Legal Certainty Prerequisite for Success of Priority Programs

The democratic and legal foundation must be established from the outset and be maintained for the five priority programs of President Joko Widodo and Vice President Ma\'ruf Amin, to run properly.

KOMPAS/AGUS SUSANTO

Heavy vehicles and some passenger cars pass under an elevated section of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail (HSR) on 27 Jan. 2020 in Bekasi, West Java. The 142.3-kilometer railway project, an Indonesia-China state-owned enterprises collaboration financed 75 percent through loans from the China Development Bank.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Democracy and law enforcement are absolute requirements for the achievement of five development priorities set by the government of President Joko Widodo and Vice President Ma\'ruf Amin. Therefore, the democratic and legal foundation must be established from the outset and be maintained for the five priority programs to run properly.

The five priority programs are the development of human resources, infrastructure development, deregulation through the planned omnibus law, the cutting of red tape, and economic transformation.

A Kompas poll conducted from Jan. 29 to 30 showed that the majority of respondents believe the five programs will be successful. Of the five, the omnibus law is the one the respondents have least confidence in, with only 55.3 percent believing in its achievement. Meanwhile, the level of confidence in the economic transformation is 81.6 percent.

The head of the Management and Public Policy Department at Gadjah Mada University, Agus Heruanto, said good political conditions with democratic guarantees would be a good foundation for the government programs. While the links between democracy and economic progress could be debated, stable politics in a democratic setting could be one of the attractions for investment and the foundation of economic growth, Agus said when contacted from Jakarta on Thursday (6/2/2020).

Law enforcement, he added, was the next prerequisite for implementing the government’s five priority programs. Without legal certainty, distrust would spread in the community. This is because

law enforcement is closely related to trust and values. "The five programs will be in vain if there is no trust in the government," he said.

KOMPAS/TOTOK WIJAYANTO

A sound system displays a hand-drawn poster during a labor demonstration against the omnibus bill on job creation on Monday (20/1/2020) outside the House of Representatives in Jakarta. The poster reads, “Reject the omnibus law, save the nation’s children”. Workers claim that the bill would scrap severance pay and minimum wage while making it easier for employers to fire workers.

Many problems remain

A political researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Firman Noor, warned that many problems would remain if development is pushed forward for good economic growth but not accompanied by a favorable democratic climate and strong law enforcement.

According to Firman, the dynamics of democracy, which have tended to weaken lately, civil liberties, which are under pressure, as well as the aspects of law enforcement and the eradication of corruption, all of which were relatively weak present, are warning signs over the government\'s development plan.

Indonesia\'s reading on the democracy index, developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), improved slightly in 2019 over 2018, rising from 6.39 to 6.48 on the scale from 0 to 10.

However, the indicator for civil liberties at 5.59 points for Indonesia was the lowest of the five indicators forming the democratic index (Kompas, 23/1/2020).

"The New Order can serve as an example of how economic growth was the main command while political stability tended to be forced, so it was full of pressure and at one point created political dissatisfaction that developed into political instability," Firman said.

A teacher of constitutional law at the Jentera School of Law, Bivitri Susanti, said that, to build a sound legal foundation for supporting the five government programs, law should not only be seen as an instrument of economic growth. Other legal aspects, such as justice and guaranteed civil rights, including human rights, also needed to be protected.

"If the law is only seen as a way to encourage economic growth, it will not last in the long term and become a time bomb for the emergence of new problems in the future," said Bivitri.

Execution is very important

Institute for Development of Economics and Finance executive director Enny Sri Hartati said what was needed now to make the government\'s five priority programs a success was their systematic implementation. "If it is only plans, plans, and plans, the programs will not be realized anytime soon. What is needed is execution," she said.

In the HR program, for example, according to Enny, there were no visible short-, medium- and long-term goals to reform the national education system. Ideally, short-term measures should be carried out with government intervention to encourage and enhance various types of training through sectoral or regional development institutions.

If it is only plans, plans, and plans, the programs will not be realized anytime soon. What is needed is execution.

In the field of infrastructure, according to Enny, what must be improved is the acceleration of infrastructure development that supports economic growth, including reducing logistics costs and connecting economic centers. The purpose of infrastructure development must be clear, namely to improve economic efficiency and speed up the distribution of goods.

With regard to cutting red tape, the executive director of the Regional Autonomy Implementation Monitoring Committee, Robert Endi Jaweng, said the government needed to prepare a competency map. This was important to control state civil servants and allow the country to compete with world-class bureaucracies.

The program, according to Robert, will entail trimming the bureaucracy through structural simplification from five to two levels. Later, the structural positions in eliminated levels are to be replaced with functional positions based on expertise and competence.