Asia
Indonesia's election machinery
Steady at the ballot box
Oct 5th 2011, 7:35 by S.M. | JAKARTA
AT LOEWY’S, the South Jakarta hangout favoured by the city's glitterati, the atmosphere is distinctly boom-time. An odd but amiable population of Australian miners, local soap-opera stars, foreign diplomats, and minor tycoons rule the roost. The impression is leisurely, if colonial—waiters in black aprons bow obsequiously—and the sound of traffic in the outdoor section has been banished, a minor miracle in Jakarta.
Indonesia’s consumer bonanza has drawn Loewy’s many foreign businessmen, for whom the country’s burgeoning middle class is looking like a goldmine. Even more recently, the place is looking like a pillar of economic stability, against the backdrop of distant conflagrations in European. Don’t say it too loudly, but the outperformance has been mostly accidental. The consumer boom was the gift of an economy that could no longer de-lever, come the crisis of 2008—total banking-system assets had been falling since 1999 and the credit cycle was bound to turn. A commodity binge in East Asia also made a timely appearance. But Indonesia tends to get credit at least for political stability. If “anybody would have asked myself and many others in ’98 or ’99 whether or not Indonesia was going to Balkanise, or disintegrate, it would have been tough to disagree, because at the time it was very gloomy,” the country’s own investor relations chief, Gita Wirjawan, admitted recently. The political fortitude of the Indonesian republic has been upheld since then, and many think its democracy an exemplar for the rest of the world. It’s true too that the Indonesian elections in 1999 and 2004 were notable for their order, transparency and overall legitimacy.
How alarming then, that the country’s political stability is being re-evaluated, at least by one long-time observer. The 2009 contest was marred by significant chaos, a lack of transparency, and would have triggered far larger issues if the incumbent president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, had not won his victory by such a commanding margin, argues Adam Schmidt in a recent essay, “Indonesia’s 2009 Elections: Performance Challenges and Negative Precedents”. Mr Schmidt is the Indonesia chief of the International Foundations for Electoral Systems, which monitors this sort of thing. The post-Yudhoyono era is likely to yield closer outcomes and a prolonged and contested affair might dispel the delightful aura of promise that hangs in the air at Loewy’s.
The most contentious issues in the 2009 vote were errors in the voter registry. The large-scale omission of some eligible voters and the botched records of others in effect disenfranchised anywhere from ‘hundreds of thousands of Indonesians to tens of millions”, according to Mr Schmidt. The losing candidates filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court, which only dismissed calls for a rerun on the grounds that Mr Yudhoyono had won by a wide margin. A closer result would have exposed the judges to greater public scrutiny, potentially politicising the issue and calling into question the contest’s legitimacy.
A second indication of 2009’s election chaos was the large number of invalid votes that were cast—around 14.4% of the total (compared to 8.8% in 2004.) Invalid votes exceeded those received by the third highest-ranking party (PDIP’s 14.03%)—and were only slightly below the votes cast by the second-placed party (Golkar’s 14.45%). Voters were flummoxed by the electoral commission’s decree to that the ballot be marked with a pen (mencontreng) rather than by punching a hole in the ballot paper (mencoblos), as had been done in the past. Though a relatively minor change, the commission chose to maintain such a rigid interpretation of voter intent as to disqualify a large number of votes. This will happen again in 2014 if the commission continues its tradition of not explaining new procedures to the public particularly well.
Finally, the vote-counting process was not as transparent as it should have been. At the polling-station level, things worked fine, but the process by which the results reached the next administrative level were opaque. Mr Schmidt noticed that many of the forms had been crossed out and re-entered at various stages and that this was not really explained. Could manipulation be at work? Certainly some candidates for the legislative elections thought so, and complained that the final tallies did not reflect results reported by polling stations.
Many Indonesians will dismiss these concerns as quibbles—most will never have even heard of them. And it’s not wrong to say that the bigger story was the massive voter turnout in a peaceful poll marked by lively political exchanges. But to what extent were major flaws covered up by Mr Yudhoyono’s thumping victory? Surely it is worrying that, according to at least this one account, 2009 fell short of many the same voting standards that had been achieved in 2004. A prolonged, disputed outcome in 2014 could turn procedural wobbles into a bigger political crisis.
(Picture credit: Wikimedia Commons)
In this blog, our Asia correspondents and our Banyan columnist provide comment and analysis on Asia's political and cultural landscape. The blog takes its name from the Banyan tree, under which Buddha attained enlightenment and Gujarati merchants used to conduct business.
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@Bismarck
So your point is we are stuck with this same cast of lame duck politicians forever? As I said, "If you think rotating chairs amongst a corrupt elite is a good system of government, you will find a lot to admire in Jakarta."
In terms of their 'cleverness', it is a rather elastic term. SBY was indeed clever enough to fool most Western media and the Indonesian electorate that he was serious about cleaning up politics here. The SEA Games fiasco, with his party cadres hauling around suitcases of ill-gotten cash, shows how undeserved this reputation for clean government was. Now, of course, the public are disgusted with the Democrats, too. Middle class disenfranchisement with dirty politics is not a recipe for medium-term stability.
As for the suggestion that Indonesia has learnt from 1998, you would hope so. But the leader of Golkar is now Bakrie, who caused a minor economic crisis in 2005 through sheer incompetence, causing the rupiah to race again above 11,000 to the dollar. He also has a history of screwing the nation to benefit his own companies. With Prabowo, Bakrie or their ilk in power after 2014, there is good reason for apprehension.
As the citizens of Indonesia become more enthralled with a leader that is able to uphold the values of the people, it is certain that eventually the citizens will want to know "how" particular aspects of their governance operates. This is good for Indonesia, and Asia in general since the Indonesian economy has been resilient to the international economic downturn of the past few years. Further transparency and understanding of the process by the common citizen will come with time.
@seanjaya
"In short, the ruling elite is the same sleazy cast of characters who prospered under Suharto. SBY himself was a Suharto-era general. Bakrie was close to the New Order Regime and now runs Golkar, Suharto's party. Every major party has been implicated in massive amounts of corruption. If you think rotating chairs amongst a corrupt elite is a good system of government, you will find a lot to admire in Jakarta. Alternately, you could see it as a house of cards which is liable to fall as soon as the next economic downturn arrives."
I doubt it will fall if an economic downturn arrives. Indonesia had an even more unstable system during the aftermath of 1998. The Arab world is already in revolution and much of Southern Europe is on the verge of revolution, and here you are talking about Indonesia. Indonesia has very low budget deficits and large foreign exchange reserves. The elites are corrupt, but they are not stupid, they learn their lesson from 1998. It will take a global economic crisis for this "House of Cards" to collapse, if that was the case we should all be worried.
The whole system is rotten and vulnerable, at some point, to a major catastrophe. This is no surprise to anyone who reads the best liberal press here- say Tempo and the Jakarta Globe. Somehow it still manages to surprise The Economist.
Some worrying points. The Constitutional Court has said that it has yet to see one contested election where there wasn't a large amount of fraud. Put more simply, every single provincial election it investigated was somewhat biased or rigged. The PDIP noisily claimed that the 2009 national election was rigged at the time. Having cleaner elections in the future depends upon the will of the Parliament. But the Parliament itself is mired in endless corruption scandals, especially the Budget Committee, which is currently refusing to answer the Corruption Commission's questions!
Secondly, the leader of the biggest Opposition party, Golkar, is Abdurizal Bakrie, Indonesia's richest man and biggest tax avoider, with a contempt for the rule of law. With SBY's party mired in a massive corruption scandal involving fugitives fleeing to Colombia on hired jets, the Democrats may be decimated in 2014. The other alternatives are similarly depressing. I could mention Prabowo, an alleged war criminal who is currently trying to wrest a coal mine off an interntaional investor.
In short, the ruling elite is the same sleazy cast of characters who prospered under Suharto. SBY himself was a Suharto-era general. Bakrie was close to the New Order Regime and now runs Golkar, Suharto's party. Every major party has been implicated in massive amounts of corruption. If you think rotating chairs amongst a corrupt elite is a good system of government, you will find a lot to admire in Jakarta. Alternately, you could see it as a house of cards which is liable to fall as soon as the next economic downturn arrives.
Generally, I think situations are overanalyzed. The reason for elections is to guarantee that the leader chosen represents what the people want. If the people of Indonesia are happy with their leader, than problems in an election that did not have the power to change the result will not decrease voter turn-out.
To choose the right leader, so many wrong things are done. From politics to conspiracy to manipulation. Just to choose the right person to lead the country, wrong paths are taken to achieve that result. It's really sad but a reality check that still in various parts of the world, invalid votes are casted to get the person elected. Whats the purpose of such victories if they weren't won the right way?
Indonesia will soon be a completely developed nation and therefore should also have a fully developed political system. Young Democracies are typified by large voter turnout which also increases the chance of fault in counting. As long as the people (voters) of Indonesia are happy with the results of their elections, polling is always going to be at risk from error.
India uses Electronic Voting Machines. Indonesia should follow.
It is great to hear that Indonesia is experiencing a huge voter turnout, and the political system has elections for the people. Although if 14.4% of the votes didn't count, this discourage people from voting in the next election. Also suspicious activities while the votes are being counted, even if they aren't true, will turn the citizens away from voting. These inconsistencies may not have mattered in this election because it was won in a landslide, but what happens in 2014 if the election is close?