Use anti-party sentiment to reform political parties Panji Anugrah Permana  ;  A lecturer in political science at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Indonesia and researching for his PhD at the Department of Political Science, Freiburg University, Germany

JAKARTA POST,  06 Januari 2015

                                                                                                                       

Political parties provide a pathway for politicians to govern and manage the country. They are also the only institutions that are allowed to compete for that position through regular elections. They bridge the government and the people. Thus, policies can be formulated and implemented according to the people’s will. So Indonesia should be expected to “love” political parties following its democratic experiments. However, there is a strong tendency that political parties only produce “bad” politicians who do not run political processes in favor of public interests. This article tries to explore where the tendency goes and to offer a possible route to ease — if not to cure — anti-party sentiment. Anti-party sentiment can be simply defined as a skeptical or distrustful standpoint toward political parties. Indonesia’s political trajectory shows consistency of anti-party sentiment. It has existed both in authoritarian and democratic regimes. However, the term has shifted from being referred to as “a disease” in the Sukarno era, “a rubber stamp of authoritarianism” in the Soeharto era, to “oligarchic or cartelistic institutions” in the post-New Order period. Currently political parties are often seen as dysfunctional, ruled by persons with strong financial resources and representing more the interests of their elites. In the 1950s, first president Sukarno stated political parties were a “disease” contributing to national disunity. He criticized the 1945 decree that encouraged the establishing of parties, which had led to a multi-party system in Indonesia. The rise and fall of the Cabinet during this period resulted in an ineffective government and economic stagnation. Due to such conditions, Sukarno delivered a speech calling on the nation “to bury political parties”. The New Order regime had also perpetuated anti-party sentiment in a different way. At the beginning, the regime did not define Golkar as a political party, yet a kelompok kekaryaan (functional group). According to the scholar Leo Suryadinata, this symbolization can be seen as “a reaction toward political parties in the past which were seen as a source of political disorder and economic bankruptcy”. Efforts to disseminate the anti-party sentiment during the Soeharto era were tenacious. Political parties were dwarfed into three; a “floating mass” policy was announced in which the political parties could only open their offices up to the regency level. This policy was known as mass de-politicization where political parties could not penetrate the grassroots level. As a consequence, political parties only acted as a “rubber stamp” of the authoritarian rule. The euphoria of party establishments in the early transition following the New Order did not last long. The public started to criticize the political parties as dysfunctional and oligarchic. Moreover, internal party reform was stagnant and many politicians were involved in corruption. What makes the current situation different is that society has taken a greater role in propagating anti-party sentiment. However, distrust toward political parties has resulted in an ambiguous attitude. On the one hand, civil society has mistrusted the effort for party reform such as in the issue of party financing. The former perceives that state funds will only strengthen cartelization of political parties. On the other hand, the takeover of political parties by capital holders was lambasted. Anti-party sentiment has moved from state to society. Recent expression on anti-party sentiment could be seen during the recruitment of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo‘s Cabinet members. Activists criticized the capacity and accountability of party politicians and reminded people to control their performance. In the previous government, some party politicians were suspected of corruption by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). Most were ministers, party elites and legislators. In addition, ministers from political parties were perceived as incapable and lacking in managerial skills. Responding to this situation, the new regime has introduced a new political lexicon that sounds a bit oxymoronic: “party professionals”. This term can be interpreted as concealing the fact that party politicians are generally unprofessional. Would anti-party sentiment become an effective path to party reform? It is difficult to answer the question, but undoubtedly that critique toward political parties could not be restricted only by identifying their weaknesses. More important is to propose a blueprint for systemic and gradual party reform. In the same manner, political parties must be aware that they will be left by their constituents if they are persistently unwilling to reform themselves. Reform can be started by intensively discussing (again) some fundamental but unresolved issues such as party financing, recruitment systems, management and organization, platforms of political parties and party-society linkages. The objective is to develop party institutionalization and a stronger sense of the importance of political parties in society. All democrats should move forward: after agitating over political parties for decades, they should strengthen them. This should be a concern for all democratic elements to establish a better quality of Indonesian democracy. ●