ABSTRACT
Addressing the Sixth Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy in Jakarta in April 2010, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono declared democracy in Indonesia ‘irreversible’ (Yudhoyono 2010). The sceptics had been proven wrong, he asserted, and while acknowledging that challenges remain, such as eradicating ‘money politics’, he lauded the establishment of democratic institutions and the rule of law. SBY (as Indonesians refer to him) has good reason to brag about Indonesia’s democratic achievements, but few observers give quite as much credit; indeed some denounce Indonesia’s democracy as deeply flawed (Robison and Hadiz 2004; Klinken 2009). Although the 2014 elections will constitute a more conclusive test, Indonesian democracy does appear consolidated. It is now normalized, a ‘daily fact of life’ as SBY put it, or to employ Linz and Stepan’s famous phrase (1996: 15) democracy is the ‘only game in town’ with regular changes of government accepted without challenge either on the streets or from the barracks. But SBY’s claim for its irreversibility cannot be endorsed. Indonesia’s democracy has flaws of such proportions that reversion to authoritarian government remains possible. Moreover, although consolidated, Indonesia’s democracy is of a relatively low quality and the factors that make it so are deeply entrenched. In this chapter I will discuss the defects and their dangers to Indonesia’s democracy, and consider its prospects. Before proceeding it is appropriate to acknowledge the immense democratic progress made since the late 1990s, despite formidable opposition. Foremost is the free formation of political parties with equal rights to participate in the electoral process, allowed for the first time since the 1950s: a far cry from the previous condition of a thinly disguised one-party state. Importantly, an independent electoral commission (KPU) has been established, removing the power to administer elections from the government-controlled bureaucracy. Since President Soeharto’s fall from power there have been three (substantially) free, fair and peaceful national elections, and numerous local and regional elections, producing results widely regarded as genuinely reflective of the voters’ will. Again, this contrasts sharply with the heavily manipulated elections during Soeharto’s ‘New Order’ regime. Furthermore, participants (mostly) abided by the ‘rules of the game’, losers accepted the results and peaceful power handovers occurred when appropriate. Second, the authoritarian and hitherto unchanged 1945
Constitution has been extensively amended, with human rights safeguards and numerous checks and balances inserted, including separation of the powers between executive, legislature and judiciary (Ellis 2007). Important here was the creation of a constitutional court and an independent judicial commission. Third, the political system has been radically decentralized with real powers devolved to directly-elected local level governments. Fourth, the principles of freedom of association and the right to strike and demonstrate now exist and are frequently exercised. Again this differs markedly from before when political and labour activists risked imprisonment, torture and ‘disappearance’. Fifth and highly significantly, the previously tightly controlled media has been unshackled. Publishing permits together with the Information Ministry that issued them have been abolished, resulting in an explosion of fiercely competitive media outlets conveying a wide gamut of opinion. Finally, and crucially, the military have been pushed out of formal politics and the police force separated from the armed forces. Serving officers no longer held positions in the government or bureaucracy and the military’s reserved places in national and local parliaments were abolished in 2004 when all seats at all levels of government became contested and direct presidential elections were introduced. The contrast with the preceding decades is stark. Following the stuttering parliamentary democracy of the early 1950s, Indonesia experienced authoritarian rule from President Sukarno’s declaration of martial law in March 1957, the prelude to his 1959 founding of ‘guided democracy’, until the seemingly permanent New Order’s downfall in 1998. The latter’s sudden demise was quite unexpected; but the swift transition to democracy astounded observers, most of whom expected an extended period of chaos and violence followed by the emergence of another authoritarian regime (Crouch 2010: 2). Optimists merely dared hope that the new regime would preside over cautious progress towards greater political pluralism, culminating eventually in a distant democracy. It is worth noting that Indonesia’s stunning democratic transformation occurred well after the ‘third wave of democratization’ had ebbed (Diamond 2010: 21).
