Culture of Democracy

ABK

Azyumardi Azra

If we casually ask the public about the political uproar that followed the 17 April election, many will likely answer that it tired and bored them. They have been witnesses to the political uproar and drama involving the political elite that have played out one after the other, especially on television. For ordinary people, the matters over which the elite dispute are far from reality.

Look: At the beginning of the political contest, the candidates told the public that they were ready to win or lose in a peaceful election. However, the reality is that some contestants refused to concede defeat. There were also some people who were ordered to not maintain the peace, but instead to cause commotion and violence in May.

It’s exhausting! Maintaining a peaceful democracy is tiring on its own. It would be even more tiring if democracy is accompanied by the raucous noise of conflicting statements, followed by violence across Jakarta, and other such things. Finally, arguments and evidence that were not always clear, even ridiculous, were presented at the Constitutional Court hearings held over the last two weeks.

In observing all these developments, one question arises: Who is actually not ready for a peaceful democracy? The grassroots community appeared to be content or at peace with democracy.

They were enthusiastic on election day, 17 April 2019. The result was a high voter turnout of 81 percent of all eligible voters, or 158,012,506 out of 199,987,870 registered voters turned up at the ballots to exercise their voting rights.

KOMPAS/PRIYOMBODO

Motorcyclists ride past banners expressing support for the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Police and rejecting mass riots displayed on Friday (21/6/2019) at a junction on Jl. Joglo Raya in West Jakarta. Many similar banners now hang across the capital since the 21-22 May riots that erupted following a peaceful demonstration to protest the results of the 2019 presidential election.

Then, the fact is that no commotion or violence has erupted among grassroots voters since the ballots, the vote tabulation and the election results that were announced at each polling station. Once the entire process was completed, it seemed that the people were eager to return to their normal lives.

Furthermore, the survey that the Kompas daily conducted (17/6/2019) found that the people generally accepted the results of the election: 96.4 percent of Joko Widodo-Ma\'ruf Amin supporters and 53.5 percent of Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno supporters accepted the results. If so, then who wants political uproar?

That the people have accepted the election results also appear to be related to other indications. According to the Saiful Mujani Research Consulting survey released on 16 June, 69 percent of voters believed that the presidential election was honest and fair. Meanwhile, 68 percent thought the same for the legislative election.

At the same time, the nation’s political elite continued to cause discord between the two presidential camps – one of which believed that the election was riddled with fraud and the other which believed that the election had run well. The discord was then spread through social media, sharpening polarization in the political community.

There are no signs indicating any intentions to resolve this political uproar through open meetings or even through a halalbihalal gathering after Ramadhan 1440H. Instead, news and reports continued to cover behind-the-scenes political deals between the disputing camps.

The public’s hopes for reconciliation and islah (peaceful resolution) have not yet been realized. Can the Constitutional Court\'s ruling on 27 June 2019 lead to reconciliation? Given that the polarization is so sharp and bitter, a reconciliation that involves all levels of society (across the board) will take a long time.

The prolonged friction among the political elite has had a negative impact on developing and consolidating our democracy. Again, to cite from the Kompas survey, 60.1 percent of respondents said that the 2019 elections were worse than the previous election in 2014.

As the Kompas and SMRC survey have revealed, the decline in electoral quality this year was primarily attributed to the violence that erupted in several areas of Jakarta in May. Such violence is uncommon: it can be said that such violence has been relatively absent since the first direct presidential election was held in 2004.

Referring to the riots as an indicator of the decline in quality during the 2019 election, voters generally consider that the quality of democracy would improve if no uproar or violence occurred – in the context of mafhum mukhalafah (antithetical understanding) as one of the rules of ushul fiqh (Islamic legislative process). A quality democracy is a democracy that is orderly and peaceful.

At this stage, the conversation must turn to the culture of democracy, which is not a new topic, but still relevant. French diplomat and political thinker Alexis Tocqueville (1805-1859), who studied the growth of American democracy, concluded that democratic culture was vital to the survival and sustainability of a democracy.

Tocqueville studied the internal conflicts among the main founders of democracy. These internal conflicts arose due to narcissistic tendencies towards overtaking power to dominate the political narrative, and can disrupt the democratic process.

Therefore, a democratic culture is necessary to act as a mediator against these narcissistic tendencies and excessive thirst for power that emerge among the elite. The culture of democracy centers on civic culture – a culture of citizenship and civic duty. In a civic culture, national leaders and the political elite have a relationship that is based on mutual trust and mutual respect.

Democracy can develop into an effective political system if the political elite and the people possess a strong civic culture. Only from a strong civic culture does public civility grow – a civilization that maintains order and peace. This is one of the toughest challenges of our democracy following the 2019 presidential election.

AZYUMARDI AZRA, Culture and Humanities professor, Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University