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Indonesia's Democratic Transformation

发布时间:2017-04-08
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Indonesia’s democratic transformation over the last 16 years is an incredible success story, but before Indonesia can make a genuine transition to a consolidated democracy, the nation needs work to improve many aspects of law and governance. This essay will analyse Indonesia democratic progress to determine if it is a consolidated democracy, or not. By studying various government institutions, laws and civil rights, I will argue that while Indonesia is an electoral democracy, Indonesia falls short of being fully democratically consolidated. To assist in understand Indonesia’s democratic ‘wins and fails’, I will first explain the definition of a consolidated democracy, before looking at Indonesia’s decentralisation reforms, success in combating political violence, issues of military accountability, corruption and lastly, human rights violations.

A consolidated democracy can be measured and defined in many ways. As the term can be ambiguous, I will define ‘democratic consolidation’as by the process by which a newdemocracymatures and thus becoming stable democracy, without the likelihood of reverting to its previous authoritarian past. To measure this process, theorists study several aspects surrounding the government, including its institutions, the behaviour of the regime and the structural underpinnings of a government (Freedman & Tiburzi 2012). As Linz defines, consolidation is only complete once “none of the major political actors, parties or organised interests, forces or institutions, consider that there is an alternative to democratic processes to gain power...democracy must be seen as the only game in town” (Ufen 2008, p. 330).

Since 1998, Indonesia’s democratic transformation has been phenomenal. After thirty years of military rule, it would have be more than optimistic to think that Indonesia has been able to democratic evolve as much as it has without falling back into the hands of another autocratic leader. From the decline of authoritarian rule, Indonesia has progressed rapidly to find itself today trying to consolidate its democracy. (Hara 2001). To date, Indonesians have seen the results of democracy with free and fair elections that are contested by multiple parties. It has also seen the benefits of the freedom to form advocacy groups, civil society organisations, universal inclusive suffrage and a large voter turnout (Ufen 2008).

Reforms to decentralise power has played a major role in consolidating democracy. During the Suharto era, the Indonesian National Armed Forces, (known then as ABRI) had a dual function known as dwifungsi. This allowed the ABRI not only to control the security of the state, but to influence all levels of political governance, providing the military unilateral control over all internal affairs. But after the fall of Suharto in 1998, his successor B.J Habibie opted to overhaul the once autocratic political system, for a more liberal, decentralised one. This ambitious reform was to shift the political, administrative and fiscal powers to the provincial, municipal and village level of government (Freedman & Tiburzi 2012). By 2002, the government agreed on direct election of the president, and by 2004, this extended this to allow the direct election of local government executives by direct ballot. This was in conjunction with laws passed in 2004 that mandated a takeover of all military business. According to the law, the military had until 2007 to hand over any businesses directly or indirectly owned by the National Armed Forces to the state (Mietzner 2008). Indonesia’s transformation from authoritarianism to a decentralised, democratic political system, broke the monopolistic stronghold that the military and elites held, paving the way for popular grassroots leaders to seek election (Meitzner 2010). Not only has these decentralised reforms pushed for free and fair elections, but also reduced the influence of political violence and thuggery.

Indonesia democratisation process has had positive affects in reducing electoral violence and intimidation. Although widespread violence was expected for first free election since 1955, and again for the 2004 election, observers have reported a continued decrease in thuggery and interference from outside actors overtime (Hara 2001). While preman, or political thugs, have used intimidation, violence and thuggery during the New Order and even in the early years of the post Suharto era, their influence overtime has decreased due to the government’s efforts in pursuing political reforms in favour of a democratic system. This has led to preman organisations to become institutionalised, reducing their strategic influence and effectiveness during elections and thus encouraging them form or join existing political parties for survival (Wilson 2010). Largely free from political thuggery, the 2009 parliamentary elections saw a free and fair election. Majority of candidates followed the electoral rules, voters were able to cast their vote without hindrance and losing candidates were generally respectful of the democratic outcome and stepped down without a fuss. This is in stark contrast to Indonesia’s neighbour, the Philippines, which had seen high levels of election related violence, including the assassination of political candidates (Winters 2013 printed). While Indonesia has made remarkable progress in democratisation, the decentralisation of power has thus far been unable to wipe out serious cases of patronage, corruption, and influence from the military.

One of the major challenges for Indonesia in becoming a fully consolidated democracy, is ability to hold the military accountable for crimes and human rights abuses. Under Suharto, Indonesia saw mass acts of violence against suspected PKI members, in which Indonesian soldiers and paramilitaries were ordered to kill anyone they considered to be a “communist”. While there is no official figure, Human Rights Watch suggest that at least 500,000 Indonesians were murdered in the mid 1960’s (Harsono HRW). Systematic human rights abuses can also be seen in Papua region as NGO’s have predicted that at least 500,000 civilians have been murdered and thousand more been tortured, imprisoned and raped over the last fifty years. Asian Human Rights Commission (2014) reports that during the late 1970’s the military were the responsible for the genocidal murder of over 4,000 indigenous Papuans. Again more recently, to what is now known as the Biak Massacre in 1998, the Indonesian military were responsible for the murder of 200 civilians, including women and children, in which they were loaded into boats, taken out to sea and thrown overbroad (IPWP bookmarked 2014). Although post Suharto governments have made progress on reforming the rules and procedures of military justice, those in the upper echelons of command are still considered immune to the rule of law. To date, not a single military general has been imprisoned for human rights abuses and those who have been charged are generally low ranking personal (Mietzner 2008). This is largely resulted from military tribunals still have the exclusive jurisdiction over military personal. Human Rights Watch’s 2011 World Report, said that “this culture of impunity is hard to eliminate. In many cases, military tribunals are used as a mechanism to calm public protest without any guarantee of the delivery of justice. Thus impunity and military violence endures (Human Rights Watch, “World Report 2011: Indonesia,” World Report 2011 http://www.hrw. org/en/world-report-2011/Indonesia). While positive steps by the Indonesian government has separated the military from internal affairs, the military has remained particularly powerful and have used their influence to bribe political and judicial personal into protecting their interests and livelihoods (Mietzner 2008).

The fight against corruption is one of the most significant hurdles Indonesia faces in the fight to consolidate its democracy. Indonesia is perceived globally to be one of the world’s most corrupt countries, and for good reason. Indonesia was ranked 118 out of 176 countries studied in Transparency International’s 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). Corruption is so ingrained in Indonesia’s society, that the majority of Indonesians think that it is common practice amongst government officials. Their concern is justified as the issue of corruption is endemic, filtering through all organisations of governance, from the executive, legislative, and especially in the judicial branches of the state. Surveys conducted state that payments and bribes are involved in influencing around 95% of all Indonesian court cases. While these figures are only guestimates, it is reported that 85% of judges maybe corrupt, 80% of Supreme Court judges have taken bribes and that 40% of the Attorney General’s Office income has made up of unofficial payments (Webber 2002, 2006). President Megawati in her first term, established the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in order to combat the problem. While all presidents since have stated the importance of cleaning up corruption, reforms and anti-corruption policies have had mixed success. While the constitutional court has been able to prove its independence with some high profile convictions, the system is still under threat of corruption. In 2009, two KPK deputy chairman were arrested on extortion and bribery charges. The deputies were later released without charge after a plot was undercover by KPK officials that proved that police were behind a conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the court. In the end, Police Commander General Susno Duadji was jailed himself for his actions to bring down the KPK. Attempts to bring down the KPK can be found in all levels of government, with the Indonesia Corruption Watch identifying that members of parliament have attempted to weaken KPK’s power at least 11 times. One example is former Democratic Party legislator Hengky Baramuli. Baramuli used his appointed position to file a judicial review against KPK laws. This was an attempt to dilute the KPK powers as he himself was on corruption charges stemming from a vote buying scandal involving Bank Indonesia (Freedman & Tiburzi 2012). While these have all been isolated occurrences, if Indonesia wants to fully consolidate, it will need to continue empower the KPK in prosecuting crime involving corruption.

Lastly, and what I would consider one of the most important pillars of a consolidated democracy, is freedom of press and expression. Indonesia has a diverse and vibrant media environment, restricted by several legal and regulatory constraints. Prior to the fall of Suharto, Indonesia had 289 print media outlets. Indonesia’s media rapidly grew during its early democratic transformation period to around 1881 outlets by 2001. But since then, restrictions and backroom deals have reduce the variety of media outlets to just under 900 by 2006. This is largely because powerful political and media figures have brought out smaller players, reducing the market. This concerning trend can also be seen by the 2014 presidential candidate Prabowo, as he used his wealth and connections to the media to buy TV stations in the aim of influencing voters for upcoming election (Winters 2013 printed). But the abuse of the media is not restricted to those seeking power. The Indonesian government has continues denied or restricted foreign journalist from the Papua and West Papua provenience. Journalists are often the victims of violence and intimidation from government forces and hired thugs, with 56 recorded cases of assault against journalists in 2012, 12 of which were directed at those reporting on the situation in Papua (Freedom House 2013a).

While freedom of expression is generally upheld, Free House (2013b) scored Indonesia press and net status as only partly free, with a scores of 49 and 41 respectively out of a 100 (0 being the best and 100 the worst). While the government says that many of these new laws are to protect religious harmony, human rights organisations are concerned that the new laws are being abused by government to limit free speech. In early 2012, civil servant Alexander Aan was arrested and prosecuted for crimes of blasphemy. This was in relation to Aan publically posting on his Facebook wall that ‘God doesn’t exist’ along with other statements that were deemed insulting to local Muslim clerics. Aan offensive fell under the 2008 Electronic Information and Transactions Law for ‘disseminating information aimed at inciting religious hatred or hostility’, which carries a 100 million rupiah fine and 30 months jail sentence (Freedom House 2013b). Police in Aceh have used these tighten laws to enforce youth groups to conform to a more traditional Islamic lifestyle. Officers have been known to arrest so called ‘punks’ or ‘rebellious youths’ in an effort to re-educate them to what is considered appropriate behaviour. All of which is constituted a breach of human rights as it restricts Indonesians the basic right to freely express themselves (Hasan 2011; Freedom House 2013b). Censorship laws relating to films and books related to Indonesia’s tragic yet controversial history are still obstacles in Indonesia’s bid to democratise fully.

Overall, looking at Indonesia’s transformation since Suharto, we can see that Indonesia’s political progression from authoritarianism to a liberal democracy has begun to stabilise. With its push for decentralisation of power, Indonesia has seen a series of free and fair direct elections. While the military still continues to act with impunity, the KPKs push for further accountability, slowly and surely, will call for justice to be served. What I see as the greatest indicator for Indonesia’s democratic future, is the overwhelming support from the public for continued liberalisation (Diamond 2009 Asia Forum). This democratic trend will only add pressure on the government to become more transparent and accountable to those who rightly elect them. Indonesia may not be a consolidated democracy as of yet, but I believe that its past is its past and it is on the right track in becoming one soon.

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