Becoming a Political Opposition
The coalition of political parties supporting Prabowo-Sandi in the 2019 presidential election ended. Prabowo freed his supporting parties to determine the next political direction (Kompas, 29/6/2019).
The termination of the Indonesian Coalition of Adil Makmur described a severe political difference from the parties supporting Prabowo-Sandi. Two parties, National Mandate Party (PAN) and Democratic Party, are considered "less consistent". PAN and Democrats tend to be "half-hearted", not in the same vision as Prabowo and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) in building the coalition.
In the current multi-party democratic system in Indonesia, it is almost impossible to build a government without opposition. Becoming an opposition is a political call in democracy. Therefore, the opposition is a necessity in democracy. Without opposition, Indonesian politics will be crippled; there is no balance and supervision. Democracy needs control so that the public interests are not neglected. Without control, democratic government can lose direction.
”Cartle coalition” threat
The dissolution of the Indonesian Coalition of Adil Makmur after the Constitutional Court\'s verdict to declare the presidential and vice-presidential candidate 01 as the winner of the election could have a positive and negative impact. The positive impact is that the Prabowo-Sandi coalition which has remained in the opposition line will be more solid. The solidity of the opposition coalition is as important as the solidity of the governing party coalition. The negative impact is that the strength of the political opposition weakens.
The results of the 2019 general election show that the parties grouped in the Indonesia Work Coalition, which pass the parliamentary threshold, gained almost 54.9 percent of the votes, while the parties in the Indonesian Coalition of Adil Makmur obtained votes of around 35.39 percent. These figures have not shown the strength of the seats in House of Representatives, but at least can be the initial picture. If PAN and Democrats get out of the Prabowo-Sandi camp, the strength of the opposition faction will get smaller. On the contrary, there will be a government that has enormous support in the House. There will be the possibility that a cartel coalition will be created in the Jokowi-Amin government.
According to Kuskridho Ambardi, the cartel concept was first introduced by Daniel Katz and Peter Mair in 1995. At that time new parties with other types began to emerge and were later called the cartel parties. The previous parties were of the types of cadre party, mass party and inter-group party. The two most striking parties were the mass party and the cartel party. The mass party appears to accommodate the interests of groups that are not accommodated in electoral politics such as the working class.
Eva Kusuma Sundari also mentioned almost the same thing about the characteristics of political cartels, namely first, the disappearance of the role of party ideology as a determining factor for an inter-party coalition. Second, permissiveness in the formation of the coalition. Third, the absence of opposition that really criticizes the government. Fourth, elections have no impact in determining party behavior. Fifth, the party has strong tendency to act collectively as a group.
By joining a coalition with those who have the potential to "win", a number of benefits will be obtained.
The strengthening of cartel politics in the reform era is caused by political parties, which prefer to meet with the authorities rather than safeguarding public interests so that they are in a different position. Coalition orientation is based more on material benefits needed by the parties. By joining a coalition with those who have the potential to "win", a number of benefits will be obtained.
On the contrary, incentives to become political opposition are not very visible. Usually the incentives of opposition parties are the opportunity to get votes in the next election. In the context of politics in Indonesia, the opposite happens, becoming a political opposition has not been fully "accepted" in a culture that is still permissive. Even becoming an opposition seems to be a bad political behavior.
Such a condition actually leads to the birth of the idea of a cartel coalition in Indonesia. The coalition being built by political parties in groups is not based on ideology and similarity of platform. The coalition is born from the desire to maintain power by gathering as many supporters as possible. The main characteristic is office seeking, maximum profit to gain power. The other cartel coalition characteristics is more directed at the power of cartel which is characterized by profit sharing.
The phenomenon of the cartel coalition is similar to the birth of the holding industry in politics, when the market mechanism - electability and factors to be elected - becomes the main measure of coalition considerations. The outcome of the cartel coalition is the distribution of power as part of the great benefits of the electoral process that have been acquired. The cartel coalition also seeks to maintain its power and political interests of its supporters by minimizing the opposition forces.
Theoretically, this coalition building model gives birth to the characteristics of permissive elite political behavior. The warning by several PDI-P elites who call political reconciliation does not mean that all must be absorbed in the Cabinet is an important warning. Several PDI-P elites realize that absorbing all political forces in government does not mean that they will add to the solidity of the Indonesia Work Coalition. What happens could be the opposite, creating a complicated and complex "internal competition. Let alone, the large coalition is in the second period of Jokowi\'s administration.
The political orientation of the party elite causes the coalition building in the presidential election to always be broken in the middle of the road. The formed coalition becomes fragile and does not last long. Besides the political interests of the party elite, the fragility of the existing coalition is also a result of the fact that the coalition building model, as required by Law No. 7/2017, is careful. The coalition tends to be born of "compulsion" due to the threat of Law No. 7/2017 Article 235 Paragraph (5) which states that if political parties do not determine their political attitudes, they are threatened that they cannot become participants in the next election. The threat of Article 235 Paragraph (5) contributes to why the Prabowo-Sandi coalition is threatened to disband or it can be said that it will end soon. In fact, the presence of PAN and Democrats in the Indonesian Coalition of Adil Makmur is simply because of the sanction of Article 235 Paragraph (5) rather than wanting to fully support the Prabowo-Sandi coalition.
Function of political opposition
Becoming a political opposition has a strategic function to keep democracy to be in line. In the development of modern democracy in a number of countries, the presence of parties outside the government can encourage itself as a pseudo government. Its job is to control government policies so that they do not deviate from common ideals.
Why is such a political opposition necessary? First, to prevent the political tendency to absorb all political forces in the ranks of government. The phenomenon of a cartel coalition that absorbs the power of politics and society can lead to the emergence of a democracy of the majority tyranny. Such democracy is not a reform ideation in 1998. Ideal democracy is the existence of a control room for the community to participate in every policy that will be issued by the government.
In theory, absolute power has the potential to cause irregularities and corruption.
Second, democratic governance in the style of "absolute majority" will lead to a government of anti-criticism democracy. Critics tend not to be given space and place that are as important as those who support the government. Such phenomenon can reverse the development of our democracy now and in the future. Therefore, political elites need to realize that political opposition has the same degree as those who govern because democracy without opposition even leads to absolute power. In theory, absolute power has the potential to cause irregularities and corruption.
Therefore, there must be political parties which are willing to act as opposition even though the "material" benefits from occupying positions of power are not obtained. In the history of politics in a number of countries, carrying out the task as an opposition is not merely to gain a momentary advantage. They actually carry out constitutional duties to create checks and balances of the democratic government.
Moch Nurhasim, Researcher at the Political Research Center of LIPI