Why populist figures in Indonesia
are being challenged to maneuver in a corrupt political system. This is a
critical inquiry prior to the legislative and presidential elections in
upcoming months. This question concerns the populist figures, current Jakarta
governor Joko Widodo and Surabaya mayor,Tri Rismaharini. Nationally, both figures
have a good and clean reputation, yet they have to face firm challenges from
what they have done so far. Two factors
hampering the performance of these outstanding leaders, namely the elites and the
oligarchs.
In this article, the phrase the “corrupt
political system” refers to a political system which has been dominated and
abused by a few powerful people or groups for their own interests. These people
consist of elites and oligarchs. I make a clear distinction between these two political
concepts. As Jeffrey Winters argues, elites are certain people or groups who
have highly concentrated power, such as coercive power, mobilizational power,
official or party position, which has been distributed in a highly exclusive
way. In contrast, oligarchs are those with significant fortunes who have been
attained from the accumulation of economic wealth.
Both elites and oligarchs can have
a similar interest in inhibiting potential challenges or radical demands that
may pose threats toward them. They can form a collective action through
political institution, such as a political party (Slater, 2010). In the case of
Joko Widodo, affectionately known as Jokowi, the party “detains” him to meet
public desire. Similarly, in Risma’s case, it is not only local parliament but
also her own party that has been dominated by businessmen and party elites to
take stand against her populist policies.
Party
& Oligarch Interests
Jokowi has been performing well to
manage Indonesia’s most populated city. In terms of tackling down the problem
of severe traffic in Jakarta, Jokowi has been battling the national government
regarding the cheap car policy. He prefers to improve the quality of public
transportation. Accordingly, Jokowi has turned down the intention of Vice-President
Budiono’s offer to sell a low cost green car to Jakarta’s residents. It was
widely believed that automobile businessmen were behind this proposal, targeting
Indonesia as a potential market for low-priced car.
Above all, the public are looking
forward to knowing whether he will run as the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle’s (PDIP) presidential candidate. The key, as nationally known, is in
the hands of Megawati, the PDIP’s chairwoman. Apparently, Megawati has not
given up the possibility of making her third bid to run as the party’s
candidate, even though this option is unlikely to increase party’s odds of winning
the election.
In the case of Risma, a
collaboration of the elite’s party and the oligarchs in parliament was a strong
challenge to her public service policies. For instance, as reported by the weekly
magazine, Tempo, three cases have
prompted Risma to step down as Surabaya’s mayor. The battle over the
construction of a toll road across Surabaya was the opening case. Instead of
this this project, Risma favored improving the city’s public
transportation. Following this,
Surabaya’s city council, supported by the PDIP attempted to oust her, but
failed. The rejection by PDIP and its oligarchs’ component continued, when Risma
wanted to raise the billboard advertising tax and further angered the city
council. In these two cases, the shared interest of businessmen and political
elites was obvious motivation behind the rejections. And the strong “punch” to
shake Risma’s position was the covert appointment of PDIP’s local head and
deputy speaker of the city council: Wisnu Sakti Buana as the new deputy mayor. This
decision instantly disappointed Risma, because she knew Wisnu was another
attempt to topple her from her position as mayor.
Populism
Challenges
Given these facts, the populist
figures have apparently been captured by the corrupt political system. On the
one hand, they are personality-based figures which differ from mass mobilizational
figures, such as Lula Da Silva and Evo Morales in Latin America. Indeed, the
cases of Latin America and Indonesia cannot be directly compared, due to their
different political and economic systems and societal characteristic. However, as
witnessed currently, the personality populist figures have been unable to block
political elites and oligarchs as has been done by mass-based figures in Latin
America. Lula and Morales could transform their societal support into populist
parties. Accordingly, they received full support to impose many populist
policies without getting strong resistance from parliament or their own parties.
In slightly contrast, Jokowi and Risma are
elites since they received official positions. Prior to their current
positions, these two prominent leaders emerged from the middle class. Jokowi
was a carpenter turned politician and Risma was a true-blue bureaucrat. They
had no mass political mobilization to challenge established political elites
and oligarchs. The only way they had was to enter well-established political party,
namely the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) to be eligible to run
for governmental positions.
There is a huge gap between elites
and grassroots in terms of building strong political influence. In the
Indonesia’s modern history, the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) had been
widely known for its intimate relationship with the grassroots. The masses could
be mobilized to support certain party policies whether in favor or against the government. However, since the Suharto took over the
government in 1966 and built his regime, Indonesian society has been distanced
from politics. The concept “floating mass” was widely disseminated by Ali
Murtopo, Suharto’s right-hand man. According to it, people would not play any
political role or organize any political organization and therefore they would
devote all their efforts to economic development. Since then, no populist
figures have arisen from the grassroots.
What we are seeing today on the Indonesian
political landscape are politician who have come from the middle class. On the
on hand, the emergence of populist figures is the answer of a deficient
political system. People for a long time have been neglected by the current
government, so they need figures to address their problems, creating condition ripe
for populism. On the other hand, these figures have no owned political-based
organization that can continually draw support from society to impose populist
policies. They must frequently abide by party’s rules. Occasionally, the
pro-people policies were at odds with the party interests. In this regard,
populist policies have to fall in line with the party’s instruction. So far,
Risma has been an obvious case of this pattern.
Electoral
Figures
Furthermore, populist figures in a corrupt
political system risk being used by other political parties. It has nationally
been known that certain parties, such as PAN, Democrat and Golkar were trying
to take Jokowi from PDIP and make him their own candidate. However, this move
was blocked by PDIP. Similarly, Risma if she steeps as Surabaya’s mayor,
Gerinda, Golkar, and even Democrat are willing to propose her as a strong
running-mate. They are still in the
circle of a corrupt political system. This is possible because they do not have
their own political organization. As Max Lane’s argues, Jokowi and also Risma
are electoral political figures (ISEAS, 2013). For these parties, Jokowi and
Risma are vote magnets which can increase the party image and support sufficiently
to win the election. This is a very pragmatic objective, yet it cannot guarantee
that in the future the party elites will not continue to threaten the
performance of these two leading populist figures.
By: Hipolitus Yolisandry Ringgi Wangge
Published in the Jakarta Post, March 5, 2014
Republished in the Eurasia Review, March 12, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment