The political parties gain much access to power and its political-economic benefits.
SBY has obtained strengthened support to meet the political safety needed to deal with the parliament.
Ministers from the political parties dominate the Cabinet. There are 19 political party ministers out of 34 members of the Cabinet.
The consequence of involving political party officials in the Cabinet is split loyalty. On the one side, the loyalty is to the President, but on the other side, they remain loyal to the parties.
In a situation like this, the performance of the Cabinet is being held hostage by the interests of the coalition parties. The government is also being held hostage by the “transactional coalition” through the Secretariat of the Joint Coalition of Parties.
Therefore, the SBY government must immediately leave his political image and begin to switch political rallies with hard work; there should be a reorientation of the coalition approach, from the quantity to quality approach, through streamlining the coalition and strengthening the solidity of commitment and political contracts; and there should be a Cabinet reshuffle-based performance evaluation.
Ministers who have been performing poorly need to be replaced. There should also be an evaluation of the coalition parties. Parties that have a low commitment should be excluded from the coalition (the Cabinet).
The writer is a political analyst at The Indonesian Institute.
