By Edward Parker
The global media covered India’s recent general elections with
considerable fanfare. Now it is Indonesia’s turn to go to the polls, and
the world’s third largest democracy, most populous Muslim country, and
largest economy in Southeast Asia deserves a lot more attention than its
occasionally allotted thirty second afterthought. Indonesia, just like
China and India, will be pivotal in shaping Asia in the decades to come,
which is why the country and the outcome of its July 9 presidential
election warrants a closer look.
The upcoming presidential election will set Indonesia on its future
path, as the second and rather lackluster five-year term of current
president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, comes to an end. Indonesia’s new
president will have the chance to sketch out a new vision for the
future, but it is how effectively the next government can navigate and
work through the country’s complex policymaking process that will truly
decide Indonesia’s future.
Indonesia is in need of some forward momentum. The outgoing administration has notched some notable achievements over the last decade,
not least in ensuring the stability and integrity of its 17,000
islands. The country has also continued to roll out decentralized
democracy across its now 34 provinces and 510 districts, with district
and provincial leaders elected directly at the local level and entrusted
with the power and responsibility to provide the majority of services
to their electorates. However, the president’s second term is widely
considered to be disappointing. Indecision and a lack of substantive
progress on some of Indonesia’s major policy challenges, coupled with a
number of high-level corruption scandals, have characterized the
president’s governing administration and his Democratic Party. This has
resulted in an Indonesia that has not moved forward as quickly as many
Indonesians would have hoped.
Indonesia still faces a number of tremendous challenges. Widespread
corruption continues on a truly staggering scale. Regulatory and legal
certainty across many areas has not improved and in some cases has
gotten worse, most recently with the cancelling of investment treaties
and the bungled implementation of a mineral ore export ban. Education
outcomes and skills, especially at the senior secondary school level,
are still poor with the country languishing toward the bottom end of
many international league tables. Infrastructure, too, remains woeful
across the archipelago and even in the nation’s capital, Jakarta. All of
which makes it all the more difficult for the country to move up the
economic ladder.
Clear policies and implementation is now needed to drive the country
forward. Both of Indonesia’s presidential candidates, Joko Widodo, of
the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and Prabowo Subianto
of the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), have outlined a
series of populist policies accompanied with further pledges and
proclamations during Indonesia’s five nationally televised debates, but
neither candidate has offered any clear details about how they would be
practically implemented or funded in many cases, mainly because a lot of
this is beyond their control, despite the rhetoric.
One of the unique features of Indonesia’s democratic process is that
despite pledges from the leadership at the top of political parties,
they are often limited to setting broad policy goals and direction, as
the practical policy outcomes are made much lower down the chain in
closed-door committees in the Indonesian parliament and out in
Indonesia’s decentralized districts. Despite the media hype and the
reporting of every word and detail that comes out of the presidential
candidates mouths, a lot of the time these can be quite irrelevant to
practical policy outcomes.
Another factor is that the political parties themselves are far from
cohesive bodies, which contributes to the complexities, contradictions
and confusion associated with the Indonesian political process. At best,
political parties are broad coalitions, but contain much less of the
clear left-right political ideology and divides that characterizes many
parties elsewhere in the world, with most of the actual differences
focusing more on a religiously based spectrum of Islamic or broadly
secular nationalist identity. Moreover, some of Indonesia’s major
political parties are built solely as vehicles for their leaders to seek
the presidency, not as vehicles of political ideology. Current
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party was formed purely
for the purpose of putting him in office. Likewise with current
presidential candidate Prabowo’s Gerindra Party.
Even then, apart from senior leadership, national and local
rank-and-file party members often join more for the purposes of
political convenience and practicality than either real loyalty to their
leaders or a clear alignment to the prescribed policy direction.
Parliamentary candidates choose and change parties for the purposes of
getting elected. What this results in is parties at the national and
local level that are far from aligned with party messages and polices
emanating from the top. This also goes some way to explaining the lack
of clear political identity and policy prescriptions of Indonesia’s main
political parties.
When it comes to the formulation of policy and practical outcomes,
the necessity of coalition building to get bills through the Indonesian
parliament means Indonesia’s political process is all about compromise,
consensus, and especially horse trading behind the scenes – where
accountability is lax and corruption often emanates as candidates try to
gain and recoup the vast fortunes needed to run for political office.
Proclamations from the top count for less, which can result in
completely contradictory policy outcomes and a disconnect between what
is said and the legislation that is finally passed.
The challenge for Indonesia’s next president will be to navigate this
complex process and implement many of the reforms that Indonesia badly
needs. Come October, when both the new parliament and president are
sworn in, Indonesians will be expecting tangible results from their new
political leaders.
Edward Parker is a contributor living and working in Jakarta, with
previous professional experience working on Indonesian governmental and
policy issues. This article originally appeared 3 July in The Diplomat.
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