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'Democracy remains key for RI's path to prosperity'
With the spectacular economic growth under nondemocracy in China, the view that democratic institutions are at best irrelevant and at worst a hindrance for economic growth has become increasingly popular in policy discourse.
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A boy wearing a traditional costume guards ballot boxes at a pooling center during the presidential election in Trumon, Aceh province on April 17, 2019. Indonesia kicked off one of the world's biggest one-day elections, pitting president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo against ex-general Prabowo Subianto. (AFP/Chaideer Mahyuddin)
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ndonesia's current democratic practices, which have taken root in the past 20 years following the demise of the New Order's authoritarian regime, remain the best hope for the country to be able to have an inclusive and sustainable economic growth, a panel of experts concluded in a discussion held on Wednesday.
Speaking during a seminar organized to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Jakarta-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), economists and political analysts agreed that despite setbacks and shortcomings, in the past 20 years public participation in politics, both through regular elections and the exercise of free speech, has resulted in a government that is more responsive to demands for economic improvement.
CSIS visiting fellow Puspa Delima Amri, who is an assistant professor of economics at Sonoma State University argued that democracy at the local level as well as decentralization, one of the hallmarks of Reformasi, had led to improvements in public services and had also been conducive to economic growth, which benefits a large section of the population.
“Democracy not only benefits the upper classes of society,” said Puspa.
Puspa quoted World Bank data showing a marked improvement in public service delivery in Indonesia’s local regions. The proportion of workers accessing health care rose from 53 percent in 1996 to 92 percent in 2016.
The country also saw an improvement in the net enrollment rate in senior high school from 34 percent in 1996 to 61 percent in 2016.
Puspa credited the success to the post-New Order decentralization program, which allowed local leaders to have a competition in the delivery of good policy.
