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enerally in life, in particular the political arena, especially in politics under a democracy, cooperation and competition are de rigueur: In democracy, you compete to obtain power, then after the competition is over, you cooperate to use that power for the common good,  pro bono publico.

The neologism for the interdependence between the two concepts or strategies is '€œcoopetition'€ or '€œcoopertition,'€ which has been around for a while, especially in economics and game theory.

But while the rules of cooperation are rather well understood, judging by how well people live together, the rules of competition are not, judging by how quickly people disagree, quarrel and even fight after a competition.

Ironically enough, the most serious misunderstandings (and even violations) of the rules of competition come from the moral system, which is supposed to teach us how to love one another.

In religion, for example, the level of cooperation is the lowest compared to all other systems and competition is ruthless, even when God'€™s mercy is virtually bottomless and potential converts are abundant.

Even the more harmless ethics of competition are not well understood either, judging by how rude people can be when they lose (they mope, complain, refuse to accept defeat or congratulate the winner and sometimes continue to cause mayhem to make sure the winner eventually fails).

The antics of the opposition coalition confirms this lack of understanding of the rules of competition: the losing coalition did everything to violate the ethics of competition during the last presidential election by carrying out smear campaigns and up till now, some of its leaders are still hell bent on disrupting the mood, if not the actual transition of power, by criticizing and even threatening the elected president, with one intention only: To prove their assertion that the government-elect is incompetent and that the people made a collective mistake for not having chosen their smarter and more intelligent (and with high IQ) supreme leader as their president, a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of game (having obstructed his efforts, they then say, '€œI told you so, the man is not fit to be president'€).

They forget that democracy demands professional (indeed ethical) competition for power, but sincere cooperation afterward.

They are carrying the mode of operation during power competition to the post-election stage, to the detriment of the country as a whole. Indeed, the post-election antics and semantics of the losing coalition are nothing short of vindictive, bordering on vendetta and coup d'€™etat.

The taking away of people'€™s right to directly elect their local leaders is nothing less than a disguised constitutional coup d'€™etat, every bit as cynical and mean as the real coup d'€™etats in Egypt and Thailand.
While the act of robbing the people'€™s right to choose their locals leaders is anti-democratic in and of itself, the timing could not have been more mischievous and the intent malicious.

With barely one month before they went into oblivion, the people'€™s representatives staged the last political highway robbery of the year, against the very people who sincerely voted them into power, as if to say, '€œSince you didn'€™t vote for me, I won'€™t vote for you either'€.

This logic is consistent with the losing coalition'€™s supreme leader'€™s version of democracy: Democracy if he wins, sue the people if he loses, and if he loses the legal battle too (which he did), then take away the people'€™s God-given right to vote (which he also did, with the support of his minions with the same faulty understanding of democracy).

No wonder the late president Abdurrahman '€œGus Dur'€ Wahid called the legislative body '€œa kindergarten'€, insulting children of course: after all, children don'€™t seek power or positions, they seek friends to play with; and they really play, unlike their adult counterparts who are busy playing with their cell phones, playing politics or playing games with people'€™s democratic lives.

Only when they do not do any of this do they perform real child-like activities, such as napping or dozing off at any hour of the day or during sessions.

Their brazen acts are often couched in lofty concepts such as '€œconstructive opposition'€ or '€œchecks and balances'€ (of the democratic US presidential system, of course).

But while in the US the system was adopted to avoid the unholy alliance between legislative and executive powers under the European parliamentary system, the Indonesian version is '€œyou write the check, I balance your book'€ (your needs, your interests, etc.), and that is why, both the last and the new batch of House of Representatives members are under the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)'€™s cross hairs.

Democracy is competitive but it is truly a subtle game of politics played by gentlemen (and gentlewomen) of refined morals and ethics.

Unfortunately, the opposition coalition and indeed the House itself are full of '€œdemoctators'€ and '€œdictatorcrats'€, wolves in sheep'€™s clothing, who in their mentality, antics and semantics do not understand or appreciate the rules of cooperation and competition in democracy and politics.