Mirage of Power

Power is alluring and dazzling. An over-confident leader tends to perpetuate power on the pretext of carrying out people’s will. This political mirage easily distorts the optical visibility of the rulers. Moreover, big data allows it to be a means of engineering citizens' aspirations.

Mirage is a phenomenon of optical illusion that occurs in a vast open land (desert) due to refraction of light, making a non-existent object look as if it existed. This vast land in the political specter is similar to big data which a power may easily distort to claim justification for legitimacy.

People can access any information from big data to substantiate their interests. Big data provides all forms of information including politics, opinion polls, economics, technology, business and education. Big data has various quantities, including data capacity, sources and activities with various data recording units, such as the time unit of year, month, week, hour and minute. Big data also has a variety of formats, in the form of structured data sets, text, numeric, video or audio. From big data, from the desert, people can say anything informative supported by data according to their interests.

Information is interpretation

Information is interpretation, or the result from an interpretation, while interpretation depends on the perspective, values, beliefs or interests of the reader. That is why political belief is often not based on objective facts. In the political realm, the Muller–Lyer illusion thrives, says J. Haidt.

This kind of illusion characterizes the post-truth political world as what Juan Antonio Llorente refers to as “a socio-political climate, in which objectivity and rationality give way to emotion or willingness to uphold belief, even though the facts show otherwise” (2017). People are only permissive to the information that concurs with their ideology. Despite being objective or rational, information will be rejected if it contradicts their beliefs.

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Such an illusion permeates the way of thinking of many individuals: they rely on intuitions instead of providing reasons for their actions. In fact, in assessing and solving a problem, two cognitive processes take place. First, "seeing that" -- when intuition directs reasoning, so that emotion overpowers cognition; and second, "thinking why" -- which is not automatic, meaning that it must be aware because it takes into account the meaning, motivation or purpose of the action (J Haidt, 2012).

It is possible that the recently raised idea of extending presidential office term is dominated by intuitive reasoning "seeing that" there are growing interests among a group of people. Such an illusion is born out of sluggishness in thinking because they are used to being pampered by facilities and comforts. This way of reasoning ignores critical thinking. In fact, to be critical, one must "think why" which directs political actions to take into account the goals, meanings and motivations of action so as to open up wider perspectives and interests. "Thinking why" is the starting point for political ethics.

Political predictability

According to Jean Paul Gustave Ricoeur, 1990, political ethics is an effort to live well together and for others in the framework of expanding the scope of freedom and building more just institutions. The extension of the president’s office term through amendments to the Constitution may be carried out in the name of "the expression of the people's political freedom", even though it is vulnerable to manipulation. The second objective of political ethics -- “to build more just institutions” -- is ignored. One form of a fair institution is Article 7 of the 1945 Constitution after the amendment, which says the president and vice president are allowed two office terms.

In essence, the amendment has been carried out with the spirit to respond to at least three issues. First, this nation will not repeat the dark history of power that tended to be authoritarian for too long.

Second, it prevents procedural justice from being ignored. People's aspirations can always be used as the pretext for retaining power in the name of democracy. However, regarding fairness in procedural justice, the one who divides should take their part in the last term. The planned extension of the office term through a constitutional amendment is a form of violation of political ethics because "the one who divides would take the first term".

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Third, the amendment ensures political predictability. This means that political parties and citizens are guaranteed to have the same opportunity to direct public policy without being haunted by the perpetuation of the power regime. With the opportunity for a regime change, the tendency of corrupt power is prevented. Abuse of power and conflicts of vested interest will be subject to sanctions from constituents and scrutiny by the next regime.

Political predictability is indicative of political ethics being respected because one of its functions is to guarantee the rationality of action. Action is said to be rational if the goal determines the choice of means. The goals to be achieved by the Indonesian people are prosperity, peace and justice. The choice of means is a democratic system.

Thus, in order to achieve its goals, democracy must ensure that freedom expands its scope and institutions serve more justly. Does not the amendment to the 1945 Constitution "the will of the people" mean that it is in accordance with the principles of democracy? "The will of the people" is put in quotation marks because it raises doubts: perhaps what happened was the process of confiscation of the people's sovereignty by the oligarchs.

Confiscated sovereignty

People's sovereignty should be reflected in the diversity of discourses that shape public opinion. They can recognize themselves as members of a community group that have more or less the same perspective, agree on the diagnostic of the problem (cause, responsibility and solution), and are involved in a collective effort. Thus, it is expected the citizens can develop competence to organize themselves and fight for their rights and the rights of fellow citizens.

Public opinion gives shape to citizens’ views. Personal views are usually rooted in the values of their political community (Brougidou, 2008: 14). Public opinion is very vulnerable to manipulation. In a democracy that is still vulnerable, people's sovereignty tends to be confiscated, with decision-making mechanism exclusively in the hands of a few people, namely party leaders, businessmen, bureaucrats and the media (oligarchy).

Characteristics of a country with vulnerable democracy: (i) leaders face political competition amid weak institutions; (ii) political parties have no roots, but only represent elite interests; and (iii) a corrupt justice system and a corruption-prone bureaucracy (Johnston, 2005). These three elements make politics full of risk and uncertainty. As a result, political predictability is low. “Political certainty” can only be guaranteed through money politics.

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Thus, cartel-elite (oligarchic) corruption is rampant because money is in high demand to: (i) influence public policy and deter or co-opt potential competitors; (ii) control economic power and avoid public policies from social and electoral pressures. In a political situation that is prone to conflicts of interest like that, we should not be easily tempted to change the existing democratic mechanism (two terms of president/vice president). Maybe it is not the president who wants it, but those who vest interest in his power.

To avoid growing unrest and speculation, it might be better if President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo firmly stated, "I will not postpone the election, nor will I serve as president for a third term." His statement that he would comply with the 1945 Constitution is considered indecisive and ambiguous.

KOMPAS/IWAS SETYAWAN

Haryatmoko

Haryatmoko, Member of Cultural Commission of Indonesian Academy of Sciences (AIPI) and lecturer at Sanata Dharma University

This article was translated byMusthofid.