Democratic Resilience
The General Election Commission’s (KPU) announcement on Thursday (20/9/2018) of the two presidential candidates and their running mates, followed by Peaceful Campaign Declaration on Sunday (23/9), has raised hope for a peaceful election on April 17, 2019.
The General Election Commission’s (KPU) announcement on Thursday (20/9/2018) of the two presidential candidates and their running mates, followed by Peaceful Campaign Declaration on Sunday (23/9), has raised hope for a peaceful election on April 17, 2019.
This hope should be nurtured, even though all elections since the New Order (1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014) have generally been conducted peacefully, so there is no need for great concern.
The declaration of pursuing a peaceful presidential campaign (and implicitly, in the election) was celebrated in cities across the archipelago with people turning out in the colorful and rich traditional costumes of their cultures. This indicates that the election is a public festival that celebrates democracy, and should therefore not incite uproar, conflict or violence.
Publicly celebrating the electoral process (both legislative and presidential) as an integral part of democracy carries an important, symbolic meaning. Even though skeptics often criticize ceremonies as merely symbolic, they are still necessary. Symbolism gives birth to commitment as a driving force toward realizing hopes and aspirations.
The first symbolism of the Peaceful Campaign Declaration is that various stakeholders in the election have gestured toward a peaceful political process for the 2019 election. Second, the symbolic declaration binds candidates and their supporters to the publicly signed agreement.
Pursuing the democratic process as a public festival could strongly embed the political system in the social and political fabric. Thus, the people could resist the temptation to adopt other political systems like a theocracy or an authoritarian civilian or military regime.
All this could make democracy a part of the people’s lives toward its realization. Democracy is no longer something alien that is incompatible with the people’s cultures and religions, and is instead an inseparable part of their daily lives.
This embedded democracy is critical in realizing democratic resilience. Only with democratic resilience will a democratic political system improve, whether procedurally or substantially. On the other hand, without a democratic system, politics could destroy democracy and cause conflict and violence.
What is “the resilience of democracy”? The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) in Stockholm defines this as “the ability of the political system to deal with, survive and recover from any challenge and crisis that bring pressures, which eventually could cause systemic failure on democracy” (2017).
According to the IDEA framework, democratic resilience is tied to social, cultural and religious resilience that is flexible in dealing with various challenges and pressures. At the same time, social, cultural and religious resilience also has the capacity of accommodation, innovation and development in overcoming the pressures and challenges that are growing more complicated and complex.
Indonesia is fortunate to possess a relatively strong social, cultural and religious resilience. The Indonesian people, who are pluralistic in many areas, have developed social, cultural and religious resilience that has enabled them to survive waves of changes throughout the course of their long history.
The survival of social, cultural and religious resilience is linked to the strength of an accommodative, inclusive and tolerant paradigm and praxis that comprises sub-ethnic groups, social classes and religions. Given this character, a win-win solution is the generally accepted paradigm and praxis in facing external challenges and pressures, rather than the destructive zero-sum game.
Today, there is a significant increase in the challenges that face social, cultural and religious resilience. These various challenges are likely to cause disruptions not only to social, cultural and religious life, but also to political life, particularly political contestations like the general election.
The challenges and pressures facing social, cultural and religious resilience as well as democracy resilience have also emerged because of disruptions to moral values as a result of the revolution in communications. Strict measures are needed to deal with the impacts of the social media revolution, which has resulted in an immediate increase in the spread of hoaxes, hate speech, slander, provocation and manipulation for political partiality.
Democratic resilience is closely connected to ensuring integrity in a successful election. Thus, the organizer, the candidates, the people and all voters must monitor the electoral process. Otherwise, this political event could be marred by money politics, which negatively impacts democratic resilience.
Furthermore, democratic resilience also relies on the success or failure of a democracy in improving the welfare of its citizens. This is a difficult challenge, because democracy triggers an explosion in the hope for a better life, especially in countries like Indonesia that have adopted a democratic system only recently.
Therefore, a democracy’s resilience is sustainable only if the victor in an election is able to run an administration effectively in improving the lives of the people. On the other hand, a democracy’s resilience would become vulnerable if the electoral victor is unable to realize its promises and the people’s expectations for prosperity and justice.
The challenge ahead of the 2019 general election is to succeed in organizing a peaceful electoral process, which in turn should also consolidate social, cultural and religious resilience toward sustainability.
This consolidation should be carried out at both individual and community levels from civil society, sociocultural and religion organizations to government agencies. They all have an important role to play in strengthening social, cultural and religious resilience as well as the resilience of our democracy.
Azyumardi Azra, Culture and Humanities professor, Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University