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Will 2024 be the final nail in the coffin of ‘reformasi’?
The high presidential threshold of 20 percent for parties to nominate a presidential candidate is already a major hurdle that limits our options (no more than four pairs of candidates) in the polls.
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Prior to the inauguration of new Cabinet members. (Biro Pers dan Sekretariat Presiden/Laily Rachev)
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n a recent episode of the Democracy Paradox Podcast hosted by Justin Kemps, American political scientist Dan Slater paints a hopeful picture of Indonesia’s democracy.
Depicting Indonesia as an unlikely story of democracy, as one of the “hard places” for the political system to work, Slater argues that the country’s greatest asset for keeping itself from sliding back to authoritarianism is its own people, its voters. This is not to say that the political elite is no longer a factor. It’s just that, he argues, they are now bound to play by the rules of democracy set out after the downfall of Soeharto.
“I think it was 2001, and someone was really criticizing Indonesian democratization and saying, ‘This isn’t democracy. It’s just the old elites who have just reinvented themselves,'" he tells the host and quickly adds his counterpoint: “Well, that’s kind of what democracy often is. It is the old elites reinventing themselves. They did have to reinvent themselves and they did have to rule in a fundamentally different way.”
Slater isn’t entirely wrong here, but his optimism does need a reality check. There is no question that reformasi (reform) ended authoritarianism in Indonesia, and that the politico-economic elite, or the oligarchs, at the time willingly chose democracy as a new political ecosystem, believing that it is perhaps the best option available to protect their interests. For Indonesian progressive voters, the question is more about the quality of democracy after reformasi. Is it inclusive enough? Do voters really have a say in politics?
As Indonesia gears up for the 2024 presidential election, we are again reminded of how elitist our democracy is. Furthermore, there are some ominous signs that it is now becoming even more exclusive, with the political parties reportedly trying to push back against what they called the trend of deparpolisasi (attempts to weaken political parties) by preventing “political outsiders” from contesting the 2024 race.
It is true that President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is no defender of democracy, with the dismantling of several key democratic institutions, including the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), taking place under his watch. It is also true that he has served the interests of the elite to stay in power, with his latest Cabinet reshuffle seen as another attempt by the President to make his coalition parties happy until the end of his term and beyond.
But still, having a political outsider and his non-party clique making all the important political calls is still too much a concession for the political elite. Thus, the alleged plot to keep the presidential race from popular outsiders looks to be a real thing.
