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/

MUCH IGNORED, GREATLY IMPORTANT

 Ignoring the Doings Next Door

On a recent edition of ABC TV’s free-for-all Summer Drum, participants sounded off about possible Democrat nominees for the 2020 US Presidential election.

Social commentator Jane Caro sprayed the screen with alternatives.  The Australian columnist Greg Sheridan, who comes across as reasonable on the telly, and community advocate Aisha Novakovich tossed in their suggestions.

Host Adam Spencer assumed viewers knew all names and understood the American selection process, so didn’t intervene with descriptors. Nor did the talent interject: ‘Hey, this is asinine. We’ve got swags of homegrown issues to air.’

Weird political jostlings 16,000 kilometers away may make for jolly banter but that’s all.

Critical, and closer in time and space, is the 17 April Indonesian Presidential election.  How many of us know the contenders, their policies and how these will affect the neighborhood?

The ABC and other media are doing little to erase the ignorance.  News from the US comes pre-packaged it’s just download and upload, ideal for near-empty newsrooms.  No translations required, no cultural and religious practices to explain. 

Washington’s drab suits and gender imbalance looks much like Canberra. Particulars differ, but many issues are familiar and we’ve even adjusted to mispronunciations.

Not so next door in the world’s third largest democracy and most populous Islamic nation – though technically secular.

If there’s a further lurch to the right in Indonesian politics we may knock Bali off our holiday list for fear the morality police might start ‘sweeping’ hotels for the unwed in the same bed.  We’ll also worry that tsunami warning systems still won’t work.

Till recently most observers were predicting current President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo will win a second five-year term, the maximum constitutionally allowed. 

Apart from Widodo sitting easily with the electorate, his rival, Prabowo Subianto made tactical blunders.  Foremost was supporting an actress who big-noted she’d been beaten up by Widodo thugs.

Police later revealed her bruises came from cosmetic surgery, which brightened the nation’s cheeks with much mockery. 

Subianto stood in 2004 but lost by 6.3 per cent (133 million voted) largely because young social activists backed Widodo.  They feared the former general would unravel reforms made since dictator Soeharto was ousted in 1998, throttle the Anti-Corruption Commission and curb the press, currently the freest in Asia.

Subianto, 67, is a mega-rich businessman with a string of resource companies, and well-entrenched in the oligarchy. He was once married to Soeharto’s daughter Titiek; his economist dad Sumitro was in Soeharto’s ministry.

Subianto served in East Timor and West Papua, attracting allegations of human rights abuses, still unsettled. He misjudged the mood for political change, was discharged for ‘misinterpreting orders’ and took refuge in Jordan.

On his return he tried to recover lost glories, courting other parties before starting Gerindra (Great Indonesia Movement Party.)  He has a stable of Portuguese Lusitano horses once bred for war. Subianto shouts his speeches and is reputed to have an explosive temper.

Jokowi, ten years younger, is a polar opposite, a mild-mannered village-bred Javanese and soft public speaker hooked on high-powered motorbikes.  He started showing  gravitas only recently.

A furniture-maker from a regional town he became the local mayor with a Mr Clean reputation, then got elected Governor of Jakarta

From this platform he sprang into the Presidency becoming famous for his blusukan (informal walkabouts).  These are now rare following domestic terrorism attacks against police and churches.

His term has concentrated on reviving and expanding the nation’s moribund infrastructure that’s long crippled the economy, using huge loans from China. New ports, airports, toll-roads and rail lines are being built with astonishing speed.

Socially the nation has turned conservative.  The jilbab (headscarf) once banned in the public service is now widely worn, worrying the ten per cent (26 million) of the non-Muslim population.  Jokowi has done little to calm their fears.

Nor has he paid much attention to foreign policy, leaving that to the bureaucrats.  Ultra nationalist Subianto could start promoting Indonesia as a military power.  He’s already talking up overseas threats gleaned from American sci-fi.

Last year Widodo’s party boss, founding President Soekarno’s daughter Megawati, ordered him to accept senior Islamic cleric Ma’ruf Amin, 75, as running mate. 

Like Subianto, Widodo isn’t known for excess piety.  First Lady Iriana and daughter Kahiyang Ayu seldom wear jilbab.

Amin’s presence is supposed to neutralise slurs that Widodo isn’t a ‘proper’ Muslim, but the coupling looks awkward.

Amin has railed against homosexuality, pluralism and non-mainstream Islamic sects. He backed huge 2016 protests against former Jakarta governor and ethnic Chinese Christian Basuki ‘Ahok’ Tjahaja Purnama, now in jail for blasphemy. 

During the trial Widodo abandoned his former colleague, dismaying human-rights activists who thought he was on their side.

Subianto has recruited Jakarta vice-Governor Sandiaga Uno, 49, as his sidekick. The slim US-educated personable businessman would make a better fit partnered with Widodo.

In a country where images matter more than policies, Uno comes across as cool Metro Man, suave in casual gear. Amin’s look is Retirement Village, comfy in traditional Islamic garb.

If Subianto wins, Uno may try to stop him castrating democracy, the knife used for 32 years by Soeharto; that could be like John Kelly managing Donald Trump. 

It will be the reverse with Widodo, keeping Amin out of sight so the nation looks progressive, modern and upholding the rule of law, not a de-facto theocracy scaring investors.

Either way the contest will ebb and flow, moved by cultural and religious forces foreign to most Australians.

If we bone up our politicians might learn to avoid foot-in-mouth infections, like PM Scott Morrison jeopardising a free trade agreement by suggesting our embassy move to Jerusalem.

Whether this deal, hugely important to primary producers, will be salvaged this side of the election is doubtful.  Neither candidate wants to be seen as pro-Australia and therefore anti Palestine.

Now that’s a topic worthy of Summer Drum.

First published in Pearls and Irritations, 7 January 2019.  See:http://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-ignoring-the-doings-next-door/

HEARING MORE ABOUT WASHINGTON THAN JAKARTA

MANGLING MEDIA PRIORITIES      
 
        

              

Are there any Australians left ignorant of Judge Brett Kavanagh and his successful scramble for a US Supreme Court seat?  Or research psychologist Dr Christine Blasey Ford, his accuser of a last century teenage grog-and-grope session?

But who knows of Ustadz Haji Ma’ruf Amin, 75, seeking to be a heartbeat from Indonesia’s top job?  Two years ago the Muslim scholar urged on half a million protestors howling for Jakarta governor Basuki  ‘Ahok’ Tjahaja Purnama to be jailed for blasphemy.  He’s a Christian, an ethnic Chinese, and still behind bars.

Amin has the supporting role to present president Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, 57, in his bid for a second five-year term.  If the preacher becomes vice-president and his hard-line policies get a grip, they’ll crush the world’s most populous Islamic nation’s reputation for religious tolerance.

Or for those who like their politics lite and frothy, how about actress Ratna Sarumpaet who falsely accused Jokowi-Amin backers of a bashing, when her bandages were masking elective plastic surgery?  She was yanked off an international flight and faces charges; the case is gripping the world’s third largest democracy.

Both the Washington and Jakarta tales are grand soapies  (sinetron in Indonesia) with lashings of sleaze. The first has been forensically reported  in the Australian media; even the ABC’s standout talk show Q & A spent valuable time on an issue of little importance Down Under.

But apart from Lombok and Central Sulawesi disaster stories, coverage of events next door has been scant.

“The imbalance in reporting by the Australian media on issues about Indonesia are indicative of the ignorance and ambivalence that defines the bi-lateral relationship,” according to Perth-based Indonesia Institute President Ross Taylor. 

“An accident in Bali resulting in a young and drunk Australian hurt from a fall from a motorbike will attract media attention,” he told Asian Currents. 

“Yet Indonesia’s critical presidential election in 2019 and its transition to a far more conservative Islamic society where minority groups are victimised, hardly gets a mention despite the profound implications for Australia”.

The result of the Indonesian campaign now rumbling towards the April poll could thump our future, knocking trade, defence, security – even holidays.  Among other policies, Amin wants homosexuality and adultery  criminalised, so couples heading to Bali might have to pack their marriage certificates.

Should Jokowi’s rival, disgraced former general Prabowo Subianto, 67, win and turn the Republic back to the dictatorship and kleptocracy of second president Soeharto, the fragile relationship with Australia could collapse.  Subianto was once Soeharto’s son-in-law.

Either way we’ll be affected far more than the inauguration circus of a new judge in the US.

The Indonesian election should be given a great deal of careful attention in Australia, says Professor Tim Lindsey Director of Melbourne University’s Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society.

“The young Indonesians who will be voting in April in larger numbers than ever since 1999 have grown up in the post-Reformasi environment of clunky and increasingly illiberal procedural democracy, amid contests over Islamisation and amid the rise of the hardliners,” he said.

“While they are savvy and highly connected, maybe even more so than their Australian contemporaries, they are also surprisingly conservative. 

“This conservatism, driven by increasing Muslim populist intolerance, has led to a situation where the differences between Jokowi and Prabowo are nowhere near as clear as they were at the 2014 election.”

Last year Australian Associated Press closed its Jakarta bureau after 35 years in the country.  While Fairfax and the Murdoch media retain offices their staff are now labelled ‘Southeast Asia Correspondents’ when they were previously ‘Indonesian correspondents’. 

The ABC is an exception, keeping its Jakarta office and covering Indonesian affairs through its Asia Pacific Newsroom in Melbourne. Reuters and other overseas agencies in Indonesia produce copy along with correspondents and contributors; some stories are available here, but few have an Australian perspective.

Getting news out of the US is easy for the Australian media.  There’s an abundance of sources and no translations required.   Much is cut and paste plus metrication and  spelling rejigs.

Australia is moving even further from creating widespread familiarity with Indonesia, according to former diplomat and author Ken Ward who worked  as Senior Indonesia Analyst at the Office of National Assessments.  

“(Donald)Trump's election has resulted in a deplorable reorientation of the Australian media towards US reporting,” he said. “This seems to be a mirroring of the US media's obsession with Trump himself. 

“It is as if everything important to Australia takes place in the US. This is not the result of the effective workings of US soft power or political pressure but of a complete lack of imagination on the part of Australians.”

Going to the fount

Australians frustrated with their media can access a few Indonesian sites on-line.

Indonesia has the most liberal media in Asia, though much is partisan with the major free-to-air TV stations owned by moguls wading deep in politics.  

There are two English language papers.  The Jakarta Post, http://www.thejakartapost.com/ has some stories behind a paywall.  Founded in 1983 it’s historically linked to the broadsheet Kompas, the Republic’s top selling and most credible daily.  

The Jakarta Globe https://jakartaglobe.id/ started in print in 2008 but is now on-line only. It’s owned by the Lippo Group led by evangelical Christian James Riady.

The prestigious weekly news magazine Tempo is among the best for analysis.  It produces print and web editions in English: http://en.tempo.co/

Metro TV, the most serious commercial network focusing on news and current affairs has some reports in English http://en.metrotvnews.com/#  It’s owned by Surya Paloh who also holds the daily newspaper Media Indonesia.  Paloh chairs the Nasdem (National Democratic) party hostile to Subianto.

TV One http://www.tvonenews.tv/ belongs to the Bakrie conglomerate formerly chaired by Aburizal Bakrie who’s prominent in Golkar. The party now appears to be with Widodo-Amin, though political alliances are often fragile.  He was a minister in the previous administration of sixth president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

For 27 years the government station TVRI was the only channel that Indonesians could watch. It claims to have an English language service http://www.tvri.co.id/post/ENGLISH-NEWS-SERVICE but much is in Indonesian.

The Indonesian news agency Antara (between) https://en.antaranews.com/ has copy in stilted English.  It’s supposed to be a private company but comes under the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises. Its boss, former The Jakarta Post editor-in-chief Meidyatama (Dimas) Suryodiningrat, was reportedly  hand-picked by President Widodo to run the service.

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 First published in Asian Currents - 17 October 2018

http://asaa.asn.au/mangling-media-priorities/