By Benny YP Siahaan[1]
Caricature credit: http://sp.beritasatu.com/media/images/medium2/20140401072622845.jpg
It raised my eyebrows when I read recent news in national media concerning the low turnout of PDIP’s in Parliament general election on 9 April vis-a-vis Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi) nomination as the party’s presidential candidate.
From the news, there has been “allegation” that Jokowi’s reputation had no effect to raise the expected result of PDIP turnout which was currently predicted would not be far than 19%. Initially, it was hoped that by naming Jokowi as the party’s presidential candidate it would push PDIP parliamentary vote up to more than 25%.
This low result reportedly created party’s disappointment which made them to make coalition. Indeed, none of the 10 political parties contesting in the 2014 general election reached 25% of parliamentary majority threshold which will make the next parliament, like 2009 election, a fractured one.
From our past experience, it is very difficult to find clean, credible and trustworthy politicians in the House of Representative (DPR). As the saying goes, it was like looking for a needle in haystack. One estimate stated that since 2002, 73 lawmakers have been convicted of corruption by Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
Furthermore, according to Transparency International (TI) in its 2013 survey, most Indonesians saw that the political parties and national parliament were the most corrupt institutions after the National Police. A recent study made by an NGO called Indonesian Parliament Watch (Formappi) stated that the average performance of current House members are poor and only 0.8% of them got good grade from the report card prepared by Formappi. Sadly, Formappi further said that of the current 560 House members, 502 of them (89.64 %) were running in this year’s general election.
So, if the leaders of political parties read this survey, with that low credibility, the low result of all parties in parliamentarian election should create no surprise to any political party elites.
This situation reminds me to a term “It's the economy, stupid" which was coined by James Carville, Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign strategist in 1992 against the incumbent, President George HW Bush. Although Bush’s rating was initially good in 1991 after Irak War, but due to recession the following year, the American people preferred Clinton as President as he made promising economic plan to get out of recession at the time. Hence being good in something (foreign policy) has little to do with the more important issue affect many American people: economy and prosperity.
The same goes with the parliament election in Indonesia. Although Jokowi has a good reputation as a local public leader it has nothing to do with the people he campaigned for or the party that he belongs to. People will judge. Jokowi maybe good but not the person he supports.It can be seen from the various local elections that although the PDIP’s candidates wore checkered shirt (Jokowi’s trademark outfit during his very successful Jakarta’ gubernatorial campaign) in their rally, many were lost in their respective bids.
Hence, credibility is the most precious assets of any politician. Without it, they will soon or later perish in political scene. If the public perceives a leader as someone credible, who is honest, clean and says what he thinks and does what he says, people will believe and do what he says.
Hence, it would be not too exaggerating to say that the best term to portray the situation is “It’s the credibility, stupid”.
In many cases, political corruption undermines democracy and good governance. Hence, I could understand to those who did not come to polling stations or being “golput” since they have no trust in the House members. As in my case, I think many of those who cast their ballots, what comes first in their mind in polling stations perhaps to imagine what fate that awaits the people they are going to elect since they are going to enter an institution where corruption is endemic and even almost systemic.
Thus, I think most of voters have little hope for prospective parliament members to fight against corruption or good governance let alone their prosperity. Indeed, the House members during the last ten years were more than eager to weaken or even crippling the KPK.
In this connection, recently I attended a Yale University conference on Indonesia. One of the speakers was Profesor William (Bill) Liddle, a noted Indonesianist from Ohio State University. He presented a paper regarding the prospect of democratization in Indonesia. He concluded that despite the presence of democratic deficits such as corruption, Indonesian democracy will continue to be stable in the future due to the rise of what he called as the “critical democrats”, a group of relatively young people, well-educated and have commitment to democracy. Although the analysis is a kind of relief but it was not offering solution to one the sources of the current fundamental democratic deficits namely: too powerful legislative.
Constitutional reform in 1999 and 2002 has created a power shift from executive heavy during Suharto era to legislative heavy. If we have a closer look, the current legislative powers are humongous. From law making to approve the appointment of Indonesian ambassadors, commander of armed forces, chief of Police members of KPK, Ombudsman and several others important officials.
Lord Acton once said that power tends to corrupt and absolute (huge) power corrupts absolutely (hugely). This is what actually happening now. Hence, do we as Indonesian people again need to propose a revision to the current Constitution so as to give the legislative branch a fair power in order not make them tempted to be corruptive.
For the time being, on not too serious note, perhaps it is pertinent to ask all House members when they utter their oath stating “Please, O God lead us not into temptation of corruption and deliver us from money politics”.
From the news, there has been “allegation” that Jokowi’s reputation had no effect to raise the expected result of PDIP turnout which was currently predicted would not be far than 19%. Initially, it was hoped that by naming Jokowi as the party’s presidential candidate it would push PDIP parliamentary vote up to more than 25%.
This low result reportedly created party’s disappointment which made them to make coalition. Indeed, none of the 10 political parties contesting in the 2014 general election reached 25% of parliamentary majority threshold which will make the next parliament, like 2009 election, a fractured one.
From our past experience, it is very difficult to find clean, credible and trustworthy politicians in the House of Representative (DPR). As the saying goes, it was like looking for a needle in haystack. One estimate stated that since 2002, 73 lawmakers have been convicted of corruption by Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
Furthermore, according to Transparency International (TI) in its 2013 survey, most Indonesians saw that the political parties and national parliament were the most corrupt institutions after the National Police. A recent study made by an NGO called Indonesian Parliament Watch (Formappi) stated that the average performance of current House members are poor and only 0.8% of them got good grade from the report card prepared by Formappi. Sadly, Formappi further said that of the current 560 House members, 502 of them (89.64 %) were running in this year’s general election.
So, if the leaders of political parties read this survey, with that low credibility, the low result of all parties in parliamentarian election should create no surprise to any political party elites.
This situation reminds me to a term “It's the economy, stupid" which was coined by James Carville, Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign strategist in 1992 against the incumbent, President George HW Bush. Although Bush’s rating was initially good in 1991 after Irak War, but due to recession the following year, the American people preferred Clinton as President as he made promising economic plan to get out of recession at the time. Hence being good in something (foreign policy) has little to do with the more important issue affect many American people: economy and prosperity.
The same goes with the parliament election in Indonesia. Although Jokowi has a good reputation as a local public leader it has nothing to do with the people he campaigned for or the party that he belongs to. People will judge. Jokowi maybe good but not the person he supports.It can be seen from the various local elections that although the PDIP’s candidates wore checkered shirt (Jokowi’s trademark outfit during his very successful Jakarta’ gubernatorial campaign) in their rally, many were lost in their respective bids.
Hence, credibility is the most precious assets of any politician. Without it, they will soon or later perish in political scene. If the public perceives a leader as someone credible, who is honest, clean and says what he thinks and does what he says, people will believe and do what he says.
Hence, it would be not too exaggerating to say that the best term to portray the situation is “It’s the credibility, stupid”.
In many cases, political corruption undermines democracy and good governance. Hence, I could understand to those who did not come to polling stations or being “golput” since they have no trust in the House members. As in my case, I think many of those who cast their ballots, what comes first in their mind in polling stations perhaps to imagine what fate that awaits the people they are going to elect since they are going to enter an institution where corruption is endemic and even almost systemic.
Thus, I think most of voters have little hope for prospective parliament members to fight against corruption or good governance let alone their prosperity. Indeed, the House members during the last ten years were more than eager to weaken or even crippling the KPK.
In this connection, recently I attended a Yale University conference on Indonesia. One of the speakers was Profesor William (Bill) Liddle, a noted Indonesianist from Ohio State University. He presented a paper regarding the prospect of democratization in Indonesia. He concluded that despite the presence of democratic deficits such as corruption, Indonesian democracy will continue to be stable in the future due to the rise of what he called as the “critical democrats”, a group of relatively young people, well-educated and have commitment to democracy. Although the analysis is a kind of relief but it was not offering solution to one the sources of the current fundamental democratic deficits namely: too powerful legislative.
Constitutional reform in 1999 and 2002 has created a power shift from executive heavy during Suharto era to legislative heavy. If we have a closer look, the current legislative powers are humongous. From law making to approve the appointment of Indonesian ambassadors, commander of armed forces, chief of Police members of KPK, Ombudsman and several others important officials.
Lord Acton once said that power tends to corrupt and absolute (huge) power corrupts absolutely (hugely). This is what actually happening now. Hence, do we as Indonesian people again need to propose a revision to the current Constitution so as to give the legislative branch a fair power in order not make them tempted to be corruptive.
For the time being, on not too serious note, perhaps it is pertinent to ask all House members when they utter their oath stating “Please, O God lead us not into temptation of corruption and deliver us from money politics”.
New York, April 2014
[1]The writer is an alumnus of Tsukuba University in Japan. The views expressed are strictly personal.
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