Z

aenal had no inkling when he saw the woman he knew as a local politician appear while he was serving customers at his roadside food stall in Parepare, South Sulawesi, one evening last week.

The two made a scene as their conversation developed into an argument. Zaenal pressed the panic button because the politician, Andi Farida Soewandi, demanded there and then that he relinquish the stove she gave him in exchange for his promise to vote for her in the legislative election a few days before.

Farida went ballistic upon learning of the provisional ballot count, which showed she had failed to win the seat she craved. In the days afterward, she visited the people she had bribed to take back the gifts she had given.

Zaenal glanced at his burning stove and his hungry customers, who watched as he argued with the politician.

He told her he did vote for her but admitted that his wife had '€œsold'€ her vote to another candidate '€” something Farida saw as betrayal to his commitment of ensuring everyone in his family supported her election bid.

The fiery exchange over the stove ended with the irate Zaenal lifting the stove and smashing it onto the pavement. He did it after Farida refused to listen to his plea to wait until all customers had received their food and the disputed stove had been switched off and was cool enough for the fuming politician to take it away.

This story, retold from kompas.com, was only one of countless tragicomedies about the '€œfiesta of democracy'€ '€” as former dictator Soeharto would have called it. As this election drew to a close, it revealed an ugly aspect: pervasive vote-buying.

In Bengkulu, the wife of a failed candidate used the Koran to force people to admit to accepting money from her husband and to return the cash. In Polewali Mandar, West Sulawesi, the renovation of a mosque had to stop after unsuccessful candidates withdrew their donations. In East Java, the husband of an unelected politician blocked the village'€™s only road to dramatize his demand for a ballot recount. The list is endless.

Vote-buying may have existed since Indonesia'€™s first general election but it has worsened since reformasi took hold following the end of Soeharto'€™s 32-year authoritarian regime in 1998.

The practice follows the law of the market '€” strong supply and demand coupled with unenforced electoral laws. People, especially the poor and less educated, see the trade in votes as the norm, something that happens in every election at every level.

 As with the recent election, people openly offer their vote to the highest bidder. In Central Java, they humorously interchanged the acronym NPWP, usually known as a taxpayer registration number, as standing for nomor piro wani piro? (Which candidates will pay how much?'€) There, candidates offered potential voters between Rp 15,000 and
Rp 100,000 in cash. Others would win support by building or paving a hamlet road or giving people food.

On the eve of elections, people expect the arrival of candidates'€™ campaign teams, carrying money as they knock on doors as part of '€œOperation Dawn'€, in which candidates deliver cash to lure voters.

No wonder ambitious politicians end up spending billions of rupiah on buying favor from voters and endorsement from political party officials. At the end of the day, many less wealthy candidates will end up deeply indebted, like poor, lost gamblers. Many regional hospitals set up emergency psychiatric wards for stressed, failed politicians.

Where are the election officers and supervisors, who are hired to help enforce the electoral laws that make vote-buying a serious crime? Vote-buying is widespread but very few reports of it and other violations of the law have been processed.

The electoral laws allow law enforcers to cancel a politician'€™s candidacy if the latter is proven guilty of buying votes. Elected legislators can have their win rescinded if later they are proven to have bought their seats.

Extremely weak law enforcement has given rise to skepticism about the integrity of election officers, especially those in the field. They are underpaid and can easily become prey for corrupt candidates who want to manipulate voter turnout in their favor.

Vote-buying has become a complex problem in Indonesia, where legislative candidates must compete neck-and-neck, even with their fellow party members, to win votes.

If the general election is meant as a means of political education for the masses, then widespread vote-buying delivers a very wrong message. It says that everybody, regardless of their competence and intellectual proficiency, can become a political leader so long as they are rich.

We would be better off not stressing over lawmakers in the House of Representatives having terribly low productivity rates, or over many of them being sent to prison for corruption. Apparently they are overly preoccupied with the thought of amassing wealth, legally or otherwise, to compensate for the money they burned during their candidacies.

Ending vote buying remains a formidable challenge, as at the grassroots level, poor people need the money. Roadside traders need their stoves, while affluent politicians badly need people'€™s support to ascend.

The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.