The Indonesian people may not give up on hope and must continue to strive towards strengthening the institutions of democracy as a means of achieving their welfare.
By
J KRISTIADI
·5 minutes read
The nobleness of the voice of the people is highly respected as equal to divine power. The saying is that the people\'s voice is the voice of God (Vox Populi, Vox Dei).
The people\'s voice, to be rigorously upheld, is entrusted to public representatives and other state authorities. The people reward them with dignity, honor, and political authority, so power is managed for the sake of realizing collective prosperity. People place their fates and futures in them. The question is, why is the practice of democracy in Indonesia growing increasingly poor?
Over the last several months, criticism has escalated over democratic practices in the country. The trigger for the polemic was the removal of a mural presenting a likeness of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo with the wording, “404: Not Found” (Kompas, 18/8/2021).
Criticism has also come from The Economist (21/8/2021), that Indonesian democracy had been weakening during the Jokowi era. The LP3ES offers a lengthy assessment in the book, Nestapa Demokrasi di Masa Pandemi (Democratic misery in the pandemic period). A similar concern is voiced in Democratic Deconsolidation in Southeast Asia (Marcus Mietzner, 2021).
The voices of the domestic and international communities slanting towards upholding the people\'s sovereignty is very convincing because of the inherent virtue of democracy: the people have sovereignty, the right to correct democratic practices that deviate from the noble ideals.
Many countries respect democracy for these values. The people are free to correct their own mistakes through freedom of speech, individual opinions, and public debate to develop opinions in order to curb state administrators who abuse their power, among other means. The age of criticism was born with the very existence of democracy.
The classic answer to the above question is that upholding the people\'s sovereignty really requires a power manager who possesses the qualities of moral competence, leadership, knowledge, and excellent managerial skills.
The process of selecting a candidate for power is very complicated and requires persistence, firmness, and stamina to get a leader who serves the people. Therefore, the sovereignty of the people will not be realized just because of mere rhetorical or romantic speeches. Public negligence in choosing who will manage state power will cause suffering and misery for the people.
Meanwhile, rulers are also very skillful at seducing the people with grandiose words to anesthetize and seize the people\'s sovereignty. For example, rulers combine Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto (the people’s safety is the supreme law) with Princeps Legibus Solutus Est (but the king is not bound by law). The spell ensuring the people\'s safety is easily conquered by the words of the rulers.
Another aphorism is manunggaling kawula-gusti, union between the people and the king. However, because the king feels he has more authority and is more dignified than the people, the expression is distorted by an added clause: "It is the king who knows the will of the people." Through twisting words, the rulers hijack the people’s sovereignty. Regulations apply only to kawulo (common people), and not the rulers. Political adventurers are increasingly free to tear apart the order of power that glorifies humanity.
Dirty democracy is practiced, with waste produced by a political elite who are hungry for power, so that money politics and dynastic politics are rampant, the politicization of the bureaucracy runs out of control, corruption becomes endemic. Destructive practices are seen as commonplace because the perpetrators have become insensitive.
Saving the people\'s sovereignty
The formulaic pillars of universal democracy are equality, participation, and representation. All three are constitutive elements of absolute presence and embodiment. Democracy is also absolute in strengthening electoral institutions. Given that each country has its own uniqueness, democratic practices are obliged to adapt to the local context in terms of society, customs and culture. However, these three principles should not be compromised, let alone misused.
The swelling criticisms over democracy must be used as momentum to fundamentally reorganize the political order to fall in line with the principle of the people\'s sovereignty. Saving democracy starts from the institutions with the lowest public credibility. Political parties have always been loyal customers as champions of the lower class in terms of public trust, diametrically opposite to their prestige as pillars of democracy. Therefore, the priority in saving democracy is to encourage political parties to discover their identity as the powerful, physical gatekeepers of democracy, not just instruments for capital owners and political dealers to build their empire of power.
Civil society must also maintain and develop stamina in order to have excellent endurance, because the struggle to maintain sovereignty is a long and tiring one. The voice of the people will surely triumph in the struggle for power, because the voice of God always triumphs against the powers that rebel. The Indonesian people may not give up on hope and must continue to strive towards strengthening the institutions of democracy as a means of achieving their welfare.
J. KRISTIADI, Senior Researcher, Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)