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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20
INDONESIAN POLITICS IN 2006: STABILITY,
COMPROMISE AND SHIFTING CONTESTS OVER
IDEOLOGY
Rodd McGibbon
To cite this article: Rodd McGibbon (2006) INDONESIAN POLITICS IN 2006: STABILITY,
COMPROMISE AND SHIFTING CONTESTS OVER IDEOLOGY, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic
Studies, 42:3, 321-340, DOI: 10.1080/00074910601053201
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074910601053201
Published online: 23 Nov 2006.
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Date: 18 January 2016, At: 21:43
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3, 2006: 321–40
INDONESIAN POLITICS IN 2006:
STABILITY, COMPROMISE AND
SHIFTING CONTESTS OVER IDEOLOGY
Rodd McGibbon*
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Australian National University
The second year of President Yudhoyono’s term in office was distinguished by continuing political stability and important democratic gains, including the continued
implementation of direct elections of local government executives and the enactment of the Law on Governing Aceh. But if these achievements reconfirmed Indonesia’s membership of the club of electoral democracies, the shallow roots of its
democratic system were also apparent, especially in the weakness of the political
party system. In preferring pragmatic cross-party deal making, the parties often
played down their ideological commitments. Within society, however, ideological
debates over the vexed issue of religion and the state intensified, and became an important part of the national political agenda. Amounting to an Indonesian version
of the ‘culture wars’, such controversies were sparked by concerns that a proposed
national bill on pornography and controversial regional by-laws were an indirect
attempt to introduce Islamic law.
THE SBY PRESIDENCY: BALANCING REFORM AND STABILITY
The victory of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) in the 2004 presidential elections against a coalition of the country’s largest parties represented a triumph
of personality, image and popular choice over machine politics and the power
of party bosses (Aspinall 2005). Yudhoyono’s tilt at the presidency was boosted
when he was unceremoniously dumped from the cabinet of then president Megawati Soekarnoputri, arousing public sympathy for the former security and politics minister and reinforcing popular perceptions of Megawati as an out-of-touch
leader. During what was Indonesia’s first ever direct election of its president,
Yudhoyono was able to project himself as being both a comforting authority figure and a reformer who would tackle the main economic and political challenges
facing Indonesians. This was a virtuous combination for an electorate that had
endured over six years of weak government, economic hardship and far-reaching
political change.
* This is a revised version of a paper presented to the 24th Indonesia Update conference,
Canberra, 22–23 September 2006. I would like to acknowledge insightful comments by Anies
Baswedan, who served as discussant for the paper. The article also benefited from comments
and suggestions by Ed Aspinall, Harold Crouch, Greg Fealy and Marcus Mietzner.
ISSN 0007-4918 print/ISSN 1472-7234 online/06/030321-20
DOI: 10.1080/00074910601053201
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But unlike his predecessors, Yudhoyono lacked a political base, having won
the presidency in a direct appeal to the electorate. Previous presidents Megawati
and Abdurrahman Wahid had natural constituencies deriving from Indonesia’s
deeply rooted traditions of secular nationalism and traditional Islam, respectively.
Yudhoyono’s appeal, on the other hand, came from the popular expectations that
he had generated during his campaign of being able to improve security and
boost the economy.
Although the handsome majority he received from voters gave Yudhoyono
a strong popular mandate, he also recognised that the government would risk
instability by alienating the large parties. The government’s legislative program
could be subverted by a hostile legislature, while the executive’s control over the
bureaucracy, particularly in the regions, might be challenged in the absence of
significant party backing. As a result, Yudhoyono’s government accommodated
all major parties except that of former president Megawati (the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, PDI-P), which became the chief opposition party. Following the pattern established by his predecessors, Yudhoyono formed a ‘rainbow
cabinet’ that was intended to neutralise party opposition by distributing cabinet posts and opening access to state resources across the party system. These
arrangements meant that the government was faced with a delicate balancing act
between the competing priorities of reform—particularly the need to boost economic growth—and the maintenance of political stability by accommodating the
parties and key interest groups.
Yudhoyono’s presidency was also defined by his naturally cautious political
instincts. The methodical manner in which he went about making decisions was
calculated to alienate as few constituencies and organised interests as possible. He
intervened in political struggles only when he absolutely had to (as in the case of
the fuel price hikes) or if he was confident of a positive outcome (as in the Aceh
peace process).
These defining features of the SBY presidency resulted in a strong tendency
for the government to engage in political compromise and prefer stability over
unsettling political and economic change. This orientation complicated reform
efforts, particularly on the economic front, as party interests sought compromises
on government policy or opposed the government’s reform agenda (Basri and
Patunru 2006). Slow progress on the investment law, the government’s initial mishandling of the long-running Cemex–PT Semen Gresik case,1 and the government
backdown on introducing a substantially revised draft labour law to parliament
were all examples of the way economic reforms were being slowed, challenged or
complicated by political interests both inside the parliament and outside among
key interest groups (Manning and Roesad 2006). Furthermore, the appointment of
cabinet ministers on the basis of the party they belonged to rather than merit had
not only reduced the quality of the cabinet, but introduced competing political
1 Mexican firm Cemex had hoped to sell its stake in the previously state-owned cement
producer, PT Semen Gresik, to private investors, but this move was initially blocked by
Sugiharto, the minister for state owned enterprises. Cemex wanted to divest its shares
because of its failure to gain majority control of the company—a result of bitter opposition
from regional interests opposed to the central government’s attempt to privatise Semen
Gresik. The government finally approved the divestment in July 2006.
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agendas into government decision making. Criticisms of the government’s rice
import policy, for instance, were fuelled by the government’s own agriculture
minister, who initially publicly opposed the policy.
But if the government’s economic reform agenda was complicated by competing interests, its ability to forge political stability still represented an important
achievement.
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The main bases of political stability
Executive–legislature relations. While cabinet posts gave Yudhoyono the means
to co-opt the parties into his government, it was Vice President Jusuf Kalla’s
election as chair of the largest party in parliament (the DPR) in December 2004
that cemented the government’s political base. As Golkar party chair, Kalla had
gradually consolidated his position throughout 2005, and was able to ensure that
Golkar became a key supporter of government policy. With Golkar support added
to its backing from smaller parties, the government essentially enjoyed majority
support in the DPR. In 2006 this political base allowed the government to push
through key legislation, such as the Law on Governing Aceh (addressed in more
detail below), and to prevent moves to censure it over several controversial policies, such as the one allowing rice imports.
Although these political arrangements provided stability, the government could
not afford to take them for granted. By mid-2006, calls for a cabinet reshuffle had
become increasingly insistent. The Prosperity and Justice Party (PKS), a small but
rapidly rising Islamic party, canvassed the option of pulling out of the government due to frustrations over the slow progress on reform and criticism from its
own ranks of the party’s support for unpopular government policies. PKS leaders
faced criticism for supporting the government’s decision to cut fuel subsidies in
late 2005, for example. This decision also prompted questions in Golkar about its
support for the government. By August 2006 Golkar executives were expressing
strong misgivings about having to defend the record of the government when
the president himself was unwilling to push through and defend difficult decisions. As one executive put it, ‘Jusuf Kalla is more policy oriented and he wants
to move quickly on policies that are required, but when he goes out in front to
promote these unpopular issues, Golkar gets whacked, while the president says
nothing’.2
But while it was clear that key parties in the cabinet were becoming highly
critical of Yudhoyono’s leadership, there were few signs that they were willing to
abandon lucrative posts in cabinet to be relegated to opposition party status in the
legislature. The critical statements of the parties therefore appeared to relate more
to political posturing as speculation mounted about a cabinet reshuffle.
The Yudhoyono–Kalla partnership. While party support constituted one element of the government’s political base, another was the working relationship
between the president and vice president. The powerful position and active role
that Kalla had managed to carve out for himself, as well as the radically different
approaches of Yudhoyono and Kalla, generated speculation throughout the year
about possible rivalry between the two men. Kalla’s hands-on approach to policy
was portrayed by the media and advisers close to the president as an attempt
2 Interview with Golkar central board executive, Jakarta, 17 August 2006.
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to position himself to run for the presidency in 2009. Golkar executives, on the
other hand, complained about the ‘obsession’ of the Yudhoyono camp with the
2009 election and the ‘paranoia’ of the president’s core circle of advisers regarding
Golkar.3
Amid mutual suspicions between the two camps, however, the two leaders continued to forge a strong partnership, with each bringing complementary strengths
to the relationship.4 In contrast to Yudhoyono’s quintessentially Javanese reserve
and formality, which allowed him to project an image of authority, the less formal
style of Kalla, a Buginese from South Sulawesi, appealed to a constituency outside
Java. Where Kalla the entrepreneur engaged in problem solving and deal making,
Yudhoyono presented himself as a presidential figure and a symbol of unity above
the political fray. Where Kalla brought crucial party support to the government,
retired general Yudhoyono was able to secure the backing of the security forces.
Moreover, despite popular perceptions that Kalla was operating independently
as vice president, there was clear evidence that the two jointly planned and coordinated the policies that were to become the government’s most important breakthroughs. This was clear from accounts of the Aceh peace process, for example
(Morfitt 2006). Thus, whatever machinations may have been taking place behind
the scenes to prepare for the 2009 elections, both men continued to have a clear
interest in maintaining what had been a highly successful partnership.
The government’s clean image and anti-corruption measures. The government’s
position was also buttressed by the fact that it had a relatively clean reputation—a
factor militating against stronger opposition from the parties. It was not that the
government was scandal free. In February–March 2006, a cabinet secretary and
close confidant of the president, Sudi Silalahi, was caught up in an influencepeddling scandal that garnered media attention for weeks. In another move that
raised questions, the president was alleged to have had a meeting with a group
of businessmen involved in the massive Bank Indonesia liquidity credit scandal,
with a strong suggestion of impropriety. Reports of these affairs suggested that
the Yudhoyono camp was not averse to doing questionable deals with the corporate world. But the campaign by Yudhoyono’s opponents to present the government as tainted failed to gather much traction. One reason for this was that
Yudhoyono was widely viewed as ‘Mr Clean’, as he had remained free of any hint
of corruption during a long career as a military officer and government minister.
The other factor that favoured the government was that, whatever impropriety
was involved in these affairs, they paled in comparison to the scandals that had
engulfed previous governments.
Yudhoyono’s anti-corruption campaign also played a role in reinforcing impressions of a government that was committed to avoiding the corrupt practices of its
predecessors. The anti-corruption drive was certainly impressive when considered against the inaction of Yudhoyono’s predecessors in the face of what was
widely regarded as a pervasive culture of corruption that had corroded public
institutions. As a result of its campaign, the government claimed to have netted at least seven governors, 63 district heads and 13 members of the national
3 Interview with Golkar central board executive, Jakarta, 17 August 2006.
4 For an extended discussion of the ‘duumvirate’ forged between the president and vice
president, see Liddle (2005).
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legislature, who either had been arrested or were under investigation, while military generals and senior police officers were also put under investigation (Mallarangeng 2006).
Unsurprisingly, however, the government’s anti-corruption drive failed to touch
entrenched interests at the centre of power. This was consistent with the politics of
compromise that the government had adopted in its first two years in office, during which it not only forged stability by accommodating a wide array of political
interests, but also adopted a cautious, qualified approach to reform, eschewing
radical and potentially unsettling political and economic change. Several wellknown ministers became the subject of media speculation about corrupt activities
in 2006, most notably the justice and human rights minister, Hamid Awaluddin.
But the anti-corruption drive engulfing less powerful and less well-connected
politicians and officials appeared not to extend to the government’s own cabinet.
Furthermore, the business interests of the families of Aburizal Bakrie and Jusuf
Kalla, and of the notorious, military-linked Tomy Winata, were largely viewed as
untouchable. The attorney general’s controversial move to drop criminal charges
against Soeharto and redirect the efforts of his office to seeking a return of the
former president’s ill-gotten wealth appeared as a sideshow in light of the inaction against politically connected business interests positioned close to contemporary power holders.
Nevertheless the government’s corruption effort continued to receive popular support, and helped bolster its public image. The anti-corruption campaign,
which had netted officials and politicians across the political spectrum, represented a promising initiative, especially when considered against the decades of
impunity that corruptors had enjoyed. But such efforts did little to challenge the
systems of patronage and collusion that were entrenched at the centre of power.
Presidential authority over the armed forces. President Yudhoyono’s growing authority over the armed forces was another important element in maintaining stability.
The government faced none of the controversies over potential military insubordination that had plagued the civil–military relations of earlier governments. While
Megawati had also developed good relations with the military, she had done so by
abandoning any pretence of supremacy over it, and by giving it a relatively free
hand—particularly on security policy (Crouch 2003; Jones 2004). In contrast, Yudhoyono actively sought to impose his authority from the earliest days of his presidency.
He rejected his predecessor’s nomination for armed forces commander, Ryamizard
Ryacudu, an officer close to Megawati with a reputation as a hardliner. This move
was central to Yudhoyono’s strategy of ensuring army (TNI) support for the Aceh
peace agreement brokered in August 2005 (Morfitt 2006). While Yudhoyono’s rejection of Ryamizard’s nomination led to a protracted stand-off with the legislature,
the president was eventually able to ease Ryamizard into a powerless post in TNI
headquarters. At the same time he maintained the incumbent commander, Endriartono Sutarto—an officer who had gained the trust of Yudhoyono—in this position
until the end of 2005, when he was able to appoint an officer loyal to him from
the air force, Djoko Suyanto, as the new TNI commander (Tempo, 24–30/1/2006).
Another ally, former adjutant Djoko Santoso, was appointed to the army’s top post,
positioning him to take over from the older Suyanto, who was expected to retire
in two years. Yudhoyono’s ability to ease out hardline officers and appoint trusted
officers to senior posts reinforced his reputation as a methodical and calculating
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political leader. Having rung these changes at the end of 2005, Yudhoyono enjoyed
growing authority over the military in 2006.
Yudhoyono’s sway over the armed forces was no doubt aided by the fact that
his graduating class at military college had come of age in recent years, pushing up into the most senior levels of the security forces (Tempo, 7–13/2/2006).
Yudhoyono, who had been class president and was also the chair of his graduating class’s alumni association, had always been widely accepted as a leader
of his generation. Rarely had the top posts in the military been dominated by a
single year’s graduating class to the extent they now were. In 2006, the class of
1973 boasted not only the country’s president, but its armed forces commander,
national police chief, head of navy, and five out of 12 regional area army commanders (Tempo, 7–13/2/2006). In addition, the president’s own relatives were
appointed to new positions, including his brother-in-law to the important post of
strategic reserve commander.
DEMOCRATIC GAINS
While the dictates of political stability often complicated government efforts to
pursue reform, there were nevertheless some important breakthroughs in 2006 in
consolidating democratic institutions. They included the enactment of the Law
on Governing Aceh and the successful implementation of direct elections of local
executives.
The Law on Governing Aceh
The DPR deliberated a bill on the governance of Aceh in the early months of 2006.
The bill had been drafted by Acehnese provincial legislators after widespread community consultation. It represented the main outcome of the successful implementation of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between the government
and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Helsinki on 15 August 2006. The main provisions of the MOU were translated into concrete concessions and a new framework
for governing Aceh through the drafting of the bill. The major concessions to GAM
were increased revenue transfers to the province and a provision allowing local
political parties to contest elections. The latter was arguably the most far-reaching
provision for national leaders, who were determined to maintain Indonesia’s unitary state and had steadfastly refused to grant the same provision to other regions
(where parties fielding candidates must meet national coverage requirements).
Although deliberations on the bill were fast-tracked, given the importance
of the legislation, it nevertheless provoked spirited debate from party factions
in the DPR.5 In this debate, the DPR’s two largest parties lined up against each
other, with Golkar supporting the government position and PDI-P opposing it.
With the government’s prestige on the line, Jusuf Kalla exerted his authority
within Golkar to ensure that the party shepherded the draft through the DPR.
For its part, PDI-P expressed reservations about the law’s potential to weaken
national unity and the underpinnings of the unitary state.
5 My account of the deliberations in the DPR is based on insights from Bivitri Susanti of the
legal institute PSHK (Pusat Studi Hukum dan Kebijakan), which monitored the process and
provided technical assistance to the party factions (interview, Jakarta, 13 August 2006).
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Two points of contention that reflected the nature of the debate concerned the
name of the law and the obligation of the central government to obtain approval
from the province before introducing policies that had an impact on Aceh. On
the first point, PDI-P objected to the law’s reference to ‘the government of Aceh’
and suggested that this be replaced with the ‘special region of Aceh’ to emphasise
that the province remained part of Indonesia’s unitary state. On the second point,
PDI-P insisted that the central government should only have to ‘consult’ with the
province and not ‘seek approval’ from it for policies and laws with an impact on
Aceh. While Golkar stressed the importance of the Aceh peace process, PDI-P
emphasised the need to safeguard the unitary state against the threat of disintegration.
Desperate to achieve a breakthrough, the government offered several concessions to PDI-P. As a result PDI-P dropped its insistence on the name change—a
largely symbolic objection—as well as some other demands, in return for the
central government having only to ‘consult’ with the province, and not seek its
approval, in adopting policies that impacted on Aceh. While conceding a largely
symbolic point, therefore, PDI-P won the more substantive debate. This latter concession, strictly speaking, was a departure from the Helsinki MOU upon which
the law was supposed to be based. In addition, in its final form the law included
a general repressive clause in which the home affairs ministry had the authority
to annul provincial regulations if it deemed them not to be in the ‘public interest’,
a common principle in Indonesian law but one that had far-reaching implications
for the form of self-government being granted to the province. These clauses certainly disabused advocates of federalism of any notion that the Aceh law would
open the way for a federal system of government.
Having reached this compromise, all political factions in the DPR endorsed the
law, and it passed the legislature on 12 July 2006. The law granted many of the
same concessions contained in the 2001 special autonomy law for Aceh. These
included permission to implement shari’a (Islamic) law, subject to supreme court
review. Several key additional concessions negotiated in Helsinki were enacted in
the new law, namely the joint management of Aceh’s oil and gas resources by the
provincial and central governments; provision for the establishment of an ad hoc
human rights tribunal; generous revenue transfer arrangements to the province
for the next 20 years; provision for the formation of local political parties that
would be allowed to contest local and national elections from 2009 onwards; and
direct elections of local executives that would permit independent candidates to
run in the upcoming electoral cycle.
While the compromise forged in the final version of the law largely satisfied national political factions, the law met with strong protests in Aceh. While
GAM was careful not to reject the law outright, NGOs such as the Aceh Referendum Information Centre (SIRA), which had close ties to GAM, did reject it and
threatened mass protests, while also threatening to submit a request for the constitutional court to review the case (Kompas, 13/7/2006). For its part, GAM was
critical of a number of provisions that ‘deviated from the MOU’ (JP, 8/8/2006),
in particular the way in which the central bureaucracy retained its policy-making
authority over Aceh, as reflected in the provisions discussed above. As a result,
GAM spokesmen called for a revision of the law to ensure that it complied with
the Helsinki MOU, lodging a formal request with the Aceh Monitoring Mission
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(AMM), the joint EU–ASEAN group monitoring the peace agreement. The clause
about ‘consulting’ with the province was the most contentious for GAM. Moreover, GAM was disappointed that the law did not explicitly limit troop levels in the
province, and that the ad hoc human rights tribunal was explicitly limited to cases
occurring after the law came into effect. From 13 to 16 August, in celebrations
marking the signing of the MOU, SIRA led peaceful demonstrations that saw tens
of thousands of Acehnese descend on the provincial capital of Banda Aceh to protest against the law (Kompas, 14/8/2006, 18/8/2006).
These protests were short-lived, as both the government and AMM rejected
demands that the law be amended as both unrealistic and unnecessary. AMM had
little other option, as it could do nothing to intervene in the deliberations of Indonesia’s sovereign legislature, and also realised that a rejection of the law by GAM
would likely result in a deadlock and the possible collapse of the peace process. As
a result, the head of AMM, Pieter Feith, made it clear in late July that GAM must
accept the democratic processes that had produced the law. He also declared that
the general spirit of the law was consistent with the Helsinki MOU, adding, however, that future government policies or regulations should address shortcomings
in the law (Kompas, 24/7/2006). Such qualifications merely highlighted the fact
that the final law had departed from some of the more far-reaching concessions
contained in the MOU. Facing pressure from the government and AMM to accept
the law, GAM agreed to suspend its public objections, although privately remaining very critical. This decision represented another major concession by GAM to
advance peace in the province, and a further indication that it remained strongly
committed to the process. The government, for its part, heralded the enactment of
the Law on Governing Aceh as a major breakthrough. It certainly represented the
most important political triumph for the government in 2006.
With the law setting the main framework for governance in the province, provincial authorities and community leaders, including GAM, faced the daunting
challenge of drafting some 100 implementing regulations of the law, virtually all
of which were provincial regulations (qanun). The most immediate task was the
implementation of elections throughout Aceh for provincial and district-level
executives, scheduled for 11 December 2006. The elections would determine the
governorship as well as the leadership of Aceh’s districts and municipalities.
GAM had announced that its members could run, but that it would not officially
be fielding candidates. While GAM figures hardly dominated the lists of candidates, several notable leaders did announce their candidature—including GAM
spokesman Irwandi for the position of governor, with Mohammad Nazar, the
head of SIRA, as his running mate.
While the new law provided an unprecedented opportunity to secure the peace
in Aceh, other developments indicated that this process might not be all smooth
sailing. The program to integrate ex-combatants into society failed to fulfil expectations among former GAM soldiers, and became a point of contention within the
organisation as a gap appeared to open up between GAM leaders and the rank
and file. Moreover, the reconstruction process following the 2004 tsunami that had
devastated so much of Aceh’s coastline was proceeding more slowly than hoped.
The quality of housing built by NGOs was one major problem, reflected in the low
occupancy rates for new houses. This represented a serious embarrassment for
the authorities, as it raised the issue of why supervision of construction standards
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had not been properly carried out (Kompas, 25/7/2006). Even more troubling
were the serious allegations of corruption levelled at BRR (Badan Rehabilitasi dan
Rekonstruksi NAD–Nias), the central government agency in charge of the Aceh
and Nias reconstruction effort (Kompas, 22/4/2006).
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Local elections and party politics
Direct elections for local government executives were launched in June 2005, and
continued in regions throughout Indonesia in 2006. By the end of 2006 approximately 60% of all local governments had been elected directly. The elections,
representing the first time that Indonesians had directly chosen their own local
officials, complemented the successful implementation of direct presidential elections in 2004.
This constituted a significant breakthrough in deepening Indonesia’s fledgling democracy. Previously, the national and local legislatures had elected government executives. This arrangement was widely believed to have promoted
entrenched oligarchic interests in the political system. The tendency for legislators to elect bureaucrats and businessmen with links to the New Order, both at the
national and local level, confirmed these suspicions (Malley 2003) as did reports
that ‘money politics’ was rampant. This phrase had become popular to describe
how the executive, or candidates for the executive, engaged in vote buying in the
legislature to ensure election to office, or political support from the parties once
they were in power. There were widespread reports of executives paying parties
to ensure that the government’s annual accountability report was approved, or
that budget bills and other draft laws were passed by the legislature. In this way,
the legislature had become an extension of the patronage network that operated
among the elite, involving a complex web of relationships between the executive,
bureaucracy and legislature. Such problems led to a groundswell of support for
direct elections of executives, which brought Yudhoyono to power as well as new
bupati (district heads), walikota (mayors) and governors.
In addition to deepening Indonesia’s evolving democracy, the introduction of
direct elections enhanced the prospects for Indonesia remaining a unified state.
The elections belied expectations that allowing the electorate to choose its own
leaders would strengthen disintegrative forces challenging the state. In fact, while
politics in Indonesia became much more localised, this trend did not result in
a discernible rise in local chauvinism against the centre. On the contrary, direct
local elections appeared to divert attention from any potential discontent with
Jakarta by channelling political demands into competition among local leaders,
and putting the focus firmly on issues of local governance and the management
of local resources.
These conclusions can be illustrated by showing how the dire predictions of
elite politicians and the media regarding the elections remained unrealised. In this
context three major trends can be discerned. The first is that the direct elections
did not realise widespread fears of chaos and violence, but rather resulted in outcomes that were generally accepted as legitimate and allowed for the formation
of credible local administrations. This is not to deny the manifold problems in
organisation that plagued the running of the elections. The local election commissions (KPUDs), lacking capacity and experience, were largely expected to run the
elections with little support from the home affairs ministry, especially as the law
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on local governance gave no role to the more experienced central election commission (KPU). There were major problems with the voter registration roll and the
nomination process, which resulted in controversy and protests by groups claiming to have been disenfranchised.
A greater threat to the elections than protests over poor administration was the
propensity of supporters of losing candidates to contest the outcome. In elections
across the country, protests were staged against the KPUDs to challenge the results.
But these protests were not protracted, as losing candidates eventually opted to
take their cases to the courts, which overwhelmingly upheld the official results. The
channelling of disputes into the legal system, and their resolution through legal
processes, had the beneficial effect of mitigating electoral violence.6
The most notable of these cases was the dispute over the election of prominent
PKS leader Nurmahmudi Ismail, who had defeated the Golkar candidate, Badrul
Kamal, in the municipality of Depok, just south of Jakarta. The result was overturned by the West Java high court, but that decision was subsequently annulled by
the supreme court on the basis that the West Java court had accepted ‘assumptions
and not facts’ (Tempo, 10–16/1/2006). Following this decision, Badrul appealed to
the home affairs ministry to reverse the decision (Tempo, 10–16/1/2006), but it
studiously avoided becoming embroiled in any controversy over election results.
Badrul also mounted a constitutional court challenge questioning the right of the
supreme court to hear the case, a challenge that was rejected. The Depok case was
exceptional for the national media attention it attracted, a reflection of the prominence of Nurmahmudi, a former minister, and for the protracted legal case that
followed. But the case reflected the general tendency of the courts to uphold the
results as delivered by the KPUDs, and the government’s reluctance to interfere
in such cases.
The second trend that merits attention concerns the kinds of leaders that
emerged as winners in the elections. There is little doubt that the elections failed to
facilitate the emergence of new social forces on the political scene. This was partly
the fault of the local government law, which stipulated that eligible candidates
had to be nominated by parties that—either individually or as a coalition—had
received at least 15% of the vote or of the seats in legislative elections. This put
the large parties in a strong position to bargain with potential candidates, and it
was only candidates with access to significant funding who could afford to make
contributions to the nominating parties as well as bankroll their own campaigns.
In a random survey of 50 local elections, Mietzner (2005) found that business people and officials dominated the nomination process, comprising 28% and 36%
respectively of all candidates. Party followers or legislative members comprised
a mere 22% of candidates, demonstrating the difficulties all parties except Golkar
and PKS were experiencing in establishing strong local branches from which to
6 The level of political violence between supporters of rival parties was low compared
to previous elections, and incidents occurred only infrequently. One notable exception
was Tuban, East Java, where PDI-P and PKB (the National Awakening Party) supporters burned down the KPUD offices and attacked properties belonging to the successful
Golkar candidate in May 2006, re-igniting traditionally volatile political tensions (Tempo,
9–15/5/2006).
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recruit. In other words, the parties had become brokers in the process, reflecting
the weakly rooted nature of the party system.
But while the diversity of candidates on offer was limited, voters were nevertheless able to make discerning choices. Research by the People’s Voter Education
Network (JPPR) covering 224 regions found that over 40% of incumbents seeking
re-election were swept from office by voters dissatisfied with their performance
(JP, 29/6/2006). The research also showed that those incumbents who failed in
their re-election bids were generally considered to have under-performed or were
subject to serious corruption allegations, while incumbents with an above average
performance and perceived as untainted by corruption tended to be re-elected.
Furthermore, while having money was an important factor in gaining nomination, it was not the decisive factor in winning the election. The most notable example of this occurred in the West Sumatra provincial election in 2005, when a former
NGO figure and anti-corruption campaigner, Gamawam Fauzi, was elected on a
platform of rejecting ‘money politics’—an orientation that was not shared by his
wealthy rival candidates in the campaign. In other elections, there were widespread accusations of attempted vote buying by candidates who made various
‘contributions’ to local communities, but this practice did not appear to influence
the results unduly. The campaign run by NGOs and others to ‘take the money, but
vote with your conscience’ appeared to have become entrenched as a tradition of
Indonesian politics, and a counter-weight to vote buying.
Just as money and incumbency no longer represented key factors in determining electoral outcomes, neither did the power of party machines. On the contrary, the main factor that appeared to shape voter behaviour was the electorate’s
assessment of the candidates and the overall image that candidates were able to
project among the community. This was reflected in modern campaign strategies,
which had become more salient as a result of the direct elections system. Media
outreach and public opinion polling were essential resources for campaign teams;
political consultants were hired by candidates; and party machines were eclipsed
by small teams supporting the candidates to run their campaigns.7 Personal profiles within the community became a far more important political commodity for
candidates than their party loyalties. As a result, parties preferred candidates that
were popular and well known in preference to long-serving party office holders.
These new dynamics indicated that the electorate tended to favour those candidates who had strong local networks, and were therefore seen as more accountable and responsive to local communities (Mietzner 2006a; Vel 2005). This was clear
in the poor performance of many retired military officers, who relied on money,
elite connections and their military record in running for office. The outcome of
the elections belied fears that direct local elections would become a means by
which the military could retain a political role in Indonesia’s post-authoritarian
order. Exemplary here was the Papuan provincial election, in which Dick Henk
Wabiser, a retired admiral, sought to capitalise on his status as one of the few
Papuans to rise to such heights within the military. But Wabiser’s performance
in public debates during the campaign was poor, and he ran last out of the five
candidates (Mietzner, forthcoming).
7 Interview with Saiful Mujani, director of the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), Jakarta,
8 August 2006.
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The winning candidates that emerged exhibited a range of different leadership
styles. With the elections introducing an element of downward accountability into
the political system, the newly elected executives had to take account of citizens’
demands as never before, and some were more successful in responding to these
new dictates than others. In Jimbrana and Banyuwangi, the winning candidates
were ‘deliberative democrats’ who adopted a personal leadership style in appealing
directly to the electorate. In Ambon, the mayor pursued similarly popular policies,
but complemented them with institutional reforms, including the recruitment of
women to strategic government posts. In North Sulawesi and West Sumatra, candidates who were untainted by corruption or were strong anti-corruption campaigners were swept into office against incumbents tainted by allegations of impropriety.
In Bantul, Kebumen, Depok, Blitar, Sleman and many other districts, local government heads gave priority to a good governance agenda that focused on transparent
procurement and improving services. In Central Kalimantan and Papua, governors
with a strong programmatic approach based on boosting development in remote
areas were elected to office over candidates who sought to tap into ethnic sentiment. At the other end of the spectrum, the bupati of Kutai Kartanegara was able
to use the fabulous wealth of his resource-rich district to buy political support, in
a style that owed more to the Soeharto era than the new style of politics that was
emerging in other districts.
The final trend that needs to be identified here is the way in which the elections did not favour candidates with narrow religious or ethnic agendas, despite
predictions. This was largely due to the institutional design of the election system
itself, and the fact that the parties preferred to forge pragmatic alliances rather
than promote divisive ideological platforms. The key features of the local election
system were a stipulation that eligible candidates had to be nominated by parties
that had received at least 15% of the vote or of the seats in legislative elections, a
requirement for single tickets for the candidature of heads and deputy heads of
regions, and a 25% threshold for election which, if not achieved, would result in
a second round election. Such features were explicitly designed to encourage the
parties to form broad-based coalitions. As a result, local ‘primordial’ politics was
largely rejected by the electorate. The JPPR research showed, for instance, that
Islamic parties won in only 7% of the regions covered, with nationalists winning
in another 32%. The majority of elections were won by broad-based coalitions that
included both nationalist and Islamic parties. Moreover, several key gubernatorial races, as touched on above, were won by candidates eschewing ‘primordial’
politics over rivals seeking to benefit from strong ethnic sentiment.
Influenced by the need to broaden their appeal, the parties engaged in coalition building in the local elections, a pervasive practice that produced some
strange ideological bedfellows. In Yogyakarta, PDI-P and the United Development Party (PPP) put a tumultuous history of intense rivalry and violence behind
them to form an early joint ticket to contest the elections (Kompas, 25/7/2006). In
other regions, the strongly Islamic PKS teamed up with nationalist parties such
as PDI-P, and in several celebrated cases joined forces with the Prosperity and
Peace Party (PDS), a Christian party. In the Mentawai elections, for example,
PKS supported a candidate who was a Christian minister (JP, 13/7/2006).
In forging broad-based coalitions, the parties embarked on campaigns that
were largely free from divisive ideological issues that might heighten local politi-
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cal tensions or even threaten national unity. The platforms that emerged from
these campaigns involved generic stands on issues that were shared by virtually all the candidates, such as pledges to tackle poverty, reform the bureaucracy,
counter corruption, support clean government and revive the ‘people’s economy’.
The Islamic parties had in fact soft-pedalled on Islamic issues in both the 1999
and 2004 legislative elections, as they soon realised that strict Islamic agendas
appealed only to narrow constituencies. The direct local elections perpetuated
this trend.
While beneficial in many respects, this tendency for parties to take increasingly pragmatic directions also highlighted some of the challenges to consolidating Indonesia’s new political system. The local elections demonstrated the extent
to which party politics had become devoid of ideological interests and dominated
by pragmatic considerations of power sharing and distribution of the spoils of
office among parties. This was largely due to the salience of patronage politics, but
was also related to the fact that the parties that had adopted conservative Islamic
platforms had not performed well in electoral terms since 1999. The new alliances
gave rise to cynicism about the parties and widespread criticism of the ideological
vacuum that had marked local elections. Bibit Waluyo, a retired military officer
who is a candidate for elections to be held in Jakarta in 2007, summed up the prevailing sense of ideological promiscuity by saying, ‘[It’s] no problem [having such
alliances], we need religious-nationalists’ (Tempo, 11–17/7/2006). Critics blamed
the parties for abandoning their ideological commitments in favour of elite deal
making and a preoccupation with capturing state resources.
Shifting contests over ideology
At the same time that ideology was becoming a secondary factor in party politics,
ideological debates were being sparked within the broader society. These debates
involved long-running struggles between Islamists and secular nationalists over
the state’s role in upholding shari’a law. They had periodically surfaced throughout Indonesia’s history, and were re-ignited in 2006.
To understand the context in which the debates unfolded, it is crucial to appreciate the long history of failure of political Islam in Indonesia. This began with
the defeat of Islamists in the formation of the Indonesian state in 1945, when the
founding fathers opted for religious neutrality by rejecting the insertion of a clause
acknowledging Islamic law in the Jakarta Charter—the preamble to the constitution. After decades of being suppressed, Islamists found new democratic space to
revive their demands following the collapse of the Soeharto regime in 1998. But
their efforts to insert the contested section of the Jakarta Charter into Indonesia’s
heavily amended constitution in 2000–02 were once again thwarted. Since that
defeat, the debate over the Jakarta Charter at the national level has largely lost
momentum.
In 2006, however, the debate re-emerged in a different guise, in efforts to shape
laws and policies that regulated social behaviour on the basis of conservative
social values. In light of the successive failures of political Islam, Islamists increasingly shifted their attention from constitutional change to issues of public morality. This gave rise to Indonesia’s own version of the ‘culture wars’, waged by
Muslims wanting their own religious values to be reflected in national law and
local regulations.
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These efforts are illustrated by two issues that sparked major controversy and
debate. The first was the adoption of Islamic-inspired by-laws (perda shari’a) by
a growing number of regional governments. Reports indicated that the number
of regions adopting such laws increased throughout 2005–06 to reach at least 37,
including governments in West Java, South Sulawesi, Aceh, Lombok, South Kalimantan, Bengkulu and West Sumatra.8 The by-laws in these regions included bans
on the sale of alcohol, regulations on the payment of wealth tax (zakat), bans on
prostitution and gambling and, in regions such as Aceh and Padang, regulations
obliging women to wear Islamic clothing such as headscarves (jilbab).
The forces driving the adoption of these regulations were m
ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20
INDONESIAN POLITICS IN 2006: STABILITY,
COMPROMISE AND SHIFTING CONTESTS OVER
IDEOLOGY
Rodd McGibbon
To cite this article: Rodd McGibbon (2006) INDONESIAN POLITICS IN 2006: STABILITY,
COMPROMISE AND SHIFTING CONTESTS OVER IDEOLOGY, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic
Studies, 42:3, 321-340, DOI: 10.1080/00074910601053201
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074910601053201
Published online: 23 Nov 2006.
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Date: 18 January 2016, At: 21:43
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3, 2006: 321–40
INDONESIAN POLITICS IN 2006:
STABILITY, COMPROMISE AND
SHIFTING CONTESTS OVER IDEOLOGY
Rodd McGibbon*
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Australian National University
The second year of President Yudhoyono’s term in office was distinguished by continuing political stability and important democratic gains, including the continued
implementation of direct elections of local government executives and the enactment of the Law on Governing Aceh. But if these achievements reconfirmed Indonesia’s membership of the club of electoral democracies, the shallow roots of its
democratic system were also apparent, especially in the weakness of the political
party system. In preferring pragmatic cross-party deal making, the parties often
played down their ideological commitments. Within society, however, ideological
debates over the vexed issue of religion and the state intensified, and became an important part of the national political agenda. Amounting to an Indonesian version
of the ‘culture wars’, such controversies were sparked by concerns that a proposed
national bill on pornography and controversial regional by-laws were an indirect
attempt to introduce Islamic law.
THE SBY PRESIDENCY: BALANCING REFORM AND STABILITY
The victory of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) in the 2004 presidential elections against a coalition of the country’s largest parties represented a triumph
of personality, image and popular choice over machine politics and the power
of party bosses (Aspinall 2005). Yudhoyono’s tilt at the presidency was boosted
when he was unceremoniously dumped from the cabinet of then president Megawati Soekarnoputri, arousing public sympathy for the former security and politics minister and reinforcing popular perceptions of Megawati as an out-of-touch
leader. During what was Indonesia’s first ever direct election of its president,
Yudhoyono was able to project himself as being both a comforting authority figure and a reformer who would tackle the main economic and political challenges
facing Indonesians. This was a virtuous combination for an electorate that had
endured over six years of weak government, economic hardship and far-reaching
political change.
* This is a revised version of a paper presented to the 24th Indonesia Update conference,
Canberra, 22–23 September 2006. I would like to acknowledge insightful comments by Anies
Baswedan, who served as discussant for the paper. The article also benefited from comments
and suggestions by Ed Aspinall, Harold Crouch, Greg Fealy and Marcus Mietzner.
ISSN 0007-4918 print/ISSN 1472-7234 online/06/030321-20
DOI: 10.1080/00074910601053201
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But unlike his predecessors, Yudhoyono lacked a political base, having won
the presidency in a direct appeal to the electorate. Previous presidents Megawati
and Abdurrahman Wahid had natural constituencies deriving from Indonesia’s
deeply rooted traditions of secular nationalism and traditional Islam, respectively.
Yudhoyono’s appeal, on the other hand, came from the popular expectations that
he had generated during his campaign of being able to improve security and
boost the economy.
Although the handsome majority he received from voters gave Yudhoyono
a strong popular mandate, he also recognised that the government would risk
instability by alienating the large parties. The government’s legislative program
could be subverted by a hostile legislature, while the executive’s control over the
bureaucracy, particularly in the regions, might be challenged in the absence of
significant party backing. As a result, Yudhoyono’s government accommodated
all major parties except that of former president Megawati (the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, PDI-P), which became the chief opposition party. Following the pattern established by his predecessors, Yudhoyono formed a ‘rainbow
cabinet’ that was intended to neutralise party opposition by distributing cabinet posts and opening access to state resources across the party system. These
arrangements meant that the government was faced with a delicate balancing act
between the competing priorities of reform—particularly the need to boost economic growth—and the maintenance of political stability by accommodating the
parties and key interest groups.
Yudhoyono’s presidency was also defined by his naturally cautious political
instincts. The methodical manner in which he went about making decisions was
calculated to alienate as few constituencies and organised interests as possible. He
intervened in political struggles only when he absolutely had to (as in the case of
the fuel price hikes) or if he was confident of a positive outcome (as in the Aceh
peace process).
These defining features of the SBY presidency resulted in a strong tendency
for the government to engage in political compromise and prefer stability over
unsettling political and economic change. This orientation complicated reform
efforts, particularly on the economic front, as party interests sought compromises
on government policy or opposed the government’s reform agenda (Basri and
Patunru 2006). Slow progress on the investment law, the government’s initial mishandling of the long-running Cemex–PT Semen Gresik case,1 and the government
backdown on introducing a substantially revised draft labour law to parliament
were all examples of the way economic reforms were being slowed, challenged or
complicated by political interests both inside the parliament and outside among
key interest groups (Manning and Roesad 2006). Furthermore, the appointment of
cabinet ministers on the basis of the party they belonged to rather than merit had
not only reduced the quality of the cabinet, but introduced competing political
1 Mexican firm Cemex had hoped to sell its stake in the previously state-owned cement
producer, PT Semen Gresik, to private investors, but this move was initially blocked by
Sugiharto, the minister for state owned enterprises. Cemex wanted to divest its shares
because of its failure to gain majority control of the company—a result of bitter opposition
from regional interests opposed to the central government’s attempt to privatise Semen
Gresik. The government finally approved the divestment in July 2006.
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agendas into government decision making. Criticisms of the government’s rice
import policy, for instance, were fuelled by the government’s own agriculture
minister, who initially publicly opposed the policy.
But if the government’s economic reform agenda was complicated by competing interests, its ability to forge political stability still represented an important
achievement.
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The main bases of political stability
Executive–legislature relations. While cabinet posts gave Yudhoyono the means
to co-opt the parties into his government, it was Vice President Jusuf Kalla’s
election as chair of the largest party in parliament (the DPR) in December 2004
that cemented the government’s political base. As Golkar party chair, Kalla had
gradually consolidated his position throughout 2005, and was able to ensure that
Golkar became a key supporter of government policy. With Golkar support added
to its backing from smaller parties, the government essentially enjoyed majority
support in the DPR. In 2006 this political base allowed the government to push
through key legislation, such as the Law on Governing Aceh (addressed in more
detail below), and to prevent moves to censure it over several controversial policies, such as the one allowing rice imports.
Although these political arrangements provided stability, the government could
not afford to take them for granted. By mid-2006, calls for a cabinet reshuffle had
become increasingly insistent. The Prosperity and Justice Party (PKS), a small but
rapidly rising Islamic party, canvassed the option of pulling out of the government due to frustrations over the slow progress on reform and criticism from its
own ranks of the party’s support for unpopular government policies. PKS leaders
faced criticism for supporting the government’s decision to cut fuel subsidies in
late 2005, for example. This decision also prompted questions in Golkar about its
support for the government. By August 2006 Golkar executives were expressing
strong misgivings about having to defend the record of the government when
the president himself was unwilling to push through and defend difficult decisions. As one executive put it, ‘Jusuf Kalla is more policy oriented and he wants
to move quickly on policies that are required, but when he goes out in front to
promote these unpopular issues, Golkar gets whacked, while the president says
nothing’.2
But while it was clear that key parties in the cabinet were becoming highly
critical of Yudhoyono’s leadership, there were few signs that they were willing to
abandon lucrative posts in cabinet to be relegated to opposition party status in the
legislature. The critical statements of the parties therefore appeared to relate more
to political posturing as speculation mounted about a cabinet reshuffle.
The Yudhoyono–Kalla partnership. While party support constituted one element of the government’s political base, another was the working relationship
between the president and vice president. The powerful position and active role
that Kalla had managed to carve out for himself, as well as the radically different
approaches of Yudhoyono and Kalla, generated speculation throughout the year
about possible rivalry between the two men. Kalla’s hands-on approach to policy
was portrayed by the media and advisers close to the president as an attempt
2 Interview with Golkar central board executive, Jakarta, 17 August 2006.
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to position himself to run for the presidency in 2009. Golkar executives, on the
other hand, complained about the ‘obsession’ of the Yudhoyono camp with the
2009 election and the ‘paranoia’ of the president’s core circle of advisers regarding
Golkar.3
Amid mutual suspicions between the two camps, however, the two leaders continued to forge a strong partnership, with each bringing complementary strengths
to the relationship.4 In contrast to Yudhoyono’s quintessentially Javanese reserve
and formality, which allowed him to project an image of authority, the less formal
style of Kalla, a Buginese from South Sulawesi, appealed to a constituency outside
Java. Where Kalla the entrepreneur engaged in problem solving and deal making,
Yudhoyono presented himself as a presidential figure and a symbol of unity above
the political fray. Where Kalla brought crucial party support to the government,
retired general Yudhoyono was able to secure the backing of the security forces.
Moreover, despite popular perceptions that Kalla was operating independently
as vice president, there was clear evidence that the two jointly planned and coordinated the policies that were to become the government’s most important breakthroughs. This was clear from accounts of the Aceh peace process, for example
(Morfitt 2006). Thus, whatever machinations may have been taking place behind
the scenes to prepare for the 2009 elections, both men continued to have a clear
interest in maintaining what had been a highly successful partnership.
The government’s clean image and anti-corruption measures. The government’s
position was also buttressed by the fact that it had a relatively clean reputation—a
factor militating against stronger opposition from the parties. It was not that the
government was scandal free. In February–March 2006, a cabinet secretary and
close confidant of the president, Sudi Silalahi, was caught up in an influencepeddling scandal that garnered media attention for weeks. In another move that
raised questions, the president was alleged to have had a meeting with a group
of businessmen involved in the massive Bank Indonesia liquidity credit scandal,
with a strong suggestion of impropriety. Reports of these affairs suggested that
the Yudhoyono camp was not averse to doing questionable deals with the corporate world. But the campaign by Yudhoyono’s opponents to present the government as tainted failed to gather much traction. One reason for this was that
Yudhoyono was widely viewed as ‘Mr Clean’, as he had remained free of any hint
of corruption during a long career as a military officer and government minister.
The other factor that favoured the government was that, whatever impropriety
was involved in these affairs, they paled in comparison to the scandals that had
engulfed previous governments.
Yudhoyono’s anti-corruption campaign also played a role in reinforcing impressions of a government that was committed to avoiding the corrupt practices of its
predecessors. The anti-corruption drive was certainly impressive when considered against the inaction of Yudhoyono’s predecessors in the face of what was
widely regarded as a pervasive culture of corruption that had corroded public
institutions. As a result of its campaign, the government claimed to have netted at least seven governors, 63 district heads and 13 members of the national
3 Interview with Golkar central board executive, Jakarta, 17 August 2006.
4 For an extended discussion of the ‘duumvirate’ forged between the president and vice
president, see Liddle (2005).
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legislature, who either had been arrested or were under investigation, while military generals and senior police officers were also put under investigation (Mallarangeng 2006).
Unsurprisingly, however, the government’s anti-corruption drive failed to touch
entrenched interests at the centre of power. This was consistent with the politics of
compromise that the government had adopted in its first two years in office, during which it not only forged stability by accommodating a wide array of political
interests, but also adopted a cautious, qualified approach to reform, eschewing
radical and potentially unsettling political and economic change. Several wellknown ministers became the subject of media speculation about corrupt activities
in 2006, most notably the justice and human rights minister, Hamid Awaluddin.
But the anti-corruption drive engulfing less powerful and less well-connected
politicians and officials appeared not to extend to the government’s own cabinet.
Furthermore, the business interests of the families of Aburizal Bakrie and Jusuf
Kalla, and of the notorious, military-linked Tomy Winata, were largely viewed as
untouchable. The attorney general’s controversial move to drop criminal charges
against Soeharto and redirect the efforts of his office to seeking a return of the
former president’s ill-gotten wealth appeared as a sideshow in light of the inaction against politically connected business interests positioned close to contemporary power holders.
Nevertheless the government’s corruption effort continued to receive popular support, and helped bolster its public image. The anti-corruption campaign,
which had netted officials and politicians across the political spectrum, represented a promising initiative, especially when considered against the decades of
impunity that corruptors had enjoyed. But such efforts did little to challenge the
systems of patronage and collusion that were entrenched at the centre of power.
Presidential authority over the armed forces. President Yudhoyono’s growing authority over the armed forces was another important element in maintaining stability.
The government faced none of the controversies over potential military insubordination that had plagued the civil–military relations of earlier governments. While
Megawati had also developed good relations with the military, she had done so by
abandoning any pretence of supremacy over it, and by giving it a relatively free
hand—particularly on security policy (Crouch 2003; Jones 2004). In contrast, Yudhoyono actively sought to impose his authority from the earliest days of his presidency.
He rejected his predecessor’s nomination for armed forces commander, Ryamizard
Ryacudu, an officer close to Megawati with a reputation as a hardliner. This move
was central to Yudhoyono’s strategy of ensuring army (TNI) support for the Aceh
peace agreement brokered in August 2005 (Morfitt 2006). While Yudhoyono’s rejection of Ryamizard’s nomination led to a protracted stand-off with the legislature,
the president was eventually able to ease Ryamizard into a powerless post in TNI
headquarters. At the same time he maintained the incumbent commander, Endriartono Sutarto—an officer who had gained the trust of Yudhoyono—in this position
until the end of 2005, when he was able to appoint an officer loyal to him from
the air force, Djoko Suyanto, as the new TNI commander (Tempo, 24–30/1/2006).
Another ally, former adjutant Djoko Santoso, was appointed to the army’s top post,
positioning him to take over from the older Suyanto, who was expected to retire
in two years. Yudhoyono’s ability to ease out hardline officers and appoint trusted
officers to senior posts reinforced his reputation as a methodical and calculating
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political leader. Having rung these changes at the end of 2005, Yudhoyono enjoyed
growing authority over the military in 2006.
Yudhoyono’s sway over the armed forces was no doubt aided by the fact that
his graduating class at military college had come of age in recent years, pushing up into the most senior levels of the security forces (Tempo, 7–13/2/2006).
Yudhoyono, who had been class president and was also the chair of his graduating class’s alumni association, had always been widely accepted as a leader
of his generation. Rarely had the top posts in the military been dominated by a
single year’s graduating class to the extent they now were. In 2006, the class of
1973 boasted not only the country’s president, but its armed forces commander,
national police chief, head of navy, and five out of 12 regional area army commanders (Tempo, 7–13/2/2006). In addition, the president’s own relatives were
appointed to new positions, including his brother-in-law to the important post of
strategic reserve commander.
DEMOCRATIC GAINS
While the dictates of political stability often complicated government efforts to
pursue reform, there were nevertheless some important breakthroughs in 2006 in
consolidating democratic institutions. They included the enactment of the Law
on Governing Aceh and the successful implementation of direct elections of local
executives.
The Law on Governing Aceh
The DPR deliberated a bill on the governance of Aceh in the early months of 2006.
The bill had been drafted by Acehnese provincial legislators after widespread community consultation. It represented the main outcome of the successful implementation of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between the government
and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Helsinki on 15 August 2006. The main provisions of the MOU were translated into concrete concessions and a new framework
for governing Aceh through the drafting of the bill. The major concessions to GAM
were increased revenue transfers to the province and a provision allowing local
political parties to contest elections. The latter was arguably the most far-reaching
provision for national leaders, who were determined to maintain Indonesia’s unitary state and had steadfastly refused to grant the same provision to other regions
(where parties fielding candidates must meet national coverage requirements).
Although deliberations on the bill were fast-tracked, given the importance
of the legislation, it nevertheless provoked spirited debate from party factions
in the DPR.5 In this debate, the DPR’s two largest parties lined up against each
other, with Golkar supporting the government position and PDI-P opposing it.
With the government’s prestige on the line, Jusuf Kalla exerted his authority
within Golkar to ensure that the party shepherded the draft through the DPR.
For its part, PDI-P expressed reservations about the law’s potential to weaken
national unity and the underpinnings of the unitary state.
5 My account of the deliberations in the DPR is based on insights from Bivitri Susanti of the
legal institute PSHK (Pusat Studi Hukum dan Kebijakan), which monitored the process and
provided technical assistance to the party factions (interview, Jakarta, 13 August 2006).
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Two points of contention that reflected the nature of the debate concerned the
name of the law and the obligation of the central government to obtain approval
from the province before introducing policies that had an impact on Aceh. On
the first point, PDI-P objected to the law’s reference to ‘the government of Aceh’
and suggested that this be replaced with the ‘special region of Aceh’ to emphasise
that the province remained part of Indonesia’s unitary state. On the second point,
PDI-P insisted that the central government should only have to ‘consult’ with the
province and not ‘seek approval’ from it for policies and laws with an impact on
Aceh. While Golkar stressed the importance of the Aceh peace process, PDI-P
emphasised the need to safeguard the unitary state against the threat of disintegration.
Desperate to achieve a breakthrough, the government offered several concessions to PDI-P. As a result PDI-P dropped its insistence on the name change—a
largely symbolic objection—as well as some other demands, in return for the
central government having only to ‘consult’ with the province, and not seek its
approval, in adopting policies that impacted on Aceh. While conceding a largely
symbolic point, therefore, PDI-P won the more substantive debate. This latter concession, strictly speaking, was a departure from the Helsinki MOU upon which
the law was supposed to be based. In addition, in its final form the law included
a general repressive clause in which the home affairs ministry had the authority
to annul provincial regulations if it deemed them not to be in the ‘public interest’,
a common principle in Indonesian law but one that had far-reaching implications
for the form of self-government being granted to the province. These clauses certainly disabused advocates of federalism of any notion that the Aceh law would
open the way for a federal system of government.
Having reached this compromise, all political factions in the DPR endorsed the
law, and it passed the legislature on 12 July 2006. The law granted many of the
same concessions contained in the 2001 special autonomy law for Aceh. These
included permission to implement shari’a (Islamic) law, subject to supreme court
review. Several key additional concessions negotiated in Helsinki were enacted in
the new law, namely the joint management of Aceh’s oil and gas resources by the
provincial and central governments; provision for the establishment of an ad hoc
human rights tribunal; generous revenue transfer arrangements to the province
for the next 20 years; provision for the formation of local political parties that
would be allowed to contest local and national elections from 2009 onwards; and
direct elections of local executives that would permit independent candidates to
run in the upcoming electoral cycle.
While the compromise forged in the final version of the law largely satisfied national political factions, the law met with strong protests in Aceh. While
GAM was careful not to reject the law outright, NGOs such as the Aceh Referendum Information Centre (SIRA), which had close ties to GAM, did reject it and
threatened mass protests, while also threatening to submit a request for the constitutional court to review the case (Kompas, 13/7/2006). For its part, GAM was
critical of a number of provisions that ‘deviated from the MOU’ (JP, 8/8/2006),
in particular the way in which the central bureaucracy retained its policy-making
authority over Aceh, as reflected in the provisions discussed above. As a result,
GAM spokesmen called for a revision of the law to ensure that it complied with
the Helsinki MOU, lodging a formal request with the Aceh Monitoring Mission
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(AMM), the joint EU–ASEAN group monitoring the peace agreement. The clause
about ‘consulting’ with the province was the most contentious for GAM. Moreover, GAM was disappointed that the law did not explicitly limit troop levels in the
province, and that the ad hoc human rights tribunal was explicitly limited to cases
occurring after the law came into effect. From 13 to 16 August, in celebrations
marking the signing of the MOU, SIRA led peaceful demonstrations that saw tens
of thousands of Acehnese descend on the provincial capital of Banda Aceh to protest against the law (Kompas, 14/8/2006, 18/8/2006).
These protests were short-lived, as both the government and AMM rejected
demands that the law be amended as both unrealistic and unnecessary. AMM had
little other option, as it could do nothing to intervene in the deliberations of Indonesia’s sovereign legislature, and also realised that a rejection of the law by GAM
would likely result in a deadlock and the possible collapse of the peace process. As
a result, the head of AMM, Pieter Feith, made it clear in late July that GAM must
accept the democratic processes that had produced the law. He also declared that
the general spirit of the law was consistent with the Helsinki MOU, adding, however, that future government policies or regulations should address shortcomings
in the law (Kompas, 24/7/2006). Such qualifications merely highlighted the fact
that the final law had departed from some of the more far-reaching concessions
contained in the MOU. Facing pressure from the government and AMM to accept
the law, GAM agreed to suspend its public objections, although privately remaining very critical. This decision represented another major concession by GAM to
advance peace in the province, and a further indication that it remained strongly
committed to the process. The government, for its part, heralded the enactment of
the Law on Governing Aceh as a major breakthrough. It certainly represented the
most important political triumph for the government in 2006.
With the law setting the main framework for governance in the province, provincial authorities and community leaders, including GAM, faced the daunting
challenge of drafting some 100 implementing regulations of the law, virtually all
of which were provincial regulations (qanun). The most immediate task was the
implementation of elections throughout Aceh for provincial and district-level
executives, scheduled for 11 December 2006. The elections would determine the
governorship as well as the leadership of Aceh’s districts and municipalities.
GAM had announced that its members could run, but that it would not officially
be fielding candidates. While GAM figures hardly dominated the lists of candidates, several notable leaders did announce their candidature—including GAM
spokesman Irwandi for the position of governor, with Mohammad Nazar, the
head of SIRA, as his running mate.
While the new law provided an unprecedented opportunity to secure the peace
in Aceh, other developments indicated that this process might not be all smooth
sailing. The program to integrate ex-combatants into society failed to fulfil expectations among former GAM soldiers, and became a point of contention within the
organisation as a gap appeared to open up between GAM leaders and the rank
and file. Moreover, the reconstruction process following the 2004 tsunami that had
devastated so much of Aceh’s coastline was proceeding more slowly than hoped.
The quality of housing built by NGOs was one major problem, reflected in the low
occupancy rates for new houses. This represented a serious embarrassment for
the authorities, as it raised the issue of why supervision of construction standards
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had not been properly carried out (Kompas, 25/7/2006). Even more troubling
were the serious allegations of corruption levelled at BRR (Badan Rehabilitasi dan
Rekonstruksi NAD–Nias), the central government agency in charge of the Aceh
and Nias reconstruction effort (Kompas, 22/4/2006).
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Local elections and party politics
Direct elections for local government executives were launched in June 2005, and
continued in regions throughout Indonesia in 2006. By the end of 2006 approximately 60% of all local governments had been elected directly. The elections,
representing the first time that Indonesians had directly chosen their own local
officials, complemented the successful implementation of direct presidential elections in 2004.
This constituted a significant breakthrough in deepening Indonesia’s fledgling democracy. Previously, the national and local legislatures had elected government executives. This arrangement was widely believed to have promoted
entrenched oligarchic interests in the political system. The tendency for legislators to elect bureaucrats and businessmen with links to the New Order, both at the
national and local level, confirmed these suspicions (Malley 2003) as did reports
that ‘money politics’ was rampant. This phrase had become popular to describe
how the executive, or candidates for the executive, engaged in vote buying in the
legislature to ensure election to office, or political support from the parties once
they were in power. There were widespread reports of executives paying parties
to ensure that the government’s annual accountability report was approved, or
that budget bills and other draft laws were passed by the legislature. In this way,
the legislature had become an extension of the patronage network that operated
among the elite, involving a complex web of relationships between the executive,
bureaucracy and legislature. Such problems led to a groundswell of support for
direct elections of executives, which brought Yudhoyono to power as well as new
bupati (district heads), walikota (mayors) and governors.
In addition to deepening Indonesia’s evolving democracy, the introduction of
direct elections enhanced the prospects for Indonesia remaining a unified state.
The elections belied expectations that allowing the electorate to choose its own
leaders would strengthen disintegrative forces challenging the state. In fact, while
politics in Indonesia became much more localised, this trend did not result in
a discernible rise in local chauvinism against the centre. On the contrary, direct
local elections appeared to divert attention from any potential discontent with
Jakarta by channelling political demands into competition among local leaders,
and putting the focus firmly on issues of local governance and the management
of local resources.
These conclusions can be illustrated by showing how the dire predictions of
elite politicians and the media regarding the elections remained unrealised. In this
context three major trends can be discerned. The first is that the direct elections
did not realise widespread fears of chaos and violence, but rather resulted in outcomes that were generally accepted as legitimate and allowed for the formation
of credible local administrations. This is not to deny the manifold problems in
organisation that plagued the running of the elections. The local election commissions (KPUDs), lacking capacity and experience, were largely expected to run the
elections with little support from the home affairs ministry, especially as the law
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on local governance gave no role to the more experienced central election commission (KPU). There were major problems with the voter registration roll and the
nomination process, which resulted in controversy and protests by groups claiming to have been disenfranchised.
A greater threat to the elections than protests over poor administration was the
propensity of supporters of losing candidates to contest the outcome. In elections
across the country, protests were staged against the KPUDs to challenge the results.
But these protests were not protracted, as losing candidates eventually opted to
take their cases to the courts, which overwhelmingly upheld the official results. The
channelling of disputes into the legal system, and their resolution through legal
processes, had the beneficial effect of mitigating electoral violence.6
The most notable of these cases was the dispute over the election of prominent
PKS leader Nurmahmudi Ismail, who had defeated the Golkar candidate, Badrul
Kamal, in the municipality of Depok, just south of Jakarta. The result was overturned by the West Java high court, but that decision was subsequently annulled by
the supreme court on the basis that the West Java court had accepted ‘assumptions
and not facts’ (Tempo, 10–16/1/2006). Following this decision, Badrul appealed to
the home affairs ministry to reverse the decision (Tempo, 10–16/1/2006), but it
studiously avoided becoming embroiled in any controversy over election results.
Badrul also mounted a constitutional court challenge questioning the right of the
supreme court to hear the case, a challenge that was rejected. The Depok case was
exceptional for the national media attention it attracted, a reflection of the prominence of Nurmahmudi, a former minister, and for the protracted legal case that
followed. But the case reflected the general tendency of the courts to uphold the
results as delivered by the KPUDs, and the government’s reluctance to interfere
in such cases.
The second trend that merits attention concerns the kinds of leaders that
emerged as winners in the elections. There is little doubt that the elections failed to
facilitate the emergence of new social forces on the political scene. This was partly
the fault of the local government law, which stipulated that eligible candidates
had to be nominated by parties that—either individually or as a coalition—had
received at least 15% of the vote or of the seats in legislative elections. This put
the large parties in a strong position to bargain with potential candidates, and it
was only candidates with access to significant funding who could afford to make
contributions to the nominating parties as well as bankroll their own campaigns.
In a random survey of 50 local elections, Mietzner (2005) found that business people and officials dominated the nomination process, comprising 28% and 36%
respectively of all candidates. Party followers or legislative members comprised
a mere 22% of candidates, demonstrating the difficulties all parties except Golkar
and PKS were experiencing in establishing strong local branches from which to
6 The level of political violence between supporters of rival parties was low compared
to previous elections, and incidents occurred only infrequently. One notable exception
was Tuban, East Java, where PDI-P and PKB (the National Awakening Party) supporters burned down the KPUD offices and attacked properties belonging to the successful
Golkar candidate in May 2006, re-igniting traditionally volatile political tensions (Tempo,
9–15/5/2006).
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recruit. In other words, the parties had become brokers in the process, reflecting
the weakly rooted nature of the party system.
But while the diversity of candidates on offer was limited, voters were nevertheless able to make discerning choices. Research by the People’s Voter Education
Network (JPPR) covering 224 regions found that over 40% of incumbents seeking
re-election were swept from office by voters dissatisfied with their performance
(JP, 29/6/2006). The research also showed that those incumbents who failed in
their re-election bids were generally considered to have under-performed or were
subject to serious corruption allegations, while incumbents with an above average
performance and perceived as untainted by corruption tended to be re-elected.
Furthermore, while having money was an important factor in gaining nomination, it was not the decisive factor in winning the election. The most notable example of this occurred in the West Sumatra provincial election in 2005, when a former
NGO figure and anti-corruption campaigner, Gamawam Fauzi, was elected on a
platform of rejecting ‘money politics’—an orientation that was not shared by his
wealthy rival candidates in the campaign. In other elections, there were widespread accusations of attempted vote buying by candidates who made various
‘contributions’ to local communities, but this practice did not appear to influence
the results unduly. The campaign run by NGOs and others to ‘take the money, but
vote with your conscience’ appeared to have become entrenched as a tradition of
Indonesian politics, and a counter-weight to vote buying.
Just as money and incumbency no longer represented key factors in determining electoral outcomes, neither did the power of party machines. On the contrary, the main factor that appeared to shape voter behaviour was the electorate’s
assessment of the candidates and the overall image that candidates were able to
project among the community. This was reflected in modern campaign strategies,
which had become more salient as a result of the direct elections system. Media
outreach and public opinion polling were essential resources for campaign teams;
political consultants were hired by candidates; and party machines were eclipsed
by small teams supporting the candidates to run their campaigns.7 Personal profiles within the community became a far more important political commodity for
candidates than their party loyalties. As a result, parties preferred candidates that
were popular and well known in preference to long-serving party office holders.
These new dynamics indicated that the electorate tended to favour those candidates who had strong local networks, and were therefore seen as more accountable and responsive to local communities (Mietzner 2006a; Vel 2005). This was clear
in the poor performance of many retired military officers, who relied on money,
elite connections and their military record in running for office. The outcome of
the elections belied fears that direct local elections would become a means by
which the military could retain a political role in Indonesia’s post-authoritarian
order. Exemplary here was the Papuan provincial election, in which Dick Henk
Wabiser, a retired admiral, sought to capitalise on his status as one of the few
Papuans to rise to such heights within the military. But Wabiser’s performance
in public debates during the campaign was poor, and he ran last out of the five
candidates (Mietzner, forthcoming).
7 Interview with Saiful Mujani, director of the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), Jakarta,
8 August 2006.
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The winning candidates that emerged exhibited a range of different leadership
styles. With the elections introducing an element of downward accountability into
the political system, the newly elected executives had to take account of citizens’
demands as never before, and some were more successful in responding to these
new dictates than others. In Jimbrana and Banyuwangi, the winning candidates
were ‘deliberative democrats’ who adopted a personal leadership style in appealing
directly to the electorate. In Ambon, the mayor pursued similarly popular policies,
but complemented them with institutional reforms, including the recruitment of
women to strategic government posts. In North Sulawesi and West Sumatra, candidates who were untainted by corruption or were strong anti-corruption campaigners were swept into office against incumbents tainted by allegations of impropriety.
In Bantul, Kebumen, Depok, Blitar, Sleman and many other districts, local government heads gave priority to a good governance agenda that focused on transparent
procurement and improving services. In Central Kalimantan and Papua, governors
with a strong programmatic approach based on boosting development in remote
areas were elected to office over candidates who sought to tap into ethnic sentiment. At the other end of the spectrum, the bupati of Kutai Kartanegara was able
to use the fabulous wealth of his resource-rich district to buy political support, in
a style that owed more to the Soeharto era than the new style of politics that was
emerging in other districts.
The final trend that needs to be identified here is the way in which the elections did not favour candidates with narrow religious or ethnic agendas, despite
predictions. This was largely due to the institutional design of the election system
itself, and the fact that the parties preferred to forge pragmatic alliances rather
than promote divisive ideological platforms. The key features of the local election
system were a stipulation that eligible candidates had to be nominated by parties
that had received at least 15% of the vote or of the seats in legislative elections, a
requirement for single tickets for the candidature of heads and deputy heads of
regions, and a 25% threshold for election which, if not achieved, would result in
a second round election. Such features were explicitly designed to encourage the
parties to form broad-based coalitions. As a result, local ‘primordial’ politics was
largely rejected by the electorate. The JPPR research showed, for instance, that
Islamic parties won in only 7% of the regions covered, with nationalists winning
in another 32%. The majority of elections were won by broad-based coalitions that
included both nationalist and Islamic parties. Moreover, several key gubernatorial races, as touched on above, were won by candidates eschewing ‘primordial’
politics over rivals seeking to benefit from strong ethnic sentiment.
Influenced by the need to broaden their appeal, the parties engaged in coalition building in the local elections, a pervasive practice that produced some
strange ideological bedfellows. In Yogyakarta, PDI-P and the United Development Party (PPP) put a tumultuous history of intense rivalry and violence behind
them to form an early joint ticket to contest the elections (Kompas, 25/7/2006). In
other regions, the strongly Islamic PKS teamed up with nationalist parties such
as PDI-P, and in several celebrated cases joined forces with the Prosperity and
Peace Party (PDS), a Christian party. In the Mentawai elections, for example,
PKS supported a candidate who was a Christian minister (JP, 13/7/2006).
In forging broad-based coalitions, the parties embarked on campaigns that
were largely free from divisive ideological issues that might heighten local politi-
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cal tensions or even threaten national unity. The platforms that emerged from
these campaigns involved generic stands on issues that were shared by virtually all the candidates, such as pledges to tackle poverty, reform the bureaucracy,
counter corruption, support clean government and revive the ‘people’s economy’.
The Islamic parties had in fact soft-pedalled on Islamic issues in both the 1999
and 2004 legislative elections, as they soon realised that strict Islamic agendas
appealed only to narrow constituencies. The direct local elections perpetuated
this trend.
While beneficial in many respects, this tendency for parties to take increasingly pragmatic directions also highlighted some of the challenges to consolidating Indonesia’s new political system. The local elections demonstrated the extent
to which party politics had become devoid of ideological interests and dominated
by pragmatic considerations of power sharing and distribution of the spoils of
office among parties. This was largely due to the salience of patronage politics, but
was also related to the fact that the parties that had adopted conservative Islamic
platforms had not performed well in electoral terms since 1999. The new alliances
gave rise to cynicism about the parties and widespread criticism of the ideological
vacuum that had marked local elections. Bibit Waluyo, a retired military officer
who is a candidate for elections to be held in Jakarta in 2007, summed up the prevailing sense of ideological promiscuity by saying, ‘[It’s] no problem [having such
alliances], we need religious-nationalists’ (Tempo, 11–17/7/2006). Critics blamed
the parties for abandoning their ideological commitments in favour of elite deal
making and a preoccupation with capturing state resources.
Shifting contests over ideology
At the same time that ideology was becoming a secondary factor in party politics,
ideological debates were being sparked within the broader society. These debates
involved long-running struggles between Islamists and secular nationalists over
the state’s role in upholding shari’a law. They had periodically surfaced throughout Indonesia’s history, and were re-ignited in 2006.
To understand the context in which the debates unfolded, it is crucial to appreciate the long history of failure of political Islam in Indonesia. This began with
the defeat of Islamists in the formation of the Indonesian state in 1945, when the
founding fathers opted for religious neutrality by rejecting the insertion of a clause
acknowledging Islamic law in the Jakarta Charter—the preamble to the constitution. After decades of being suppressed, Islamists found new democratic space to
revive their demands following the collapse of the Soeharto regime in 1998. But
their efforts to insert the contested section of the Jakarta Charter into Indonesia’s
heavily amended constitution in 2000–02 were once again thwarted. Since that
defeat, the debate over the Jakarta Charter at the national level has largely lost
momentum.
In 2006, however, the debate re-emerged in a different guise, in efforts to shape
laws and policies that regulated social behaviour on the basis of conservative
social values. In light of the successive failures of political Islam, Islamists increasingly shifted their attention from constitutional change to issues of public morality. This gave rise to Indonesia’s own version of the ‘culture wars’, waged by
Muslims wanting their own religious values to be reflected in national law and
local regulations.
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These efforts are illustrated by two issues that sparked major controversy and
debate. The first was the adoption of Islamic-inspired by-laws (perda shari’a) by
a growing number of regional governments. Reports indicated that the number
of regions adopting such laws increased throughout 2005–06 to reach at least 37,
including governments in West Java, South Sulawesi, Aceh, Lombok, South Kalimantan, Bengkulu and West Sumatra.8 The by-laws in these regions included bans
on the sale of alcohol, regulations on the payment of wealth tax (zakat), bans on
prostitution and gambling and, in regions such as Aceh and Padang, regulations
obliging women to wear Islamic clothing such as headscarves (jilbab).
The forces driving the adoption of these regulations were m