TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
COVID-19 tragedy exposes how broken Indonesian politics is
With reports of political corruption filling our daily news feeds, we know for a fact that the democratic institutions that we set up in the Reform Era have been coopted by a small group of people who are only interested in accumulating wealth and power.
Change Size
Carrying white roses, a woman mourns the loss of her loved one in the COVID-19 graveyard of the Pondok Ranggon public cemetery in East Jakarta in this photo file. (JP/P.J. Leo)
What a cliché it is to say our politics is broken, but it is truer than ever.
With reports of political corruption filling our daily news feeds, we know for a fact that the democratic institutions that we set up in the Reform Era have been coopted by a small group of people who are only interested in accumulating wealth and power.
This is in no way unique to Indonesia. Politics is dirty. Power corrupts. So what else is new? Well, as the Delta variant-fueled second wave engulfs the nation’s most populous island, we can no longer ignore how the ongoing health crisis has exposed the structural problems underpinning our democracy, how the state has failed us in one of the most challenging times in history.
The pandemic is a disease that exacerbates the ills of society. It is a test case for every political regime in the world, regardless of its type. It challenges them to see if they are capable of devising sound policies to keep the outbreak under control, to flatten the curve, to strengthen the health system, to protect the vulnerable, to save lives.
Indonesia is sadly among the worst performers, a global think tank has found. And it is not hard to independently verify that claim. We need only to check our text messages or listen to the announcements of local mosques to learn of yet another person we know having been infected or killed by the virus.
After all the pandemic carnage, we cannot afford to sustain the social and political comorbidities that have brought us to where we are today.
We should no longer let state power lie in the hands of a select few who are elected to public office through either corruption or elite patronage – just so they can buy parties’ endorsements and people’s votes.
