Democracy and participation in Indonesia Wirya Adiwena  ;   An open government enthusiast; An alumni of the Center of the Study of Social and Global Justice, University of Nottingham, UK

JAKARTA POST, 28 Agustus 2014

                                                                                                                       

It is a good time to be young in Indonesia. Indonesian youths have good reasons to be optimistic about facing the coming years, despite challenges that we still need to face — from adapting to the imminent ASEAN Economic Community to rising inequalities within the country. However, Indonesian youths are starting to be better equipped to tackle such issues in a democratic manner. More and more of us are becoming well educated and qualified, as well as — perhaps more importantly — willing to actively participate in our democracy. One important indication is the increasing use of IT by Indonesian youths to navigate Indonesia’s politics. There were at least two interesting developments regarding the use of IT in the past two elections. First, the legislative election showed the rise of an online repository of candidates’ track records. Some even had rudimentary scoring systems to help voters decide which politicians to vote for. Second was the rise of kawalpemilu.org, which can be inconveniently described as an online election watchdog and activist site dedicated to monitoring vote counting, to deter possible tampering with the result. An estimate showed hundreds of volunteers participated from across Indonesia. While the catalogue of candidates itself was impressive, the information about the candidates’ experiences and qualifications was not as complete as it could have been. The problem lies in the quality of data about candidates that is readily accessible. Indeed, comprehensive information about the candidates is very hard to find, so that not only is thorough information about new legislative hopefuls difficult to come by, data about the incumbents and all of their successes and failures is also incomplete. Therefore, votes resulting from online deliberations remain a combination of hits and misses. However, the second development is quite a success in terms of achieving its desired outcome: Ensuring that the final data announced by the General Elections Commission (KPU) matched that collected at local voting booths. Some observers have correctly pointed out that this was made possible because of the number of people willing to sacrifice their time to do the grueling work of monitoring the number of votes. However, let us not forget that if the KPU decided not to upload the data in the first place, such voluntarism would not have occurred. Again, this shows the importance of having reliable and accessible data. Online activism might be the answer for better interaction between the government or the legislature and the people. To this end, it is important to facilitate this development by encouraging greater and better participation. Both the government and the legislature should therefore open up more relevant data. Imagine if the number of meetings attended by our lawmakers was published. The public could know which meetings and which issues were considered important by which representatives. We could also know which candidates were free riders so that we could mercilessly bully them on Twitter. (Or, to be more politically appropriate, stop them from being re-elected.) Also, imagine if data on the legislation supported by each representative and political party was available. We would actually know the policies that they stood for or against. The burden of making this data available to public should not rest only on the shoulders of activists. Since the source of the data is not from them — with the notable exception of WikiLeaks — they should only make data presentable and able to be read by the layperson. It is the duty of the government and the legislature to make relevant data publicly accessible. The data should also be able to be collected easily to ensure an efficient transfer of information. This means that the uploaded data should not simply be multiple scans of paper copies, but ones that can be digitally and quickly collected — for ease of access by activists. Finally, although such use of IT in our political lives is truly a welcome development, it is not a cure for all of the problems within our democracy. It is a tool that could pave the way for the public to have a more meaningful engagement with the political elites. Who knows, it might even be a door for a government that can deliver tangible answers to even the strongest critique. ●