40th World Annual Conference

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Democracythe 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

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Introduction

• Indonesia is emerging from long period of
  authoritarian rule to consolidate its status as
  one of the worlds 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.

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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 bestif not
  the onlyway to creating the conditions for
  sustainable development and enhancement of
  peoples welfare.
• This presentation is an attempt to highlight
  salient aspects of, and draw some lessons, from
  Indonesias experience in democracy.

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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.

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Regime Change in Indonesia
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Development Trilogy
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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.

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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.

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• 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
  Huntingtons threshold argument.
• In 1996, the year before the economic crisis
  swept Indonesia, its GNP per capita had reached
  1,155.
• According to Huntingtons theory, at that stage
  Indonesia had entered the transition zone, which
  meant that eventually sooner or later political
  change would happen.

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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.

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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 beand has beeninterpreted
  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 Indonesias
  first and second presidents.

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The amendment process

• The First Amendment 1999
• The Second Amendment 2000
• The Third Amendment 2001
• The Fourth Amendment 2002

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• Stipulates universal government-sponsored primary
  education, minimum aggregate education spending
  of 20 from the national government and regional
  governments budget,
• Incorporates clauses on social justice and
  environmental protection.

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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.

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• All important political appointeesexcept members
  of the cabinethave 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.

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• 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.

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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.

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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.

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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 governments
  development efforts believed in the governments
  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 Indonesias
  civil society as well as filling the growing
  demand for intellectual professional members of
  political parties.

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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.

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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.

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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
  tolerantsome may say syncreticattitudes 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Poverty in Indonesia fell rapidly until the
1990s, and has declined again since the crisis
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Positive Growth Trajectory
Sustained economic growth despite difficult
environment

• Economy is on a steady upward trend. Indonesias
  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 Indonesias economy is still fragile and
  sensitive to external shocks (financial
  turbulence, high oil price, etc)

gt 7
6 - 7
5 - 6
5.25
4
2010 - beyond
2006
2007 - 2009
2001-2003
2004-2005
Source CBS
.
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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 Indonesias
  society.

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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).

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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.

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Conclusion . . .

• What is significant about Indonesias democracy,
  that it is homegrown.
• Indonesians 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.

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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 Indonesias 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.

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• Thank you