Democracy: the Indonesian Experience

1. Democracy:the Indonesian Experience Ginandjar Kartasasmita Chairman, House of Regional Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia 40th World Annual Conference International Association of Political Consultants (IAPC) Denpasar-Indonesia, November 13th 2007

2. Introduction • Indonesia is emerging from long period of authoritarian rule to consolidate its status as one of the world’s largest democratic country. • Although Indonesia has not been on “the road to democracy,” for long, there is much that has been achieved for which many citizens may be proud. www.ginandjar.com

3. Introduction . . . • Democracy has already rooted and become “the only game in town”, although it still faces various challenges and yet to prove to be the best—if not the only—way to creating the conditions for sustainable development and enhancement of people’s welfare. • This presentation is an attempt to highlight salient aspects of, and draw some lessons, from Indonesia’s experience in democracy. www.ginandjar.com

4. The Indonesian Archipelago • a country of 220 million (as of 2005), • an archipelago strung 5000 kilometers along the equator. • more than 13,000 islands, 5,000 are inhabited. • more than 200 ethnic groups and 350 languages and dialects. • 85 to 90% are Muslims. www.ginandjar.com

5. Sukarno Suharto • August 1945 - March 1968 • Elected by the PPKI • Impeached by MPRS • March 1968 - May 1998 • Elected by MPRS • Resigned under pressure Abdurrahman Wahid B.J. Habibie • October 1999 – July 2001 • Elected by MPR • Impeached by MPR • May 1998-October 1999 • Accountability Speech Rejected • Declined to run for President Megawati Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono • July 2001 – October 2004 • Elected by MPR • Lost election to SBY • October 2004 – 2009 • Directly elected Regime Change in Indonesia www.ginandjar.com

6. Stability Growth Equity Development Trilogy www.ginandjar.com

7. Political stability • The military, the bureaucracy and Golkar (the government party) constituted the political pillars of the New Order. • Two other political parties were allowed to exist, but were politically constrained. • The floating mass concept (depolitization of the masses) constituted an important aspect of the political strategy to sustain long-term political stability. • The political system had produced the intended result: political stability that had endured for three decades, sustaining economic growth which in turn further reinforced its claim to legitimacy. www.ginandjar.com

8. Economic Development • With political stability assured, the Soeharto Government earnestly embarked on economic development, which was widely considered as successful using various standard of measurements. • It all ended with the 1997 financial crisis. The economy crumbled under the weight of the crisis, followed by popular movement against the Soeharto regime. www.ginandjar.com

9. Huntington maintains that a social scientist who wished to predict future democratization “would have done reasonably well if he simply fingered the non-democratic countries in the $1,000-$3,000 (GNP per capita) transition zone” (1991: 63). • Further studies, in particular an extensive quantitative research and analysis done by Przeworsky et.al. (2000: 92) has lent support to Huntington’s threshold argument. • In 1996, the year before the economic crisis swept Indonesia, its GNP per capita had reached $1,155. • According to Huntington’s theory, at that stage Indonesia had entered the transition zone, which meant that eventually sooner or later political change would happen. www.ginandjar.com

10. Constitutional Reform • The democratization process in Indonesia, although triggered by the 1997/1998 economic crisis, has been undertaken relatively peacefully in conjunction with the reform of the constitution. • The weaknesses in the constitution contributed heavily to the concentration and abuse of power, the lack of law and order, shallow citizen representation, opacity of governance, and the high incidence of human rights abuses. www.ginandjar.com

11. Constitutional reform . . . • The constitution was written in a very broad and general way. It has only 37 articles and 6 transitory provisions. • There is strength to the way it was written that makes the constitution flexible and easily adaptable. • The weakness is that it is so broad, general and flexible, that it can be—and has been—interpreted in different ways. • It gives a lot of room to the incumbent president to maneuver and concentrate power in his or her hands, as history has shown with Indonesia’s first and second presidents. www.ginandjar.com

12. The amendment process • The First Amendment 1999 • The Second Amendment 2000 • The Third Amendment 2001 • The Fourth Amendment 2002 www.ginandjar.com

13. A term limit of two consecutive five-year terms. • Returned the power of legislation to parliament. • Decentralization and regional autonomy. • The separation of the police from the military. • A new section on human rights was constituted that incorporated statements from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. www.ginandjar.com

14. Provides for direct election by the people of the president and the vice president as a ticket. • To be elected, the candidate will have to get more than 50% of the popular vote with at least 20% of the vote in at least half of all the provinces. • Sets out rules and procedures for the impeachment of the president. • The parliament can only propose that the president be impeached after requesting that the (the newly established) Constitutional Court examine the charges against the president and after receiving from the court a finding that the president is guilty as charged. www.ginandjar.com

15. Appointments of the members of the Supreme Court by the president have to be proposed by a newly constituted independent judicial commission, and approved by the parliament. • In a major structural change to the legislative body, although Indonesia remains a unitarian state, the third amendment constituted a bicameral system of representation. • It established the House of Regional Representatives (Dewan Perwakilan Daerah-DPD), representing each of the provinces equally, similar to the US Senate. www.ginandjar.com

16. Stipulates universal government-sponsored primary education, minimum aggregate education spending of 20% from the national government and regional government’s budget, • Incorporates clauses on social justice and environmental protection. www.ginandjar.com

17. Strengthening the Political Institutions • All political offices are elected through general elections: • President and Vice President; • Member of both house of parliaments, and regional councils; • Governors, Bupati (District Heads), Majors, Village Heads. www.ginandjar.com

18. All important political appointees—except members of the cabinet—have to be confirmed by the parliament; i.e.: • Chiefs of the Military and Police; • Supreme and Constitutional Court Justices; • Governor and Deputy Governor of the Central Bank. www.ginandjar.com

19. Members of national commissions such as: • Anti corruption; • Judicial; • Elections; • Fair business competition; • Ambassadors from and to Indonesia; • Human rights; have to be confirmed by the parliament. www.ginandjar.com

20. Political Parties • One of the basic requirements or institutions in a democracy is the existence of a free and active political parties to represent the people in the governance of a nation. • In 2004 elections, 24 political participated, 17 parties won seats in the parliament. • Indonesia is gearing for the next general election in 2009. • The law for parliamentary elections is being deliberated in the parliament. • Among the crucial issues are the redrawing of the voting constituencies and the party threshold in parliament. www.ginandjar.com

21. Civil Society . . . • Indonesia's civil society has grown in recent years and has played a role in the political change. • However, as a real countervailing force to the state, it is still weak. • Not only is it a relatively new concept in Indonesia's polity, and thus yet to mature, the quality of the people who are attracted to join it does civil society little good. • Only recently has civil society attracted better-qualified people from among the graduates of top universities and among the top ranks. • In the past, this class of young people was more attracted to the bureaucracy, the academia, business and even the military. www.ginandjar.com

22. The rise of the middle class . . . • At that stage the Indonesian middle class political attitude was not necessarily anti-government; in fact until the end of the 1980s the majority of the middle class who owed their economic advancement to the government’s development efforts believed in the government’s development creed and strongly favored political stability. • By the mid-1990s the Indonesian middle class had reached the “critical mass” in number as well as in resources to play a significant role at political change. And they had increasingly become critical of the government; their writings, plays and discourses had provided for intellectual inspiration towards democratization. • They have now become the backbone of Indonesia’s civil society as well as filling the growing demand for intellectual professional members of political parties. www.ginandjar.com

23. Decentralization • One of the challenges facing Indonesia is keeping the country united. • The threat of separation has always plagued the country since the first days of independence. • One of the main grievance is income and regional disparity. It is a complex problem and would take time and effort to resolve, but at the heart of the problem was the overly centralized government structure and decision making process. • Devolvement of central authority should be the first step toward addressing the problem. www.ginandjar.com

24. The Role of Islam • The threat to the unity and integrity of the country has recently been perceived as not only to come from ethnic or regional separatism but also from fundamental and political Islam. Many have speculated about the political implication of the rise of the social standing of Islam in Indonesia. • In actuality, however, Indonesian Islam is embedded in a culture of tolerance that can be traced back to the history of Islamization of the archipelago. • Islam originally came to Indonesia and religiously "conquered" the people not through war, but through trade, marriage and education. • Hence the absorption of Islam by the societies in this vast archipelago was generally peaceful and involved little coercion. www.ginandjar.com

25. The Role of Islam . . . • In fact, in the propagation of Islam there was a tendency to adjust the new religion to older beliefs that resulted in moderate and tolerant—some may say syncretic—attitudes among the majority of Indonesian Muslims. • It is true that fundamentalist Islamic groups, some of them militant, do exist in Indonesia, but they are marginal and have little popular support. • Despite the recurrence of incidents involving some Islamic extremists, for many years, Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, has been well known as a pluralistic society characterized by religious moderation and tolerance. www.ginandjar.com

26. The Role of Islam . . . • The September 11 act of terrorism against the US was almost unanimously condemned by organized Muslims and by the public in general. • Except for a few very vocal fanatics, Indonesia's Muslims were outraged by with happened in New York. • The feeling of outrage against terrorism that had taken the lives of innocent people was heightened when Indonesia also became a victim of international terrorism with the bombing in Bali on 12 October 2002, the more recent Marriot bombing in Jakarta on 5 August 2002, and the second Bali Bombing in 2005. • For many Indonesian Muslims, terrorism had only succeeded in creating the wrong image of Islam and Islamic values. www.ginandjar.com

27. The Role of the Military • Observers of Indonesia have paid much attention to the role of the military in post-New Order politics and how the military perceive its role in democracy. • Events surrounding the fall of Soeharto showed that the military had been supportive of political change. Its role was crucial in the peaceful transition from an authoritarian regime to real democracy. • In the political transition period, the military lent its political weight to the institutionalization of democracy, that dismantled the old authoritarian structures and replaced it with a democratic system. • The military has shown its commitment to democracy when it accepted the consensus of the polity that it should no longer take an active role in politics and therefore no longer hold seats in the elective political institutions. www.ginandjar.com

28. The Role of the Military . . . • In the post-Soeharto period, the military had been steadfast in refusing to be used as an instrument to subvert the constitution and resisted the pressure to reverse to authoritarianism. • Although many retired senior officers were against changing the constitution, the serving military establishment fully supported the amendments that have become the foundation for a stronger and more stable democracy. • Therefore it is safe to say that at present the military is not a threat-but an asset to Indonesia's democracy. www.ginandjar.com

29. Economic Performance • After the dramatic economic, political and social upheavals at the end of the 1990s, Indonesia has started to regain its footing. The country has largely recovered from the economic crisis that threw millions of its citizens back into poverty in 1998 and saw Indonesia regress to low-income status. • Recently with GNP per capita of $1280 (2005), it has once again become one of the world's emergent middle-income countries. Poverty levels that had increased by over one-third during the crisis are now back to pre-crisis levels. www.ginandjar.com

30. Poverty in Indonesia fell rapidly until the 1990s, and has declined again since the crisis www.ginandjar.com

31. Positive Growth Trajectory Sustained economic growth despite difficult environment • Economy is on a steady upward trend. Indonesia’s performance is very much comparable in the region • Over the medium term, this acceleration process should continue assuming that all reform programs are implemented. • The Indonesia’s economy is still fragile and sensitive to external shocks (financial turbulence, high oil price, etc) > 7% 6 - 7 % 5 - 6 % 5.25 % 4 % 2010 - beyond 2006 2007 - 2009 2001-2003 2004-2005 Source: CBS . www.ginandjar.com

32. Does culture matter? • All the discussions on democracy are based on the works of western scholars. Is democracy a monopoly of the west? Are there no cultural variants of democracy? On the other hand, is culture a legitimate (or genuine) justification or merely an excuse (or apology) for authoritarianism? • Indonesia, under both Sukarno and Soeharto insisted that culture was indeed the distinctive variable of any political system, and launched concepts for the political systems that would respond best to what they claimed to be the intrinsic values characterizing Indonesia’s society. www.ginandjar.com

33. Does culture matter? . . . • Lee Kwan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore, the founding father of the country and its political architect, has been making a very strong case about the Asian values as an important element in the political system of the East Asian countries. He believes that adversarial politics is out of place in a multiracial society such as Singapore. • Many scholarly works have been devoted on the subject of cultural paradoxes in democracy; most concluded that indeed culture exerts a certain influence on how democracy is adapted among countries (see Alagappa, 1996; Fukuyama, 1996; Lipset, 1996; Huntington, 1996: Inglehart, 2000; Sen, 2001). www.ginandjar.com

34. Conclusion • In conclusion, much has been achieved, but even more remains to be done. The past few years have been extremely eventful for Indonesia. • Following the maelstrom of political, economic and social crises, economic stability has now returned though the economy has not returned to the heady levels of the boom years. • Most significantly of all, the country is charting new political waters with a comprehensively amended constitution a process that again marks a dramatic break from the past. • To overcome the challenges ahead, whether from political corruption, violent communal strife and terrorism in the name of God or external economic shocks, the new tools of government and democratic governance will face their definitive test. www.ginandjar.com

35. Conclusion . . . • What is significant about Indonesia’s democracy, that it is “homegrown”. • Indonesian’s are adapting democratic models and values that are universal in nature, but the democratization process in Indonesia had been initiated and carried out by political forces within the country. • In certain stages of the process such as in implementing the general election, Indonesia receives foreign assistance such as in observations of the balloting, or the case of Aceh, in foreign facilitation of peace negotiation. But in the case of Indonesia democracy was not imposed by foreign powers. www.ginandjar.com

36. Conclusion . . . • Indonesia still needs to strengthen its democratic foundations and practices, such as greater executive accountability to the law, to other branches of government, and to the public; a reduction in the barriers to political participation and mobilization by marginal groups; decentralization of power to facilitate broader political access and accountability; vigorous independent action by civil society; and more effective protection for the political and civil rights of citizens. • The fledging democracy still faces serious challenges, such political corruption, the rule of law, as well as accelerating its economic reform and improving its governance to sustain growth and poverty reduction. However the course of the country is heading into the right direction. • The Indonesia’s experience, its successes and failures maybe worthy of some lessons to other, especially those who at the stage of, or entering the same “zone of transition”. www.ginandjar.com

37. Thank you www.ginandjar.com