Uncivilized might be the best word to describe the latest debacle on our House plenary session. Some might have the right to say that it is too harsh a word, but that is the closest word I could think of to describe the real face of our politics as seen on TV last night.

All the singing, shouting, tacky comments and hundreds of unnecessary interruptions show it all—there has got to be something really wrong in our political system.

The election had cost us more than 6.7 trillions Rupiah, a number that is roughly the same amount as the controversial bailout fund, but no one seems to realize that the election gave us nothing more than a crowd of inept politicians—surely not the best example of a wise spending if we mind to take a look at the output.

To start from a very simple thing, what we need in our House of Representatives is simply a strict floor management of the House. Enforcing detailed and strict rules of procedure is a vital in a room full of politicians (not to mention the comedians and those who sang their own Party’s march).

The weak leadership of the Speaker of the House might possibly be rooted on the lack of a clear and detailed set of rules and code of conduct.

It is obvious that the plenary session of the House failed to enforce a standardized procedure in every phase of the session. The rules keep changing, even for a very simple thing such as to determine the lists of speakers. It might also be a good idea for the House to adopt the rules and mechanism of filibuster from the US Congress to accommodate those who wants to speak hours to deliberately obstruct the political process on the floor—at least it is better than a wild and chaotic effort to delay the decision making process just like what we saw yesterday.

The second is political management. Redundant speeches from members of a Fraction are a solid proof that there were no effective internal political consolidation took place that night. Fraction should have an effective management system to conditioned their Party members and consolidate their standing position towards the issue.

What makes it so chaotic was that everyone wants to grab the microphone and speaks—even when they have nothing to say about the substance of the meeting. They redundantly make a long speech about things that has been said before by their colleagues.

The media also has their fair share to blame to give the public a biased report, exaggerated editorial and often irrelevant comments. One thing they did it right was they aired it live.

The third one is the lack of political loyalty—or value in a bigger picture.

When it comes to political backstabbing, ask Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). The decision made in the plenary session baffled the public which boats do they belong to. Hypocrisy is a thin-line away from the noble value they always proud of.

Is this what we call political dynamics? I prefer to call this political drama.

Dynamism is a good thing when it comes to politics, but what we’ve seen in the last two weeks is not dynamism. It is simply pragmatism—plus a bit of political immaturity.

Seeing parties changing course that easily is an obvious example of how our politics lack of value. Too many parties in a system make it more difficult to hold on to certain ideology. When all parties become catch-all party, that is a time when our politics lost its value.

It seems to me that Party’s platform is nothing more than just a slogan embedded in their headquarters lobby. They can easily hop on-and-off to another coalition or party blocs without having to consider their ideologies, platforms or programs. Any political moves taken by our political parties seem to be more of an impulsive pragmatic action rather than a sincere strategic moves to defend the people’s right.

Last but not least are those who sit in the House themselves. Needless to say, the public is smart and wise enough to judge their capacity by now.

This is the failure of our political system. It constructs an electoral regime that is not only failed to provide an adequate quality control for those who want to participate in the very center of the government, but also enforcing political populism that is misleading for the public. The result—as we watched in gapped—is troublesome. Not only a bad civic education, but simply an ugly political reality show to watch.

This should not be the way to run our democracy. Our best stake now is an electoral reform to prevent this from happening again in the next five years. ***

A month ago, I made a bet with my friend on the prospect of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and Jusuf Kalla (JK) duet. My friend, having believed that SBY-JK duet for the last 5 years was a success, insisted that SBY will eventually choose Kalla as his running mate. Just two weeks ago, I claimed my victory as Kalla picked Wiranto as his running mate.

After a decent dinner (where he paid me for our bet), we chatted all night long about Indonesia’s politics. It was such a lively chat we had. We disagree on almost every matter; except one—we agreed that Indonesia’s politics is getting more and more similar to what Indonesians call as sinetron (soap opera).

To see how our politics have become more melodramatic than ever before, we can simply take a look at the latest development of it. Surely there were a lot of surprising moves in the last five days.

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) flirted with Democrat Party, leaving the public gapped to see how easy it is for their political parties to change its course and lost its consistency as an opposition.
Another maneuver was taken by SBY who has finally decided his running mate, Boediono, a well-known economist and the governor of the central bank—and more importantly, an independent with no party affiliation.

It turns out that this maneuver has led us into another scene of our political drama. An angry voice came up from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) who threatened to leave the coalition if SBY keeps Boediono as his vice president nominee.

PKS vice secretary general angrily saying that SBY did not have an appropriate manner when it comes to political communication with his own coalition bloc. This, again, leaves the public amazed on how immature our politics has become.

Some might call this a political dynamics; I prefer to call this political drama.

Dynamism is a good thing when it comes to politics, but what we’ve seen in the last two weeks is not dynamism. It is simply pragmatism—plus a bit of political immaturity.

For me, seeing parties changing course that easily is an obvious example of how our politics lack of value. Too many parties in a system make it more difficult to hold on to certain ideology. When all parties become a catch-all party, that is a time when our politics will lost its value.

It seems to me that party’s platform is nothing more than just a slogan embedded in their headquarters lobby. They can easily hop on-and-off to another coalition or party blocs without having to consider their ideologies, platforms or programs. Any political moves taken by our political parties seem to be more of an impulsive action rather than strategic moves based on their party’s platforms.

This has also clearly shows us that our politics is all about power—well, it is always about power—but what I’m trying to say here is that when a party can easily shift to the center, left or right, they have forgotten their platforms to a point where they are just looking for a bigger part of the pie, and not thinking about the noble task beyond it.

When they have forgotten their own party platforms or programs, what can they offer to the people? Aren’t those two is the most important things in a political campaign? If that is the case, then this might be an explanation on how come we never heard of any platforms or programs debate to be put front-and-center on every campaign.

Sure they put a small fraction of time on it, but the biggest proportions of any campaign are dangdut performance and t-shirts throwing time. These two are the things that they offer to the people. In Indonesia, parties programs or ideology is not as effective as dangdut and t-shirt.

Why bother to give them any explanation on your party’s programs or public debate about it when you can just put a well-known singer or comedian as your legislative nominee? This has proven to be the best way to gain more mass without having to think about any complicated solution to our nation’s most pressing problems.

Clearly this is not a good example on how politics should run. This is not a good show to watch and more importantly, this is not a good civic or political education for the people.

Talking about sinetron, they only need a play with strong-imaging and stereotypical characters on it, exaggerated emotions, and sensational storyline, right? Aren’t that our politics have become? ***

This article was published on today’s Jakarta Globes “The Thinker” column. You can find it here.

By: Andika Putraditama

Three days ago there was something interesting on my Facebook news feed: a message from Facebook Site Governance asking me to join the group and cast my vote on two documents, the Facebook Principles and the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibility.

Apparently, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of this phenomenal social networking site, thinks the population of the “Facebook Nation” has grown so big that it needs more open and transparent governance. With a population of more than 200 million netizens worldwide, Facebook would be the fifth largest country in the world.

To take a step closer to the Democratic State of Facebook (as I’m calling it now), Zuckerberg proposed a more democratic approach to govern the Web site. He introduced the two aforementioned documents and let the netizens make comments, recommendations and proposals to alter them, then redrafted each and let users vote on a soon-to-be “Facebook Constitution.”

I really wish our own democracy could be that simple and effective.

But here’s a switch: We spend more and more money on our system, but we get nothing except violence, stagnancy and those eye-poking posters of the candidates all over our streets. I think it fair to say that these are the accurate snapshots of our democratic practices today.

Challenged by the present condition of our democracy, we might want to ask whether the current architecture of our democracy is just hideous or if it there is something real in it that we can pin our hopes on.

Our current system of direct elections seems to reduce the dominance of the power elite so that today everyone can join the hype and be a candidate. Consequently, now we have legislative candidates from literally any background — from a parking man to a media mogul. Even a criminal with a written record of smuggling weed joined the competition. If that counts, then “various backgrounds” will have a whole new meaning for our democracy.

These might be good examples of how participatory democracy is practiced in Indonesia, but the downside of having too many doors open in our system is that we can no longer have a credible quality control to filter our candidates.

Many, if not most, of the legislative candidates were inexperienced, lacked basic knowledge of legislative activities or were simply uneducated. Today we have quite a number of candidates that come from nonpolitical backgrounds, including those who are still very young and many more who are entertainers and comedians with no experience in politics.

Sure, they are full of ideals and fresh ideas, but real politics needs more than just ideals and ideas. Our democracy should not be the big and expensive joke we’ve seen in the last four months.

What awaits election winners in the next four years is noble yet delicate work. It requires no less than legal drafting ability, an understanding of how our political system works and a comprehensive grasp of the issues waiting to be resolved. Will they be able to perform well in the next four years? I doubt it.

Today’s elected legislators are the product of a troubled society. Those who nominate themselves without knowing what the job is all about and those who chose to vote for candidates they barely know — it’s like a blind date. The result is likely to be troublesome.

Consider this too: The people who spent millions or even billions of rupiah to put their faces on those corny political posters are the same people who will control our legislatures for the next four years. I simply cannot trust them to handle this enormous responsibility while the thought front and center in their minds must be on first recovering their campaign expenses in any way possible.

If one thinks that our recent legislative elections were a total disaster, then something has to be changed. But can we do that when our law-making process soon will be in the hands of the product of a troubled democracy?

This is not an overly pessimistic view or an attempt to underestimate those who will soon be legislators. This is a wake-up call for anyone out there who still believes in a better way to practice democracy. Even Facebook has a better way to run its democracy. Why can’t we fix ours? ***

Some say that to work in United Nations is every International Relations student’s dream. Well, maybe not all of them, but at least I know that I am one of those dreamer. It has been three years since I started my study as an International Relations student, and from the very beginning, I always wanted to be part of the international community. I dedicated this post to the late Mr. Ali Alatas and his endless inspiration for me and my friends of IR study. Read the rest of this entry »

The Jakarta Post, August 23, 2008

By: Andika Putraditama

What is really at stake now is not just the power of the government, or the next presidency. It is our democracy that is at stake.

Read the rest of this entry »

Setelah permasalahan BBM teralihkan oleh insiden Monas, kali ini giliran Kejaksaan Agung yang mengambil alih headline berbagai media tanah air. Tertangkapnya Jaksa Agung Muda Tindak Pidana Khusus (Jampidsus) Urip Tri Gunawan, menjadi awal terbongkarnya berbagai “busuk” yang terjadi di Kejaksaan Agung. Read the rest of this entry »

Masih pantaskah FPI menyandang nama sebagai FRONT PEMBELA ISLAM?

Read the rest of this entry »

Kompas.com hari ini memuat satu berita menarik tentang mantan Mensesneg Yusril Ihza Mahendra. Headlinenya, ‘Film Laksamana Cheng Ho, Alat Kampanye Yusril?’.

Sebenarnya berita tentang keikutsertaan Yusril dalam film laksamana Cheng Ho ini sudah cukup lama beredar. Namun rencana peluncuran film di bulan Agustus yang akan datang diartikan sebagian orang sebagai upaya Yusril untuk mendongkrak dukungan terhadap rencana pencalonan dirinya sebagai calon presiden di pemilu 2009 nanti. Read the rest of this entry »

Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un…

Telah berpulang ke rahmatullah, H.M. Soeharto, pada tanggal 27 Januari 2008 pukul 13.10 WIB.

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Judul postingan ini sebenarnya merupakan judul sebuah buku biografi mengenai Soeharto yang ditulis oleh Retnowati Abdulgani dan mengisahkan kehidupan Soeharto sebagai seorang pribadi. Namun judul tersebut nampaknya cukup pas untuk mengawali tulisan ini mengingat banyaknya kontroversi yang berkembang di masyarakat menyangkut kehidupan mantan presiden RI ke-2 ini.

Kehidupan seorang Soeharto tidak terlepas dari berbagai kontroversi yang menyelimutinya, begitupun hingga kematiannya. Wafatnya beliau siang kemarin ternyata masih meninggalkan berbagai perdebatan yang tidak kunjung reda mengenai berbagai hal menyangkut dirinya, mulai dari status hukum beliau, masa depan yayasan-yayasan beliau hingga kontroversi mengenai gelar pahlawan yang bagi sebagian kalangan tidak dapat diterima.

Pasca wafatnya beliau, banyak masyarakat yang terlihat masih menaruh simpati terhadap “the smiling general” ini. Karangan bunga yang berdatangan ke rumah duka di jalan Cendana Jakarta serta antusiasme warga yang sengaja menyempatkan diri untuk datang ke Cendana untuk melayat atau bahkan sekedar untuk melihat suasana di rumah duka menjadi bukti bahwa Soeharto masih memiliki daya tarik yang besar bagi sebagian kalangan masyarakat.

Media cetak dan elektronik berlomba-lomba untuk membuat special program khusus untuk membahas kontroversi kehidupan Soeharto. Di luar dugaan, ternyata masih banyak sekali masyarakat yang menaruh simpati terhadap sosok Soeharto. Begitu juga dengan mantan-mantan pejabat Orde Baru yang seakan-akan muncul kembali ke permukaan untuk sekedar menunjukkan loyalitasnya terhadap mantan pemimpin Orde Baru ini di saat-saat terakhirnya. Bahkan mantan Menteri Sekretaris Negara yang populer di era Soeharto, Moerdiono, seakan-akan kembali ‘aktif’ menjadi Mensesneg karena kebetulan beliau ditunjuk menjadi juru bicara keluarga Cendana.

Namun di lain pihak, tidak sedikit pula yang tetap ’setia’ menghujat dan mengkritik beliau bahkan di saat-saat kematiannya. Tuntutan demi tuntutan tetap dilayangkan ke pihak pemerintah untuk tetap mengusut berbagai kasus yang mengiringi kepergian beliau. Sungguh sebuah legacy yang menyedihkan bagi seorang pemimpin yang sangat lama berkuasa di negeri ini. Para mantan aktivis pergerakan reformasi tahun 1998 nampaknya belum dapat memaafkan Soeharto begitu saja. Banyak dari mereka yang tetap meminta pemerintah untuk melanjutkan proses hukum yang sedang berjalan.

Mengenai kontroversi kelanjutan kasus hukum Soeharto, saya pribadi berpendapat bahwa proses hukum sudah seharusnya tetap dilanjutkan. Hal ini tetap harus dilakukan demi penegakan hukum, penegakan sejarah dan demi menjaga kewibawaan hukum. Kita bisa saja memaafkan Soeharto secara pribadi *bagi yang tidak memiliki dendam pribadi mungkin dapat diterima* dan hal itu kembali ke masing-masing individu, apakah bersedia secara ikhlas memaafkan segala kekhilafan beliau atau tidak. Namun mengenai berbagai perkara hukum yang belum selesai, perlu diadakan penyelesaian hukum yang final, jangan sampai kasusnya terkatung-katung atau bahkan dihilangkan sama sekali. 

Selain itu, tidak dapat kita pungkiri bahwa Soeharto juga telah banyak berjasa terhadap bangsa ini. Di era Orde Baru, pembangunan ekonomi berhasil dilakukan secara terpadu, terencana dan berhasil membawa kemakmuran bagi rakyat. Swasembada pangan berhasil dicapai oleh Indonesia yang pada saat itu baru saja terlepas dari krisis politik akibat transisi Orde Lama-Orde Baru. Peran Indonesia dalam berbagai forum internasional pun berhasil dijalankan dengan baik dan mengangkat nama Indonesia menjadi salah satu negara yang cukup disegani di kawasan Asia.

Konsep pembangunan ekonomi Soeharto dengan mengambil prinsip trickle-down effect yang pada kenyataannya menciptakan konglomerat-konglomerat Orde Baru *atau dalam bahasa beliau ‘pengusaha pribumi’* merupakan konsep yang memang dipercaya oleh Soeharto dapat mengurangi kemiskinan. “Untuk menutupi lembah dan rawa, dibutuhkan gunung-gunung yang menjulang tinggi…”, begitu beliau menggambarkan konsep ekonominya. Namun, ketika gunung-gunung tersebut (para konglomerat) sudah semakin tinggi, siapa yang akan memotong gunung-gunung tersebut untuk kemudian dibawa guna menutupi lembah dan rawa? Mungkin pertanyaan inilah yang sulit untuk dijawab oleh seorang Soeharto.

Konsep politik Soeharto dengan penerapan prinsip-prinsip benavalent authoritarian (otoriter yang dermawan) berhasil diterapkan untuk menciptakan kedamaian semu di bumi Indonesia. Rakyat dimanja dengan berbagai subsidi dan bantuan ekonomi. Pada saat itu, Soeharto memang memiliki kapital untuk melakukan hal tersebut mengingat di tahun 70′an Indonesia mendapat banyak sekali cadangan devisa yang berasal dari oil boom 1973.

The life and legacy dari seorang Soeharto memang memiliki banyak kontroversi. Namun hendaknya kita juga bisa lebih bijaksana untuk menyikapi berbagai perdebatan yang ada. Seperti apa yang dikutip oleh Retnowati Abdulgani di akhir bukunya dalam chapter LESSON TO BE LEARNT, ucapan Soeharto saat itu “I know that I will not free from mistakes, thus, as I have often said and I want to repeat it now and here once again, I do hope that others will follow the good things that I have given to the country and the people, and stay away from the bad things that I might have done in performing my duties…..’’

Baru-baru ini, Forum Ekonomi Dunia (World Economic Forum-WEF) mempublikasikan Global Competitiveness Report, sebuah laporan yang dibuat untuk mengetahui tingkat daya saing ekonomi sebuah negara. Secara singkat, laporan ini menggambarkan performa negara-negara di dunia dalam hal produktivitas ekonomi dan seringkali digunakan sebagai referensi bagi para investor yang ingin menanamkan modalnya di luar negeri. Laporan ini menilai 113 faktor yang berkontribusi terhadap daya saing ekonomi sebuah negara. Komponen yang dinilai meliputi faktor-faktor yang terlihat ”remeh” seperti kondisi jalan hingga hal-hal seperti independensi lembaga peradilan negara tersebut. Bagaimana performa Indonesia tahun ini? Dan apakah Indonesia mampu untuk memperbaiki peringkatnya?

Berbicara mengenai economic competitiveness dalam era globalisasi seperti sekarang, laporan semacam ini akan menjadi sangat penting karena Global Competitiveness Report akan secara langsung mempengaruhi image dan trust terhadap kemampuan negara tersebut dalam mengelola sektor perekonomiannya. Dan Indonesia—by the way—ada di peringkat 54 dari 131 negara yang disurvey oleh WEF. Apakah hal ini dapat dikategorikan sebagai sebuah prestasi—mengingat kita masih dalam “100 besar” negara yang memiliki daya saing terbaik? Tampaknya kita masih belum bisa berbangga diri dulu dengan peringkat tersebut.

Sebagai perbandingan, negara-negara di Asia Tenggara yang notabene tetangga dekat kita seperti Malaysia, Singapore dan Thailand ternyata berhasil mendapat peringkat yang jauh lebih baik dari Indonesia. Thailand yang seringkali dianggap ”setara” dengan kita ternyata berhasil menduduki peringkat ke-28. Amerika Serikat berhasil mempertahankan peringkat ke-1 dengan pertimbangan kuatnya cadangan modal (venture-capital availability), besarnya pasar dan ketersediaan tenaga kerja yang kompetitif.

Bagaimana dengan Indonesia? Dengan pengelolaan sumber daya ekonomi yang kurang—atau bahkan tidak efektif, terbukti Indonesia belum mampu mengejar ketertinggalannya dalam ekonomi global. Pasca reformasi, pemerintah terlihat kehilangan fokusnya dalam hal pembangunan ekonomi dan tidak memiliki blue print yang jelas seperti yang dilakukan oleh Soeharto pada saat ia berkuasa. Ketiadaan blue print ini membuat kita tidak fokus dan justru gagal dalam menciptakan efektivitas yang sangat dibutuhkan dalam pengelolaan aset-aset ekonomi. Aset yang telah kita miliki justru tidak termanfaatkan seara optimal. Ada satu kalimat yang menurut saya sangat relevan untuk dikutip, majalah TIME dalam edisi khususnya mengenai Global Competitiveness Report mengatakan, “Competitiveness, then, is not about absolutes but about being able to make the most of what you have.”