How far did money affect the election? Pandu Rachmatika  ;   The writer, a political analyst, graduated from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand and the Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University, South Korea. He is a scholar at Sogang University, South Korea

JAKARTA POST, 29 Agustus 2014

                                                                                                                       

The world third-largest democracy has chosen Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Jusuf Kalla (JK) as its new leaders for the next five years. A slim 6 percent margin gave them just enough legitimacy over rivals Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa. Some are now debating how presidential ticket number two, Jokowi-JK, finally won the fiercely contested battle. On July 19, when both tickets reported their campaign budgets to the General Elections Commission (KPU), it was made public that Jokowi-JK had a far bigger budget than Prabowo-Hatta. The amount was almost double, reaching Rp 311 billion (US$26.6 million) compared to Prabowo-Hatta’s Rp 166 billion. Some speculated that the Jokowi side played a dirtier money game than its rival. This is quite plausible, but facts and supporting studies on political campaigns suggest otherwise. Among the first studies on the impact of money on democracy was by Gary C. Jacobson in 1978. He took samples from American congressional election cases prior to 1978 and concluded that “money has more substantial impacts to the challengers rather than to incumbents”. It is because the challenger — being a rookie — needs more money to introduce himself to voters. However, newer findings by political scientists like Don Green (1988), Alan Gerber (1998) and Andrew Therriault (2011) argue that money also holds important roles in an incumbent’s campaign. Particularly when the challenger has tremendous popularity, the incumbent is forced to spend more to ensure victory through various methods. But it is still hard to conclude that cash guaranteed the outcome of our 2014 presidential election. It is because both candidate pairs were actually neither challengers nor incumbents — either formally or psychologically. Prabowo could be best defined as a challenger, but in people’s minds he was a “virtual incumbent”, having run as a candidate in 2009 and being well-known since the early 1990s during his military career. Besides, the two previous direct presidential elections in 2004 and 2009 showed that the winners always spent much less money regardless of their status. In 2004 as challengers, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-JK spent only Rp 71 billion while incumbents Megawati Soekarnoputri-Hasyim Muzadi spent Rp 104 billion. And in 2009 but as the incumbent, Yudhoyono’s landslide victory cost Rp 230 billion, much more than when he was challenger, but still lower than the spending of Megawati-Prabowo at Rp 260 billion. Another problem of concluding that the highest spending determined the presidential election outcome is that the Prabowo camp reported only Rp 166 billion in spending, which appeared rather low compared to the intensity and magnitude of its campaign — which started straight after his defeat when he paired up with Megawati for the 2009 election.  Second, the Prabowo’s spending was 38 percent less than in 2009 when he ran as vice president even though this time he was supported by richer business magnates — besides his brother Hashim Djojohadikusumo, there was Hatta himself, media tycoon Hary Tanoesoedibjo and, more importantly, Aburizal Bakrie and his wealthy Golkar Party colleagues. Third, the slim amount stated in Prabowo’s campaign report did not disclose detailed sources of the funds. This low data reliability makes it even harder to be really certain of the impact money had on the results of the presidential election. To reduce the uncertainties, let us assume that campaign budget reports filed with the KPU were all true and correct, and that the winning candidates indeed had more money. But as Therriault of Vanderbilt University argues, just like voters, “donors and sponsors are attracted to not just high-quality but also to winning candidates.” Looking at the approval ratings of both candidates since September 2013 until July 2014, according to several pollsters, Jokowi-JK ratings were indeed decreasing but were at no time surpassed by Prabowo-Hatta, meaning they were ahead during the whole campaign period. So it is only natural that donors were more attracted to splurging on the Jokowi camp. However, that is not to say that the pair needed all that money to win. While further research is needed on the matter, for now it is probably wiser to say that money appears to be somewhat useful in political campaigns but has wide variation regarding its effectiveness. In some cases it helps a lot, in some cases it helps very little and sometimes it is counterproductive to a candidate’s efforts. There must be also other major aspects besides the big war chest that could determine the final outcome of an election. Such aspects are given political situations and especially a candidate’s personal qualities. In the future, the KPU needs to formulate stricter rules regarding campaign budget reports to ensure that the data submitted are all accurate, so the public can clearly examine to what extent money affects the democratic process. Nevertheless, former US senator Mark Hanna long ago reminded us that “there are only two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I cannot remember the second.” ●