Boni Hargens , Jakarta
Why does the government tend to be ineffective in implementing public policy? That is the question of De Figueiredo, Jr in his 2002 paper titled, "Electoral Competition, Political Uncertainty, and Policy Insulation". He argues that political uncertainty is the root of evil. Uncertainty denotes a complex political process that ends in a deadlock.
For Figueiredo, uncertainty is not a taken-for-granted state but implicated by complex electoral competition among different political forces.
If the above question is converted into how to implement an effective policy, we then automatically will discuss the quality of government as the output of electoral competition. To come straight to the point, the true question is whether or not a 38-party electoral competition in the upcoming 2009 elections can create an effective government.
A set of coalition strategies built by political parties is a beginning. But there are no strong variables that will guarantee that such a maximum coalition can build an effective presidential government because the boundaries are blurred and this is simply a "wild political maneuver" among political parties.
This happens for various reasons, such as (a) an ideologically dissimilar coalition or dissimilar political targets, (b) an over-exploitation of the figurative or popularity aspect when recruiting candidates for leaders and (c) a tendency to sweep the quality of leadership out of the electoral realm.
To some extent, polls published by independent researchers in term of leadership quality are jailed by particular disputes around who is the most popular to be a president. Popularity stands is not a significant correlation with quality. Some may be highly popular and qualified at the same time, but popularity per se does not imply leadership quality.
Talking about change then, is to talk about the quality of leadership. If we examine all current surveys in depth, we can see there is no specific survey that addresses public perception of the degree of leadership among every presidential candidate who has appeared on the surface.
Behind this dynamic game, we can synthesize that democracy is being insulated by pragmatic forces. On the one hand, to a certain point a political party is unable to self-reform and on the other hand, civil forces are giving less and less concern to this banal political process. Hence is it contingent to expect 2009 elections that are valuable?
Substantially, the 2009 elections will be very valuable and will become a critical turning point in this country's democratic history if the process is the priority, not the results per se or the contests in themselves -- at least this can be the idea for a political party in understanding coalition. One nodal point stressed along this line is that the elections will transcend to struggles for upgrading the quality of democracy.
Barack Obama in the United States ran ahead of John S. McCain in the polls when Obama mapped a feasible change agenda -- not being stuck in past romanticism as McCain was with his heroic moments in the Vietnam War.
The same fate will befall the big established parties in our country in the context that no parties will be accepted among the population if they only stand on a historical foundation. The horizon must include performances on how and what parties will do and should do for the greatest number of people. The main intention is what parties will do to combat political uncertainty.
In specifics, the intentions of politics are to fight for the survival of its citizens, to defend the poor's right-to-live, to set the oppressed free and to let the uneducated dream of schooling -- not only because education is an instrument for vertical social mobilization but also as education is a right of the citizens.
In terms of talking about rights, the Liberals and the Republicans have disputed this for years. For Liberals, the foundation of a state's existence is to fulfill individual interests for each of its citizens, but the Republicans are convinced that the state must act in its own interests, not only as a tool for fulfilling individual needs. Habermas effects to end such creative tension through what he calls "deliberative democracy". The core principle is how to maximize popular participation in the political process.
This precisely is our fundamental issue -- how to maximize popular participation in the state when democracy is being insulated by pragmatic forces. Political parties as formal power-seeking organizations and as a bridge between society and the political system have been put into question -- reflect on the increase of non-voters during recent local elections -- for their oligarchical domination and absolute pragmatism where their quality is subordinated to money. It is predicted that the 2009 elections will be hung up by such pragmatical forces.
The question then is how to set our democratic imagination free from the tunnel's darkness? The change -- which will be the nodal point of our expected struggle in the upcoming 2009 elections -- will have to meet some of the following conditions: (a) politics will be led by a new progressive and mainstream politic (new political party?) that enters the political realm with a feasible and transformative agenda of change, (b) the party sells its agenda or program at the grassroots level and no longer exists because of its popularity and (c) finally voters have sufficient information and knowledge about the candidates or contestant parties so that people can come to the ballot with a good conscience and genuine good will.
The writer is a lecturer at Political Science Department, University of Indonesia and Director of Merdeka Center for Strategic Study. He can be reached at bonnyhargens@yahoo.com.au
Source www.thejakartapost.com
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