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Indonesian populist politics: A critical view
âJokowi-maniaâ is spreading in Indonesia
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'Jokowi-mania' is spreading in Indonesia. Some early surveys have shown that popular Jakarta Governor Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo would be the most electable politician in the 2014 polls. Other politicians might now be wondering how they can beat his popularity.
Although the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has been reluctant to announce Jokowi's candidacy, support for him has been growing strong. For both the party and the public, waiting for the last call from party chair Megawati Soekarnoputri, is the only thing left to do.
Jokowi did not abruptly rise into Indonesian politics. He came with the tide of populist politicians such as Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama, now his deputy governor, Rustriningsih, former deputy governor of Central Java, and I Gede Wisana, a former regent of Jembrana in Bali. What has been driving these politicians into Indonesian political scene is their capacity to represent people and close the gap between the 'elite' and 'commoners'.
These politicians also reinforce their close interaction with mechanisms that enable people's aspirations and grievances to be processed into responsive policies. They won the trust of voters because they were able to exploit the incumbents' inability to deliver welfare.
Other impostor-populist politicians usually do not realize this. Maintaining interaction with people without delivering responsive policies could backfire on them since people will start to realize that these impostors only harness people's confidence to assume power.
By definition, populism is politics by outsiders in a political system to seize power by using anti-establishment discourses to promote a plebiscitarian project. 'Outsiders' are those who move from the fringe of a political system to seize power. Outsiders use 'anti-establishment discourse' to construct people as 'us' and elites as 'them'. With power seized, populist politicians usually try to install a plebiscitarian project that treats people as passive receivers of government programs.
Referring to that definition, it is hard to imagine that our populist politicians are purely populists. Indonesian populist politicians come from the elite stratum, at least in broad terms.
They are people who had access to a good education and were exposed to various discourses in democracy such as transparency and accountability as well as the necessary skills to run a government.
These skills are important to formulate their visions in a campaign and to distinguish themselves from the pretenders who do not deliver.
If Indonesians merely entrust their future in the hands of populist politicians, we should be worried. Enthusiasm for reform should not hide our skepticism as sometimes we set our expectations way too high.
Theoretically, political systems needs time to process aspirations and convert them into policies. Particularly in a democratic system, the time needed to refine and manage aspirations can be tedious.
In fact, the people's hopes will deplete before the political system completes the process of realizing people's hopes and aspirations. Consequently, the abundant support that populist politicians receive will sharply wane.
A populist personality can be appealing amid corrupt politics. However, paying attention to only the populist politicians' idiosyncrasy might disguise our assessment. Be aware that in each project advocating people, there is a network surrounding a politician.
Populist politicians may be only the tip of the iceberg of power networks. We must be alerted of interests entrenched in this network. In these networks could be could politicians with reform ideas or politicians and business groups trying to ride the populist wave to capture the state.
Initially, the networks could be concealed by populist euphoria, but in the long-term, the predatory interests will start having a grip in politics.
As election season begins, the need to collect as many votes as possible forces politicians to attract voters in various ways, including through vote buying.
Nevertheless, as vote buying does not affect rational voters, politicians are compelled to decorate themselves as populist politicians.
Being a populist politician is a trend and is one that we should be careful of since populism is contained in most ideologies. In the heart of populism lies the true face: the projects and interests endorsed by the politicians.
Politicians can pretend that they support universal health care, but after gaining power, they liberalize the health care system. The installation of neoliberal projects under the reigns of Carlos Menem's Argentina, Alberto Fujimori's Peru and Carlos Andres Perez's Venezuela show that populism can be a tool to compete in electoral competition regardless of the policies installed.
The dangerous thing is that Indonesian politics rarely discuss in detail politicians' political visions as the source from which specific programs are derived. Rather, Indonesian politics opts to simplify political visions using simple jargon such pro-rakyat (pro-people), free healthcare and free education to mobilize voters.
The important details such as how policies address people's real needs or how such policies can be exercised with a limited budget, are commonly lost in campaigns.
On the surface, Indonesian populist politicians show their eagerness to fix the Indonesian political system. However, we should be aware they are not prophets who can save our politics. Populist politicians are also people who may abuse power.
The writer is an Arryman fellow at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
