People’s representatives or parties’ spokespersons?

Jakarta Post, Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Before the Constitutional Court made its latest decision about the legislative elections recently, Indonesian political parties were fairly dominant in influencing legislative elections results.

In the first place, all legislative candidates could be nominated only by and through political parties. No politician could make himself or herself into a candidate without the sponsorship and the support of a political party.

In the second place, a political party had the last say in deciding who was to win the legislative elections by means of using the so-called party list, on which all the candidates were registered.

The chance of winning the election depended on the position one had according to the sequence on the list. It meant, the lower the number one had, the more likely one was to win.
The good thing about the list was that a party was able to endorse the regulation concerning the quota of female politicians, this being done by giving the lower numbers to them. The bad thing about the list system was that political parties became too powerful in selecting the would-be winners.

Needless to say, the chances of a politician depended very much on the extent to which he or she could provide the party with a substantial contribution in whatever form, but especially in the form of a financial contribution.

However, money matters aside, once a politician assumed a position in parliament, he or she would consider the party which had sponsored his or her victory as the main target of his or her service. It was not very clear at that time whether parliamentarians were the representatives of the people or the spokespersons of their own parties. Yes, political constituents gave their votes, but political parties became the smart brokers who negotiated the winning chances of a politician.

The Constitutional Court, through its latest decision, has turned the situation upside down, by stipulating that the victory of a candidate in the legislative elections does not depend on one's position on the party list, but merely on the number of votes one can get. Those who have the most votes will be treated as winners. The party list, apparently, has little role to play.

But this new regulation has its own disadvantageous repercussions. It brings about an ambivalent attitude among the contestants. The party's politicians have to go hand in hand in the campaign for their party, while at the same time, competing with one another within their party to get the most votes from their constituents.

One positive impact of the new regulation has to do with the increasingly important role of political constituencies. It is the constituents and not the political parties who have the last say as to who will win the competition.

Some politicians believe this situation forces the candidates to give more serious attention to their constituents, by keeping in touch with them, listening to their aspirations and trying to transpose those aspirations into reasonable political programs.

The atmosphere inside the House of Representatives (DPR) will also change accordingly, so the expectation goes. The parliamentarians will have more independence from their parties in carrying out their jobs in the House. They will not see themselves as the spokespersons of their parties and will not feel obliged to fight for the party's interests in the House.

They will become rather people's representatives in the real sense of the word, because their political existence depends directly upon the votes people provide, as much as the improvement of people's life - political and economic - depends upon what the parliamentarians say and decide in the House.

These predictions and expectations will very likely come true.

The question remains, however, as to whether or not the parliamentarians' independence from their political parties will contribute to the improvement of their performance in the House and the leadership they are yet to show to citizens.

This is not easy to answer because the relative independence from political parties relates to the possible improvement of parliamentarians' relationships with their constituents, whereas constituency is only one of the variables that are supposed to make up good leadership.

There are many ways to set criteria for national leadership. However, one is to imagine the various dimensions of leadership and the related qualifications that may fit each of those dimensions. The first one relates to the subject matter that becomes the technical responsibility of a leader, such as his knowledge and skill in the national economy, politics, the legal system and security matters.

This makes up the dimension of competence. The second relates to those to whom one is expected to be accountable and whose interests one is required to represent. This is the dimension of constituency. The third is that of the relationship between oneself and one's guiding principles and underlying values to which one sticks or does not stick. This is the dimension of integrity.

From the above analysis it is clear that we cannot expect too much from the parliamentarians who will come out as the winners of the next legislative elections. Their relative independence from their political parties may encourage a better relationship with their constituents, but it does not automatically guarantee the upgrading of their competence nor does it ensure the improvement of their integrity.

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