REMOTE VILLAGER OR JAKARTA ELITE, ALL VOTES EQUAL - FOR NOW

Democracy – can it be improved?         

  

            

The April general election in Indonesia which saw President Joko Widodo returned for a second five-year term was a logistical megatrial for the Komisi Pemilihan Umum (General Elections Commission - KPU), and an ordeal for participants.

Around 240,000 candidates jostled for over 20,000 seats in local and national legislatures in the world’s third largest democracy.  (India is first, the US second). 

Ben Bland of Australia’s Lowy Institute called it ‘the most complicated single-day ballot in global history’. 

Although almost 600 of the seven million Indonesian election workers reportedly died from exhaustion, the event was reckoned a success, though the operation may be modified next time round in 2024. Indian parliamentary elections this year were spread across six weeks.

The original Greek idea of democracy (‘demos’ - commoners, ‘kratos’ - strength) has been around for 2,500 years yet it’s still a work in progress. No nation has a mortgage on how best to represent the will of the people so ensuring voting is fair and equal is a global issue.

Now Indonesians and others have the chance to comment through a neighbor’s parliamentary inquiry. The search for definitions and better ways has spread to Australia, a self-governing democracy since 1901. 
The Senate (the upper house representing the States in the national parliament in Canberra) is holding an open inquiry into Nationhood, National Identity and Democracy and inviting submissions – including from foreign individuals and associations.
The British Economist Intelligence Unit publishes a Democracy Index.  This ranks 164 United Nations member states into ‘full democracies’, ‘flawed democracies’, ‘hybrid regimes’ and ‘authoritarian regimes’.  It does this by measuring pluralism, civil liberties and political cultures.
Indonesia is labeled a ‘flawed democracy’, along with neighbors Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. This group also includes the United States where only 55 per cent got involved in the 2016 elections.

More than 80 per cent of the 193 million eligible Indonesian voters exercised their rights though participation was voluntary.  These figures seem to show the Republic’s teenage democracy is robust and optimistic despite having the ‘flawed’ tag.

Indonesia only became a democracy this century after 32 years of the late General Soeharto’s New Order dictatorship so many questions are bubbling to the surface.

Foremost is this:  Is democracy, which comes from a Western cultural tradition, the best model for choosing leaders? The winners are happy, the losers not so, like supporters of the failed presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto.

They claim it’s unfair that a villager laboring in a rice field should have the same single-vote power as a member of the educated elite debating esoteric issues in Jakarta’s high-rise offices.

As outlined in Strategic Review two years ago http://sr-indonesia.com/web-exclusives/view/diehard-myths-threaten-indonesian-democracy a hankering remains for the traditional decision-making systems like musyawarah (consensus after long discussion).  That way differences can be resolved without resorting to a binary Yes-No vote.

A decade ago US social scientist Larry Diamond’s book The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies throughout the World, argued that a renewed democratic boom needs ‘vigorous support of good governance—the rule of law, security, protection of individual rights, and shared economic prosperity—and free civic organizations.’

Why should a ‘full democracy’ nation like Australia indulge in a spate of navel gazing?  The riots in Hong Kong show political ideologies can no longer be confined by high border walls when the Internet wafts across oceans and immigration controls.

Thousands of Chinese students studying in Australia and raised to believe in the supremacy of a one-party state have been clashing with pro-democracy supporters on Australian streets and campuses.  Free-speech issues have been wrenched out of political science tutorials and onto the front pages of mainstream newspapers.

Of the 800,000 overseas students in Australia, 230,000 are from mainland China.
Submissions to the Senate inquiry are not confined to Australian citizens and agencies based Down Under, so psephologists, policy analysts, journalists and others here and elsewhere can make their own points.   They do not have to be specific to Australia.

They need to be quick as the closing date is the end of this month.  

Of interest to internationalists are three questions among the many flagged for attention:

*          What role does globalization and economic interdependence and economic development play in forming or disrupting traditional notions of national identity?

*          What are contemporary notions of cultural identity, multiculturalism and regionalism?

*          The extent to which nation states balance domestic imperatives and sovereignty and international obligations;
The inquiry’s discussion paper to aid submitters can be downloaded here:  https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Nationhood/Discussion_paper   
The paper states that ‘around the world, voters seem increasingly dissatisfied with how democratic politics works for them. Public trust in democratic institutions is declining. Notions of national identity, which can be the roots of a democratic community, are changing as our world becomes increasingly interconnected.’
Apart from disillusionment there’s growing disinterest.  This month The Guardian newspaper polled 1,075 voters, finding only 15 per cent follow events in Canberra closely.
A similar number showed no interest in politics, with the rest casual consumers of national affairs.  What Australians really like is sport.
The discussion paper adds: ‘There is a wealth of evidence showing a worrying decline in the level of public trust. In 2007, 86 per cent of Australians were satisfied with how democracy works in Australia. That figure is now 41 per cent.
‘Evidence also suggests that those with the lowest incomes are least satisfied with democracy.’
These issues aren’t limited to the Southern Hemisphere. British researchers have revealed around half of UK voters reckon the big parties and politicians don't care about the wee folk who put them into power.

A Pew Research Center study in the US disclosed that only 17 per cent of Americans said they can trust the government in Washington to do the right thing 'just about always' or 'most of the time'.
Australians won’t be the only people studying the Senate inquiry’s findings due next May. 

Whether the Australian Parliament or other legislatures will implement any recommendations is another matter.
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First published in Strategic Review - 9 October 2019.  See:http://sr.sgpp.ac.id/post/democracy-can-it-be-improved

DECODING THE INDONESIAN ELECTION

Indonesia’s Mr Try-Hard gets voters’ nod Duncan Graham

Out of the chaos of Indonesian politics has come forth clarity. More than half the voters in the world’s most populous Muslim nation prefer moderate secular parties rather than those sheltering under the crescent of Islam.

On the surface this looks like good news for the West, particularly Australia which has long had an edgy relationship with its northern neighbour. (See Scoop 22 April 2009) About 240 million people are squashed into the archipelago that straddles the equator. More than 40 million live below the poverty line, earning less than $US 2 a day.

The election results are also warming for New Zealand. Indonesia remains our biggest market in South-East Asia. Our exports are worth about $NZ I billion and growing fast, so the stability of our big customer is of great importance. A free trade agreement between the nations was signed in February.

The just released official results of the 9 April election have closely followed informal exit polls. They’ve shown the Democratic Party of the incumbent president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (widely known as SBY) ahead of all 38 parties seeking power, winning 21.04 per cent of the vote.

Second was the Democratic Party of Struggle led by the former president Megawati Soekarnoputri with 14.52 per cent, a whisker ahead of Golkar mustering 14.23 per cent.

Golkar is the political vehicle designed and driven by the late president Soeharto to hold absolute power for 32 years. More recently it’s been steered by the vice-president Jusuf Kalla.

Fourth with 8.16 per cent was the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) that has kept its Islamic credentials in the background while campaigning hard against corruption. This has caused a frisson of fear among those who suspect the party has another agenda.

In New Zealand most Indonesian voters backed SBY.

Clearly with these results a coalition will have to run the 560-seat Parliament, known as the DPR. How that’s going to be engineered is the critical question, though this time round SBY can bargain from a position of strength.

Under the Indonesian system the people directly elect the president and vice president for a five-year term. In the 2004 election the Democratic Party was a tiny player with less than eight per cent of the vote. But the electorate wanted SBY, not his principal rival Megawati, by a margin of three to two.


Optimists say all this shows Indonesians have embraced democracy and are making it work. Those who don’t use rose-coloured glasses note only 61 per cent of the nation’s 171 million eligible electors bothered to vote and millions were disenfranchised through registration stuff-ups.

Critics of SBY’s administration during the past five years often overlook the huge problems he faced and give insufficient weight to his skills in keeping the political system intact and the economy on course.

For a Kiwi comparison, imagine Jeanette Fitzsimons being elected PM by popular vote while the Greens bump along the bottom in Parliament.

In 2004 SBY campaigned for the nation’s top job with businessman Jusuf Kalla, thereby binding Golkar into the government. SBY still hasn’t chosen his running mate for this year’s election. Golkar gave SBY the numbers on the floor of Parliament, but the compromises required eroded much of his authority.

Unless SBY picks a mightily unpopular running mate, or someone considered corrupt, the man with a public approval rating of 70 per cent looks set in the job. Megawati will challenge but she’s a lacklustre candidate famous for being aloof and believing she deserves the job just because her dad was the country’s first president.

Westerners dealing with Indonesia have been barracking for SBY, not because he’s been an outstanding leader but because the alternatives look so scary.

During the authoritarian and corrupt rule of General Soeharto that ended in 1998 with the Asian economic crisis, the military ran the country and just about everything else. The army had seats in Parliament, controlled many businesses, had a major internal security role, oversaw the police and were considered untouchable.

Although the army’s influence is no longer so blatant it’s still a major force behind the scenes. Boosters for SBY highlight his academic qualifications (he has a doctorate in agriculture), his urbanity and English skills learned while studying in the US, and his middle ground, ultra-cautious politics. He appears to genuinely believe in democracy and has gravitas on the international stage.

Supporters play down the fact that he was a four-star general before entering politics and comes from a military family. His father, father-in-law and one son are, or were, soldiers.

Two former generals with questionable human-rights records were major party candidates in this year’s election and Megawati is largely regarded as a tool of the military.

SBY has been unable to stop the imposition of some aspects of Islamic Sharia law in the provinces. These include forcing female bureaucrats and students to wear headscarves, banning alcohol, enforcing prayers and setting up community patrols to sniff out sexual naughtiness, though the Constitution appears to prohibit such local initiatives.

By contrast, and after decades of oppression, the media in Indonesia is now the freest in South-East Asia, robustly pushing the old barriers on a wide range of social and political issues.

Despite doomsayers claiming Indonesia would become another Pakistan as fundamentalism flourished, that hasn’t happened. The battle against terrorism, with significant help from the Australian Federal Police, has notched up many wins against the bombers.

SBY’s push against corruption has had limited success; pulling out the wallet remains the standard way to bypass stalling bureaucrats at all levels. The arrest this month of the Corruption Commission boss Antasari Azhar on charges of being involved in the murder of a businessman has crippled the clean-up campaign.

The judiciary is still a mess, continuing to use colonial Dutch law from early last century, and the over-staffed public service a dinosaur sturdily resisting extinction. Outsiders trying to do business need to tread warily.

The economy has slumped, though not as much as expected and less than other Asian nations. Poverty and poor quality education remain major concerns, although there have been patchwork successes in improving the lives of those on Struggle Street.

The consensus, both inside and outside the Republic seems to be that Mr Try-Hard has made a reasonable fist of handling one of the world’s toughest tasks – and given the line-up against him is clearly the best bloke around.

There are two standout dangers: If he wants to divorce Golkar and get a workable majority in the Parliament, SBY may be forced to cohabit with the PKS and other minor Islamic parties. This could let the extremist tail wag the reformist dog.

The other concern is that the opposition parties frustrated at their inability to find candidates with popular appeal may combine to spoil SBY’s legislative program out of spite. Success here seems less likely; though the emotion is real they’ll find it hard to bury differences because so many are single-issue or policy-free parties.

The election for the president will be held on 8 July, with a run off on 8 September if no candidate gets above 50 per cent of the vote.

* (First published in Scoop.com Tuesday 11 May)
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LOMBOK TREATY

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(Treaty concerns)

NO DONE DEAL DOWN UNDER © Duncan Graham 2007

An agreement signed five months ago between Australia and Indonesia is now coming under serious attack by jurists, academics and human rights activists in Australia.

They allege that the wording is vague, open to misconstruction and if implemented in its present form could cripple free speech and further strain relationships. Duncan Graham reports:

…………………………………

Last November the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia and Australia signed a 'Framework for Security Cooperation Agreement' in Mataram. Inevitably this mouthful was chewed down to the 'Lombok Treaty'.
At the time it got fairly benign media coverage with comments focusing on counter-terrorism cooperation. An exception was Professor Hugh White of the Australian National University. He said it would ‘raise unrealistic expectations which will lead to bitter disappointments, making the relationship more, not less, vulnerable to shocks and crises.'
Others saw it as a positive development between two prickly neighbors, a document that might help prune problems before they tangle relationships.

But the agreement cannot become a treaty until it's ratified by the parliaments in both countries.

Prior to this process, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCT) in Australia is now scrutinizing the agreement. The committee is made up of 16 politicians representing all major parties and both houses of parliament.

The committee has called for submissions and so far has received 52. It's due to report to the parliament in mid-June.

On the surface the agreement looks tame enough. Although it took two years of negotiations between ministers and bureaucrats it's an elastic document full of warm-fuzzies, like 'mutual respect' and 'closest professional cooperation'.

But when blood pressures are rising on both sides of the Arafura Sea over some real or imagined insult, then definitions are critical, and seemingly innocent words get close scrutiny.

That's what the International Commission of Jurists has been doing in Australia, concluding that the terminology is 'appallingly vague'. Unless the wording is changed, it says, 'the freedom of Australia's right to speak out on matters of international concern will be severely curtailed.'

The Australian Council for International Development – a consortium of 72 non-profit agencies with 36 active in Indonesia – also fears restrictions, including on the activities of aid organizations.

Other submissions note that in the wordy seven-page agreement the term 'human rights' never appears.

Nor does the word 'Papua', yet it's the alleged human rights abuses committed by the Indonesian military in the province (known in Australia as West Papua) that are at the heart of the treaty.

In January 2006 a boat carrying 43 Papuans sailed unnoticed through Australia's northern surveillance system and landed in Queensland.

The men and women claimed asylum, alleging they'd been persecuted in their homeland and feared retribution if returned. Foreign journalists are generally not allowed into Papua, so factual information about events is sparse and often biased.

The Papuans' story was believed and they were given temporary-protection refugee status. The Indonesian government and its citizens were furious, and for a while it seemed the neighbors were heading for a serious falling-out.

Most Indonesians saw Australia's acceptance of the Papuans' claims as a threat to the Republic's integrity, part of a plot to aid separatists and split the Unitary State.

Few Australians understand how critical this issue is in the hearts of Indonesians and how disintegration of the Republic is feared and must be opposed.

The jurists do. They've told the JSCT: 'It is absurd to suggest that we should arm and train Indonesian armed forces which are largely going to be used internally and not for matters of defence and abandon and indeed preclude proper comment as to any abuses.'

Many Indonesians still believe the independence referendum that saw East Timor (now Timor L'Este) break away from the Republic in 1999 was a plot engineered in Canberra.

Likewise few Indonesians appreciate that in a mature democracy a government can give genuine assurances that it will keep its official nose out of its neighbor's affairs – but it can't censor the words or curb the agitations of non-government organizations that might urge freedom for Papua as they did for East Timor.

Eventually the Papuan refugee issue cooled down, and the determination to get something onto paper was revived to avoid tensions re-igniting.

The critical clause in the agreement commits both sides to avoid doing anything that 'constitutes a threat to the stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of the other party'.

In its submission the jurists claim this could mean the Australian government couldn't criticize any cross-border incursions by Indonesian troops into Papua New Guinea or Timor L'Este.

Dr Malcolm Cook of the Lowy Institute for International Policy has told the JSCT that the agreement 'will do little to address (the) deep-seated bilateral problem that undermines the national interest of both countries.'

He defines this as the lack of knowledge, understanding and a general wariness on both sides. He highlighted ignorance among Australians of the way democracy has advanced in Indonesia.

Last year the Institute published results of a poll that showed most Australians feel uncomfortable about their heavily populated neighbor, seeing it as a military state and source of Islamic terrorism. For every Australian there are 12 Indonesians – and ten are Muslims.

Many submissions focus on these mistrusts. Like Professor White they argue that much more work needs to be done at the grassroots to improve public perceptions before a treaty can get widespread acceptance.

An earlier agreement negotiated in secret in 1995 with former president Soeharto was ripped up by his successor Habibie when Australia led the international peacekeeping force into East Timor.

A positive side revealed in the Lowy poll is that a majority on both sides reckons there should be closer relationships.

This is an election year in Australia, and foreign affairs will feature in the scramble for votes. Although policies of the present Liberal-Coalition government on Indonesia differ little from those of the opposition Labor Party, neither side will be willing to aggravate voters by promoting an unpopular treaty.


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