Resilience of Democracy

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

J. Kristiadi

From a political perspective, May, or May 21, 1998, to be exact, was a monumental historical milestone. Almost all components of the nation joined hands to mobilize the strength to overthrow power that was cruel and incorporated dynastic politics. The memory is embedded in the hearts of civil society activists who bravely resisted the tyrannical ruling ruler.

The spirit of male and female students did not wane. To overthrow the tyrannical ruler was a demand of the conscience. At its peak, the ruler, who built a corruption-based crony, surrendered and resigned. His move was very precise and noble to avoid anarchy.

The trajectory of dynamics, romance, as well as euphoria of reformation catapulted the beautiful dream to immediately enjoy the "Aladdin lamp" and the magic of the democratic spell. Civil society, with a high spirit to compile noble ideas became  the cornerstone to amend the constitution up to four times.

Deficit of sincere intentions

Politicians are struggling to build political and state institutions with full ambition but deficit in sincere intentions and imagination. As a result, overlapping regulations are very difficult to overcome because its  source is a transaction of organizational and personal interests. Various political and state institutions are not able to implement maximally the institutional duties and functions.

Within two decades of reform, the practice of democratic liturgy has been tested many times. As a result, democracy in Indonesia demonstrates its resilience, which is able to withstand high political temperatures in a series of power struggles that are full of group and personal interests and spiced with the spirit of nuances of natural differences.

The elasticity of democratic practice will be tested again with the 2018 regional elections and the 2019 presidential election, which will be high-voltage. Romance and the euphoria of democratic parties are increasingly perceived as democratic dysphoria. Political contestation is merely a tactical war; its spectrum ranges from clever competition to offer ideas with the intention of improving the welfare of the people up to the deception, which is  driven by the desire of the addiction to the sense of pleasure so that having the gut to spread the baseless news that results in the misery of the people. The political field is flooded with vocabulary that inflames conspiracy, hostility, and hatred, which are lubricated with money politics and personal interests.

Freedom and equality and the spread of civil society are not always correlated with the quality of democracy. Civil society, which is scattered all over the country seems to move by not focusing on vision, even there are those who hold anti-democratic ideologies. Therefore, it is feared that democracy will be threatened by anarchy by anti-civil society (Dark Side of Democracy: Violence of Civil Society in Indonesia, Husni Mubarok and Irsyad Rafsadi [ed], Center for the Study of Religion and Democracy of Paramadina Foundation, Jakarta, 2015). The noble values of religion are twisted into utterances to hate each other among the nation\'s children who are essentially brothers among themselves.

Nervousness also affects politicians in building a coalition to become a participant of the competition. Political parties do not have their own reliable members to reach high achievement who deserve to be the president of the Republic of Indonesia so that they must frequently make transactions or sell actions in search for sympathy from other parties which may be sympathetic and compassionate. So it is not impossible and ridiculous to see a "deal house" to be agreed upon, even though it has not yet been official as a coalition; possibly awaiting the tug of war of more sexy deals or because the coalition is not based on a conscience call (CNN Indonesia, 1/5/2018).

Taking care of the seats

Actually many circles, including politicians, expect political parties to reform themselves so that they do not always fall into the practice of collusion and corruption. However, these intentions and hopes are dormant because politicians are more busily taking care of the seats than actually implementing their vision and mission. Thus, democracy becomes suspended animation.

However, the confusion of democratic death is not only emerging in this country. Far away across the country, the country that is said to be the embryo and grandfather of democracy (United States) in the last few years is anxious in facing democratic erosion. They scream, is democracy dead? Its president, who since the campaign fueled intolerance, also built the Republican Party as a private institution (The Economist, April 2018). The phenomenon of democratic regression also occurs in many countries, including Latin America, such as the centralization of executive power, the politicization of the judiciary, the consistent attack on media independence, public officials manipulating power for personal gains (Foreign Affairs, Is Democracy Dying?, May/June 2018).

The resilience of democracy in Indonesia has proven to be able to build the institution body, expand civil society and liturgy of democracy. However, heavy challenges are still confronting, especially the absence of politically praiseworthy intentions as well as the political stance that relies on the sentiments of race, group, and religion. The heavy challenge can only be overcome if all the energy of this country is able to present political elite and politicians who always sharpen their conscience.

J. Kristiadi, Senior Researcher, Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)