WHY INDONESIA IS MORE  MONARCHY THAN  DEMOCRACY          

    General Soeharto who ruled Indonesia for 32 years last century used to stage a ‘Festival of Democracy’ every five years.  This was export quality irony - the results were known before the poll papers were printed.

That’s not the case this year as the Republic now has an apparently independent Komisi Pemilihan Umum, (General Elections Commission, KPU) to police the process in what is supposed to be a democracy.

International authorities label it ‘flawed’ which is being kind.  Local academics predict more dilution after the February election whoever wins.

The KPU is not the problem - it’s the parties.  Three of the 24 contesting the presidency and a confusion of other national and regional positions have ‘democracy’ in their title.  The other 21 idly pass the gift of the Greeks around in their pronouncements like a smoke with a few sucks left before it’s stubbed out.

(The global leader in grand misnomers is North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.)

If democracy means the people have the power then none of Indonesia’s major parties nurture that essential. There are annual meetings and flash events to show that all bleatings are heard.  But these displays are for the shepherd to tell the flock where it’s heading, not why.

The largest party by membership and seats is the ruling Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (Democratic Party of Struggle) led by Megawati Soekarno, 76, the daughter of first president Soekarno.  She was the fifth president (2001 - 04) and now party president for life.

PDI-P is supposed to have half a million followers, but as with the first Elizabeth only the Monarch’s voice may be heard. One card-carrier is the current President Joko ’Jokowi’ Widodo, constitutionally barred from standing for more than two five-year terms.

A decade ago Mega reluctantly launched his career from Jakarta Governor to national politics.  She couldn’t muster public support for a dynasty through her unpopular daughter Puan  Maharani, chair of the House of Reps - Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR). 

Despite Jokowi's wins in 2014 and 2019, and an approval rating of around 80 per cent, Mega paid him no respect as the leader of 270 million people, the world's third-largest democracy after India and the US.  

She considered him a ‘minor functionary’.  This year she handpicked the former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo as his successor, a man  reportedly more pliant to her demands.

To revenge the slights Jokowi dropped endorsement of his party colleague and instead blessed Prabowo Subianto his bitter rival in the last two contests. Jokowi's son Gibran Rakabuming Raka, 36, then quit the PDI-P to join Prabowo as his vice president candidate.

It’s widely thought he’s there as Jokowi’s proxy, but the former mayor of Solo (Central Java) may yet turn out to be his own man.  If so the businessman who has never been subject to military discipline will need guts to disobey the fiery-tempered absolutist Prabowo.

In the last election (2019) the PDI-P scored just under 20 per cent of the vote and 128 seats in the DPR.  The Jokowi and Gibran defections will cut down these scores.

In colonial days bowing and scraping was the way to win favours; in a modern Republic. stuffed envelopes are more effective.

According to Transparency International, Indonesia ranked 110 among 180 countries measured for corruption. The score starts at 1 = most pure. Here’s where the Nordic nations and NZ cluster.

Autocrats hate critics, so Jokowi’s bloodless way to neuter opponents has been to invite minor parties to abandon their principles, join his coalition and get money-making ministries.  He’s done this so well his actions only get chastised by NGOs and unions.

Golkar (Functional Groups) was the plaything of the late Soeharto. It claims 840,000 members, but that appears to be a leftover from last century when all public servants had to belong.  

In 1997, the last election before he was ousted, the party had 325 of the 400 seats, now only 85.  A few minor parties were allowed to give the pretence of democracy but only Mega’s mob offered any opposition so was trashed by Soeharto’s thugs in 1996.

Five people died, 149 were injured and  23 remain missing. The party was reformed as centre-left nationalistic and added ‘struggle’ to its title.  For many years it was popular through its  underdog status , but that’s waned.

The hard-right Gerindra (Great Indonesia Movement) is the third-largest party with 78 seats.  It's the poodle of Prabowo, Indonesia’s version of Mussolini.

The cashiered former general and alleged human rights abuser started the party after returning from self-imposed exile in Jordan in 2008 and finding no welcome mat at Golkar.

Gerindra boasts half a million members, but that doesn’t imply they’re paid-up card holders.  The money comes from Prabowo’s dollar billionaire businessman brother  Hashim Djojohadikusumo.

The slightly left NasDem (Democratic Party) has 59 seats in the DPR; it’s steered by  Surya Paloh who owns the 24-hour news channel Metro TV.  Surya was a key figure in Golkar for 40 years before starting NasDem in 2011 and reportedly has 400,000 members.

The media tzar comes from Sumatra, a huge handicap in Java-dominated politics so has appointed other candidates, this time former Jakarta Governor Dr Anies Baswedan.

He's not doing well in the polls, probably because he used to be an academic and takes leadership seriously.  Better harken to coarse Prabowo who uses the Trump primer:  Rant, lie flat out like a thirsty lizard, blame unnamed foreigners for all evils, sow fear and promise to fix everything without explaining one policy detail.

That's because there aren't many - and those that surface soon evaporate.  Indonesian politics isn't driven by ideas gleaned in democratic party conferences where intellects clash, but by personalities created by social media, wrinkles smoothed by AI.

The Gerindra duo are being promoted as jolly cartoon characters as though running the world’s fourth largest nation with more Muslims than any other state is a pastime for a Blinky Bill lookalike.

As Tim Minchin sings in his Opera House tribute  Play It Safe: ‘You gotta keep it simple’. Economics and foreign relations?  Boor-r-r-ing. Just choose  someone like the late Soeharto (Prabowo is his former son-in-law) who kept prices low and fixed dissent with gunfire.  Those were the days.

In 1998 the students who helped bring in democracy reckoned they were activists, but the president said they were terrorists so good riddance.  It worked last century - so why not now?

The answer is that the electorate is better educated, knows more of the world through uncensored smartphones and maybe better able to research the history they didn’t get at school.  Whether their learning has reached the age of discretion will be known after 14 February.

 

 First published in Pearls & Irritations, 20 January 2024: https://johnmenadue.com/why-indonesia-is-more-monarchy-than-democracy/