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Candidates leave regional democracy gaps untouched
The candidates can learn from the situation of democratic stagnation in Latin America. From 1990 to the early 2010s, and even now, there has been inactivity in democratic advancement.
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Expression of freedom: A student gestures as she takes part in a rally for an independent Papua near the Surabaya Police headquarters, held on Dec. 1, 2021 to coincide with the anniversary of the Free Papua Movement (OPM). (AFP/Juni Kriswanto)
Civil liberties in Indonesia have consistently experienced setbacks. Measurements from the 2009-2020 Indonesian Democracy Index (IDI) show a decline in the liberty index of up to 7.57 points. Meanwhile, the new IDI measurement method (2021-2022) shows a decrease mainly at the provincial level of 0.69 points.
Nevertheless, the public enjoyed progress in political rights (13.25 points) and democratic institutions (12.94 points) during 2009-2020. Aspects of equality and the capacity of democratic institutions have also developed more positively in the new measurement method (2021-2022).
It seems that this macro trend is taking into account the seemingly uniform democratic vision of the 2024 presidential election candidates. The three pairs of aspirants consider the aspect of liberty to be equally important by establishing it in their missions of democracy.
The pair of Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar made restoring the quality of democracy mission number eight. Specifically, agenda six details the mission, namely guaranteeing freedom, ensuring meaningful participation, improving regulations that hinder freedom, low-cost democracy, ratifying the political funding bill, ensuring the neutrality of election organizers, funding to strengthen the role of civil society, people's understanding of democracy and simplifying requirements and procedures for individual candidacy for regional head.
The pair of Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka made strengthening democracy their mission number one. This mission is operationalized in the program to restore and guarantee freedom of the press, reestablish academic freedom and guarantee freedom of association, assembly and expression of opinion.
To support the quality of democracy, the pair propose to establish an NGO endowment fund management institution and to regulate the political funding and financing system.
The duo of Ganjar Pranowo and Mahfud MD established mission number seven with the idea of accelerating the implementation of substantive democracy. Guaranteeing civil liberties, strengthening civilian supremacy, strengthening political institutions and freedom of the press and media are substantive democracy implementation programs.
