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The winner and the losers
For anyone in the world who doubts that poorly-educated and economically poor people – most of them being Muslims – could embrace democracy, the Indonesian people proved Wednesday that such a cynical view is totally wrong
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For anyone in the world who doubts that poorly-educated and economically poor people – most of them being Muslims – could embrace democracy, the Indonesian people proved Wednesday that such a cynical view is totally wrong. For three consecutive elections since the nation ousted Soeharto in 1998, Indonesians have shown that they are as sophisticated and as civilized as any other mature democracy in the world.
In the second direct presidential election, millions of voters flocked to poll stations in a festive mood. The balloting process across the country was relatively peaceful, with only minor incidents reported. Smiling and cheerful faces, including during the votes counts, were witnessed everywhere. Free food and drinks provided by residents for voters was also common.
In a mature and respectful manner, Indonesian voters gave their final say on who they trust to lead this nation for another five years. Although we will only know the official results in the next few weeks, several quick counts consistently show that incumbent Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won a convincing mandate from the majority of the voters. Therefore it is the duty and obligation of all stakeholders of this country, including the losers and the winner of the July 8 race, to respect the Indonesian people’s decision no matter how sweet or bitter it is to them.
As the likely winner, Yudhoyono needs to realize that like the past five years, he is not only the president of those who voted for him, but of those who voted for Jusuf Kalla and Megawati Soekarnoputri, and those who could not or did not want to vote, as well. He needs to embrace the whole nation and address the concerns and the aspirations of voters, including those from minority groups. As this will be his last term, the next five years should be the very right moment for Yudhoyono to settle his unfinished agenda of bringing Indonesia to prosperity.
We also hope that the losers will elegantly accept their defeat to avoid any possible conflict. We need to remember that the Constitutional Court on Monday cleared the obstacles for unregistered voters to vote and the General Elections Commission (KPU) has allowed teams from the Megawati and Kalla camps to recheck and correct the problematic permanent electoral roll (DPT). So while the election was still not perfect as it had many shortcomings, we can conclude that it was relatively peaceful, democratic and orderly.
We call on Kalla to show his statesmanship in accepting this reality, while Megawati hopefully will not repeat her rejection to accept her defeat to Yudhoyono in 2004 if she does want to be remembered in our history as an immature leader. Again for sure, we do not intend to belittle their dissatisfactions as not all of them are groundless.
As a nation we need to move forward to preserve and strengthen our great achievements in democracy, but we also need to remember that democracy is only an intermediate goal, as the ultimate one should be on how we utilize democracy to make this nation better for all its people.
