Indonesian politics in 2010: the perils of stagnation

Abstract

In the first year after President Yudhoyono's re-election, Indonesian politics continued to evolve in largely familiar patterns. Contrary to the expectations of some observers, Yudhoyono's strong popular mandate and his Democratic Party's newly won parliamentary plurality did not result in significant changes to the president's cautious style of governing or the fickle nature of president–parliament relations. Most political parties also opted for continuity over change, electing or re-electing established figures as leaders despite high levels of public dissatisfaction with their performance. The fact that the 2009 election failed to generate any new momentum for reform does not augur well for the remainder of Yudhoyono's second term. Although the basic parameters of Indonesia's democracy remain intact, political developments during 2010 have also confirmed a pattern of stagnation that is likely to see Indonesia barely muddle through as a reasonably stable yet low-quality democracy.

Acknowledgements

This is a revised version of a paper presented to the 28th Indonesia Update conference, held at the Australian National University, Canberra, 24–25 September 2010. The author would like to thank Ed Aspinall, Marcus Mietzner, Ross McLeod and Andreas Ufen for valuable comments on an earlier draft.

Notes

¹SBY won 60.8% of the vote in the first round of the 2009 presidential election. A few months earlier, his Democratic Party had emerged victorious in the legislative elections, winning 148 out of 560 seats in parliament (20.9% of the vote); see Sukma (2009) for further details.

²See Diamond (2009) and Sherlock (2009) for two different arguments about why rainbow cabinets are counterproductive.

³PKS: Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (Prosperous Justice Party); PAN: Partai Amanat Nasional (National Mandate Party); PPP: Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (United Development Party); PKB: Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (National Awakening Party); Golkar: Partai Golongan Karya (Golkar Party).

⁴Selected parts of the following paragraphs on the Bank Century case are taken from Tomsa (2010b).

⁵For more background on the events leading up to the filing of the motion, see Patunru and Von Luebke (2010) and McLeod (2010).

⁶PDI–P: Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle); Hanura: Partai Hati Nurani Rakyat (People's Conscience Party); Gerindra: Partai Gerakan Rakyat Indonesia Raya (Greater Indonesia Movement Party).

⁷For details on the Lapindo mudflow disaster, see Thee and Negara (2010), in this issue.

⁸By contrast, the former owner of the bank, Robert Tantular, was convicted in September 2009 of corruption and various banking crimes that contributed to its failure (LaMoshi 2010). His initial four-year prison sentence was later extended to nine years by the Supreme Court.

⁹This recommendation was somewhat ironic, not only because most political observers regard Sri Mulyani as incorruptible, but also because the DPR had previously attempted to weaken the KPK on a number of occasions, for example, by delaying budget approvals and by watering down the wording of the 2009 Anti-corruption Court Law.

¹⁰According to Law 27/2009 on Legislative Bodies, parliament can only invoke its right to express an opinion that would pave the way for an impeachment process if it has the support of three-quarters of legislators at a plenary session. The president's PD currently controls 26% of the seats in the DPR.

¹¹Yudhoyono did, for example, act more decisively when he ensured his enduring influence in PD by not only maintaining his position as chair of the Advisory Council (Dewan Pembina), but also, and more importantly, becoming chair of the newly created High Council (Majelis Tinggi), which was given authority to make key decisions such as the nomination of the party's presidential candidate in 2014. SBY also demonstrated strength during recent reshuffles in the military when he promoted a number of generals who had served him in staff positions during his active time in the armed forces. Both moves helped the president to strengthen his grip over crucial bases of institutional support. However, they were hardly examples of leadership for the public good. (Thanks to Marcus Mietzner for his comments on these issues during the discussion of this paper at the Indonesia Update conference.)

¹²See, for example, comments by Burhanuddin Muhtadi, a political analyst at the Indonesian Survey Institute, or Ari Dwipayana from Gadjah Mada University (Siahaan 2010; Unjianto 2010).

¹³According to Transparency International Indonesia (2010), the proposal violated no less than six laws: Law 17/2003 on State Finance; Law 1/2004 on the State Treasury; Law 32/2004 on Regional Government; State Audit Law 15/2004; Law 33/2004 on the Financial Balance between the Centre and the Regions; and Law 27/2009 on the People's Consultative Assembly (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat), the DPR, the Regional Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Daerah) and the Regional People's Representative Councils (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah).

¹⁴To be precise, Wiranto ran only as vice-presidential candidate in 2009; for more details on the PDI–P congress see Aspinall (2010c).

¹⁵According to Barrett (2010), a session to discuss the ideological future of PD at the party's congress in Bandung attracted very little interest.

¹⁶In particular, the apparent decline in piety and modesty among top cadres has raised some serious concerns at grassroots level (Fealy 2009).

¹⁷Many respondents in the 2010 surveys refused to endorse any party, however, and ticked the ‘I don't know’ box. There is therefore scope for parties to pick up additional support from these undecided voters at the next election.

¹⁸During the diplomatic spat with Malaysia in August, for example, Yudhoyono was accused of being too soft on Indonesia's neighbour in a speech from military headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta (Simanjuntak 2010). In this case, the president was right to choose his words carefully and seek a quiet diplomatic solution, rather than further stir nationalist emotions on both sides.

¹⁹Classic examples of this were his dismissal from the Wahid administration in June 2001 and his dramatically orchestrated resignation from the Megawati cabinet in February 2004.

²⁰Further instances of this phenomenon include the implementation of internet censorship in the name of curbing moral degradation, and calls for the abolition of direct local elections.

²¹For a thorough discussion of the role played by non-government organisations in the fight against corruption in Indonesia, see Setiyono and McLeod (2010), in this issue.