When did we decide that direct elections are the way to exercise democracy?
14 Februari 2017 15:00
by I Dewa Made Agung Kertha Nugraha
Most Indonesian citizens including myself, participate in various level of elections every 2-3 years, from the regional, provincial, national legislative, to presidential elections.
Elections are not only about electoral systems or who gets the mostsupport. Elections are also about the problems they create: reports of fraud, money politics, the never-ending war between the coalition and the opposition, and many more. But is this really the democracy we want and fought for?
More importantly, when did we decide that direct elections wasthe best way to perform our democracy?
As far as I remember, the fourth articleof Pancasila does not mention voting as a way to decide where this nation will go in the future. It does not say anything about one man one vote.
It mentions the core of our culture: gotong royong (working together) through representative deliberation to achieve common understanding.
It never said anything about those representatives getting elected.
Gotong royong has always been linked to physical work like cleaning the neighborhood, but as Soekarno said on June 1, 1945 in a Organization forIndependence Preparation (BPUPKI)meeting, the termshould also mean working together, fighting together, helping each other for our common interest and happiness.
If deliberation of representatives is Pancasila's choice of decision-taking process,arent elections, though direct, public, confidential, honest, and fair (as was the motto post-1998), then against the national ideology?
So how should we exerciseour democracy if not through direct elections?
We know what happens when people arenot given their right to control the government directly (see Old Order and New Order regimes). It does not end well.
I propose structured stages of deliberation.
Direct and confidential voting highlights individualism in our society. It lets individuals choose without having to take responsibility of what the result creates in the future. Nobody knows whom other people elect, so when their candidate gets the job and messes up, there isno one to be held responsible.
So, lets just scrap the individual decisions and go for something akin to the US primary system.
We can start with the smallest level of community: families. Let each family make a single common decision. Then, several families can gather in their neighborhood in RT or RW unit and deliberate the pros and cons before arriving at one common decision.
The representatives from RW units can then gather in sub-district level and deliberate again. The process can be replicated until it reaches provincial or even national level.
This system will provide space for discussion and reasonable decision taking, it will also open up possibilities for local figures to shine. The system will also kill money politics as arguments becomethe only political force that works.
Well, it is a long shot. I dont see elections go out of style anytime soon. But a man can dream, right?
I Dewa Made Agung Kertha Nugraha holds a master's degree in economics from University of Paris I: Pantheon-Sorbonne and is a candidate for another master's degree in business strategy from ENSTA Paris Tech.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect Brilio's.
