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Title: 40th World Annual Conference


1
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

2
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.

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 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.

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.

5
Regime Change in Indonesia
6
Development Trilogy
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.

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.

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
    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.

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.

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 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.

12
The amendment process
  • The First Amendment 1999
  • The Second Amendment 2000
  • The Third Amendment 2001
  • The Fourth Amendment 2002

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.

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.

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.

16
  • 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.

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.

18
  • 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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
    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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

30
Poverty in Indonesia fell rapidly until the
1990s, and has declined again since the crisis
31
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
.
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 Indonesias
    society.

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).

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.

35
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.

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 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.

37
  • Thank you
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