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| Author: | Esther Pan |
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July 12, 2005
They are the first direct elections for district and provincial leaders in the world's most populous Muslim country. Indonesia held its first direct elections for president and parliament in 2004, and experts say this year's local elections could cement the establishment of democracy in the country. "These local elections are extraordinarily important," says Jeffrey Hadler, assistant professor of South and Southeast Asian studies at the University of California, Berkeley. "They will give people a real sense of democracy in action," he says. "We'll see which local party officials have done a good job."
They will run over a period of five years. During this time, each of Indonesia's 32 provinces will elect provincial governors, and each of the country's more than 450 districts will choose mayors and district heads, known as walikota and bupati respectively. The elections are staggered due to the difficulty of organizing simultaneous polls among the nation's 224 million people, spread over 17,000 islands. Experts say the results of these votes are important, both for local representation and future political positioning. "The party that dominates local elections will have a head start in the general [presidential and parliamentary] elections in 2009," says Leonard Sebastian, senior fellow and coordinator of the Indonesia Program at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.
Each candidate will run in his or her local district, many on a slate with a running mate. The candidates with the best chance of success, experts say, will run on slates nominated by political parties, which have the support structure to aid their campaigns. Some experts say the major parties have too much influence in the local races. "Local elections seem to have become another channel for parties in their quest for influence," Sebastian says.
General Suharto--who, like many Indonesians, used only one name--took power from Sukarno, the first leader of post-colonial Indonesia, in 1966. Suharto ran the country as a dictator until 1998, when he was overthrown by a popular uprising. Under Suharto's rule, the country's local leaders were appointed by the Department of Home Affairs in the capital, Jakarta. "Many of them were not even from the districts they ran, and functioned more as agents of the central government than as representatives of the people," says Roderick Brazier, assistant Indonesia country representative for the Asia Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports democracy and development in Asia. Many experts say Indonesians are hopeful that decentralizing power to the regions will improve accountability and the delivery of services from their elected representatives. Elections for local leaders in small villages and districts, where everyone knows each other, will hinge on "real personality politics," Hadler says, and the quality of the candidates will likely matter more than the party they belong to.
Under Suharto, Indonesians voted for political parties, not individuals. Parties then awarded slots to candidates on their slates based on the percentage of the vote the party won. Often local voters didn't even know which candidates would represent them until their local officials were appointed. Members of parliament, who took their seats in this manner, selected the president. In 2004, Indonesia modified its system to hold direct elections for president. However, members of parliament are still elected from national party lists.
Indonesia's two most powerful political parties are secular, although Islamic parties have seen strong gains in the last few years.
The secular parties are:
The main Islamic parties are:
For the nearly 90 percent of its citizens who are Muslim, Indonesia has always had its own inclusive version of Islam, experts say, rooted in local traditions and very different from the hardline Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia. Most mainstream politicians, whether practicing Muslims or not, favor either secular government or an Indonesian compromise that respects Islam but also protects the country's diversity and plurality. While Islamist parties have gained popularity recently for vowing to deliver services and clean up corruption, many experts say there is little allure for ordinary citizens in radical calls for violence or jihad. "People want results. The thing to be worrying about right now is not Islam, but delivery," Errington says.
The Indonesian army, which played a central role in national politics under Suharto, has accepted a more limited role without putting up too much of a fight, Brazier says. However, the army's support is still critical to Yudhoyono, a former general, "since [he's] one of their own," Sebastian says. The military's leaders are trying to build a modern and professional force, but experts say their efforts have moved slowly due to a lack of government funds.
A massive corruption scandal has rocked the country's General Election Commission since April, when election commissioner Mulyana Kusuma was caught bribing a state auditor to keep quiet about bribes received by the election commission during last year's presidential vote. So far, investigations have revealed the commission took some $2.1 million in bribes to give out preferential contracts to suppliers of ink, ballot papers, and ballot boxes in last year's election. This national scandal has not directly affected preparations for local elections, but it highlights the uphill battle faced by Indonesians--including President Yudhoyono, who made fighting corruption the centerpiece of his campaign--who seek a more honest government.
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