Personalized politics remain dominant

Jakarta Post, Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Indonesia's legislative elections took place in all but two districts, in Indonesia, on April 9, 2009. The districts of East Flores and Lembata in the province of East Nusa Tenggara, were allowed to postpone polling until April 14, 2009, so that traditional Catholic celebrations of the Holy Week would not be interrupted.

The results of the election are known to the public, despite many complaints and objections brought forward by people who were denied the right to vote for administrative reasons. The overall winner of the legislative election was the Democrat Party, which is the party of the current President. It was founded in September 2001 and in eight years it has grown to become the most influential party - able to beat other more experienced parties such as the Golkar Party and the (once brave) Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

The Indonesian political system is mixture of half presidential and half parliamentarian governments. As such it has its own enigma in that the party that wins the legislative election does not necessarily go on to become the ruling party, and a party that wins a smaller number of votes can become the party of the ruler. This was the case with the Golkar Party and Democrat Party in the 2004 election, when Golkar gained 22 percent of the vote and the Democrat Party won only 7.5 percent. In the 2009 election, the Golkar Party gained 14 percent and the Democrat Party won more than 20 percent.

This changing situation unveils some political realities. First, the victory of the Democratic Party was a real surprise, though various polls did predict it. Being a relatively young party it lacks the political experience of Golkar, does not have the militancy of PDI-P and it falls short of the party discipline and solid party machinery of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).

Apparently there is no special strength within the Democrat Party that has been responsible for its ability to attract votes. The only possible explanation for its success could be the personal appeal of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who happens to be the incumbent President and chairman of the Democrat Party's supervisory board.

This situation validates an assumption concerning politics in Indonesia at present: Personalized politics is still stronger than institutionalized politics. What matters for most people is not what political institutions should be like, but rather who is in charge.

Second, it has become increasingly clear that bigger parties tend to lose their traditional followers. The Golkar Party lost about one-third of its followers in 2004 and 4 percent of the traditional followers of PDI-P voted for other political parties. In contrast, Democratic Party votes increased by two-third in comparison to the 2004 election .

Anyone can see that political parties which do nothing for their constituents will be punished during elections according to their sin of omission. In contrast to that, a young political party that happens to have a political figure with limited reasons to be blamed for obvious wrongdoings tends to attract more followers.

Indonesian politics apparently has a psychology of its own. People are inclined to easily forgive a ruler (and the ruling party) for his or her political wrongdoings, political violence or human rights violations if he or she can show and bring about obvious achievements in improving living standards, creating political stability or providing employment opportunities. This was the case with the late president Soeharto, who was proposed to become a national hero despite the fact that his legal case was still pending before he died.

On the other side, a ruler with only modest achievements should keep themselves from too many mistakes in order not to be labelled by the people. The mistakes of omission are more tolerable among those who have produced good things but less tolerable for the other who has omitted too many things, which become his or her obligations.

Now that negotiations about coalition are taking place, people are wondering which parties are going to join a political block and how strong they will be. All possibilities are there and all opportunities are still open. However, one can easily predict that there will be no fundamental change in the trend of political affiliation.

By and large the coalition is still based on two main political blocks. The one is nationalist-religious block and the other is nationalist-secular block. There will be a lot of movements and attempts within each block to search for the best possible coalition, but it is very unlikely to imagine the movement of a party in the nationalist-religions block to join the nationalist-secular block and vice versa.

There might be an unprecedented attempt to go out of the traditional block. However, it will take time for adjustments because the two political blocks have their own political culture, their own way of communication, and their own sense of priority and propriety.

The attempt might be good for long-term development of democracy but for the time being it could be a challenge and possibly a constraint for political stability, which is also a condition in which democracy is to flourish.

Ignas Kleden, a sociologist and chairman of the Indonesian Community for Democracy (KID).