T

he 2014 Indonesian presidential election may be said to have been '€œsecure and peaceful'€. Nevertheless, for the benefit of the nation'€™s psychosocial and cultural growth and development process, we need to pay serious attention to negative elements from the period of campaigning, through the declaration of the president- and vice president-elect by the General Elections Commission and right up until today.

The negative elements should not be overlooked. It must not be assumed that they disappeared as soon as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono physically united competing candidates Prabowo Subianto and Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo or through audiences and hospitalities during the Idul Fitri.

What are the negative elements? They are the spreading of libel (we have observed that the state has ignored this perversity), tangible fraud (which is perceived as normality for the sake of winning the election), unwillingness to accept loss, public lies (which have been committed through plays on words that give an '€œas if true'€ impression) and all of them culminating in justification of whatever action was felt necessary.

The negativity reached a level that endangered national unity. But the perilous effect could be intelligently neutralized by the Indonesian people as evident in the fact that most people rejected the poor conduct, ignored fraudulent persuasion while at the same time criticizing attitudes that justified every means for the sake of winning.

They did not take to streets in protest. It was enough for them to respond through constructive discourse in the cyber world.

However, it is very important to consider the negativity as a sign of the existing psychosocial and cultural problems facing this nation, at least among the elite who hold the power to influence the masses. Those serious problems are rooted in the sins that the elite have committed but have yet to admit.

The sins are corruption, abuse of power and human rights violations. Those transgressions have created psychological burdens for the elite, who have been trying to '€œovercome'€ the problems by operating manic defenses (a term borrowed from the Kleinian psychoanalysis), mostly in the form of denial of reality (including denying the psychic reality of guilt feeling that is deeply buried in the self) and omnipotence (assumption that the self is always able to realize whatever he or she wants to).

Denial of reality and omnipotence are manic defenses which are used unconsciously by the elite in order to overcome past sins. Such denial results in the attitude of rejecting the reality of defeat. Omnipotence creates the attitude that justifies means toward an end, including libel, lies and fraud.

As long as the elite'€™s past sins are unresolved, the nation will always live in a potential atmosphere that can create negativity at any time. At this point, we should be aware that the nation is required to resolve the elite'€™s sins together in a good, tactful and wise manner.

Together means the new government resulting from the 2014 presidential election, the newly elected lawmakers, law enforcement agencies, the elite (absolutely including the sinful elite), the intellectuals, philosophers, religious leaders and the all people who can contribute to the constructive endeavors for the good of the nation.

Our nation together can resolve the elite'€™s sins through national reconciliation which comprises five steps: first, the sinful elite should confess their sins and declare their readiness to face justice; second, fair trials for the errant members of the elite; third, the sinful elite declare their apology to the Indonesian people, especially to the victims of their misconduct; fourth, the elite offers reparation to the people and the state; and fifth, the state provides pardons to those of the elite who have undergone the preceding process of national reconciliation.

After the reconciliation, the elite will be born anew as free people who do not have to cover up and to overcome their past sins. They do not need to operate manic defenses that become the source of the nation'€™s negativity any longer.

Reconciliation will free Indonesia from any potential eruption of negative elements and therefore pave the way for its psychosocial and cultural growth and development.

The writer is a psychotherapy consultant psychiatrist who lives in Malang, East Java.