The Post-Soeharto Restructuring of Local Politics in West, Central and East Java: Democratization, Power Elite and the 2004 Elections
Jun Honna (College of International Relations Ritsumeikan University)
Indonesia’s elections in 2004 have encouraged an international view that the post-Soeharto democratic transition is now in consolidation. This assessment is supported by the fact that both general and presidential elections, which embraced more than 150 million voters, were conducted peacefully. Moreover, the victory of Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a popular presidential candidate challenging the incumbent Megawati Soekarnoputri, is widely recognized as a victory of “public opinion” which has shown disappointment to Megawati and her political party, the PDI-P. The disenchanted public voted against them, resulting in the birth of Yudhoyono administration. This may reflect the growing importance of “people’s voice” in Indonesia’s national politics.
However, the impact of 2004 elections on local politics illustrates different dynamics. My presentation—based on my extensive fieldwork—argues that the elections significantly contributed to the strengthening of local power elite who had governed everyday politico-economic life, and this in turn effectively shrank space for civil society in promoting democratic change in local politics. How and why of this development constitute the major discussion of this presentation.
A close look at local electoral process shows the practice of elite accommodation to democratic institutions, such as elections, in preserving politico-economic benefits. To clarify this, I first attempt to elucidate the way in which local political power has been restructured after the fall of Soeharto. It was this process that the elite “iron triangle” among Golkar (the ruling party of Soeharto), local bureaucrats and business circle was largely collapsed, opening up space for new power elite involving PDI-P politicians, local informal bosses, military commands, tugs (preman) and religious leaders, as commonly seen in West, Central and East Java. The growing competition for local power has radically facilitated money politics and political mobilization of preman. The use of preman for organizing “mass” movement became an important device by elite in gaining access to local government resources, which effectively emasculated civil society in its effort to empower the “mass” based on class/vocational identities. Assessing these changes is the key to understanding the impact of 2004 elections in West, Central and East Java. My comparative analysis demonstrates how elite practice was constant, how power structure was even fortified, and how the sophisticated power elite now provides a danger of skillfully hijacking still-fragile democracy at local level.
