Grooming Cadres for Leadership

Amid the crisis of statesmanship, leadership and the fading of nationality values, the 1998 mandate for reform slowly weakens.

The agendas of corruption eradication, law enforcement, socio-economic justice, democratization, and qualified and responsible autonomy are blocked by kleptocracy and mobocracy. The grand design of structured corruption evades the prevention and eradication schemes. Socio-economic imbalances remain striking regardless of the road map for equity. Democratization has become nothing more than a battleground for candidates and interests. Autonomy still remains a classic problem: political dependence and oligarchy.

Grooming the leaders

The incessant initiation of infrastructure development and economic deregulation to drive growth has not been carefully designed as to be compatible with efforts to reduce inequality and poverty. Several corporations control enormous amounts of land, while farmers\' land holdings continue to decrease, indicating no fundamental correction and intersection between growth and equity. Liberalization without guidance and redistribution of roles will create a level of inequality, which is difficult to address and will see a stagnation of the human development index.

Sectoral ego is germinating with the presence of many laws, which enforce new authorities with low effectiveness. Agrarian Law No. 5/1960, which should be the reference for all sectoral legal products, has been abandoned, causing complications and overlapping spatial arrangements and authorities. Coherence and harmonization of regulations is increasingly neglected.

Crucial ideas, promulgated recently, for the re-establishing the direction of the republican, boil down to three main issues: a return to the 1945 Constitution, strengthening state control as occurred in Latin America (Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia), and simplifying political infrastructure. These three currents of thought, are however, presented in a vacuum, sterile from reality, driven by the desire for shortcuts, and require great power to realize.

The mosaic of the nation\'s problems highlights the importance of collective responsibility, which must be embodied at every level of leadership. The authority and management of the central leadership is clearly inadequate to overcome multi-faceted and multi-dimensional problems with different priorities in each region.

Political parties have many internal problems and rarely give birth to cadres who are qualified and have integrity. Pragmatism in the search for power leads to asymmetric coalitions in almost all regions, eliminating the role of political parties as a means of struggle for the welfare of the people. The disorientated function of political parties, aside from proving the ideological crisis, also hints at the rise of power games with transactional characteristics.

The active participation of civil society is badly needed to inflame the spirit of democracy. Regional elections and presidential elections are too risky if they are only contests between candidates of political parties, as the candidate recruitment system is closed and controlled by party elites.

The conventions for electing local and national candidates could be designed by members of civil society, who are politically literate and aware of their rights and obligations. These opportunities are possible thanks the digital revolution and the widespread use of information technology, which can reach the majority of people. Public-republic political mediation can be established and will ultimately determine the landscape of Indonesian democracy. In a meritocratic model, public aspirations are involved and nurtured to bring about authentic figures who have the potential to, and meet the adequately high requirements for, carrying out the mandate of leadership.

Strategic patience

Community recognition is the genuine basis for the existence of authentic leaders. Social, humanitarian, environmental, organizational, economic, educational, health, and other activists are among the raw reservoirs from which authentic leaders that can be nurtured and raised

Through theoretical and practical simulation, the model for recruiting authentic leaders can be formulated by setting several basic criteria for candidates: rootedness, preparedness, independence, and capacity for learning. Rootedness, means having strong ties to the socio-cultural base and a commitment to the environment. Preparedness, means a candidate is rich in experience, achievements and a role model. Independence, means having firm principles and no determining affiliations with any particular groups or assemblies. Capacity for learning, describes a candidates capacity for continued growth and ability to manage changes.

Finding authentic figures who are "independent" individuals, with proven and praiseworthy track records, presents both a challenge and great hope for a system of recruiting potential leaders needed by the people at the local and national levels. Social media activists are challenged to realize this grand and noble mission, which synergizes the skills of statisticians, programmers, analysts and researchers to head hunters quality cadres through long-term collaboration projects, which can give birth to true leaders: from, by and for the people.

In preparation for the simultaneous regional elections in the 2021-2023 period, this authentic leader-networking project can be begun right away. If 10 pilot projects in 10 regions succeed in unearthing qualified leaders, the escalation of this project would become a necessity and at the same time give democracy in its essential meaning.

The primary idea of this project is to provide a stock of potential leaders and place their function in organic unity with their constituents. The people, as a "political society," are compelled to be aware of their rights and obligations to participate in producing leaders, which pass fit and proper tests based on local needs. This can be made a reality by volunteers who care about the future of democracy and the nation.

Therefore, the legislative elections, regional elections and presidential elections constitute are long democratic processes, measurable by the active participation of the people, not merely five-yearly moments, which follow the whim political parties. This experiment can become a learning experience for all, including political parties, on how to prevent the emergence of mediocre leaders.

Given the state of the country and the global challenges we face, we need many capable leaders to guide the course and chart the history of our great nation. Strategic patience is needed to find and produce potential leaders across the country. This requires wide networking, the participation from many intelligent and good people and reliable methodologies. These new leaders should be encouraged and convinced to focus on three basic improvements, education (literacy, vocation and intelligence), health (especially nutrition) and stimulating the rise of local innovation and creativity. These three major axis can significantly improve the quality of people the nation.

SUWIDI TONO

Coordinator of the Forum of Becoming Indonesia