© krisromaniuk.com
I first experienced Indonesian election in May 1997. I was staggering drunk home of Blok M, south Jakarta, about 3 o'clock when I met a newly erected polling station and struck a part of it down. It was a stupid little act of rebellion against a rigged election.
Only three parties were allowed to contest these elections: Golkar, which always won; the United Development Party (PPP), which represented Islam; and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). The daughter of founding President Sukarno Megawati Sukarnoputri had been removed as PDI leader in 1996 because it was considered as a threat to the president's longtime Suharto. This has made him a hero. I had a shirt Megawati, who advised me to never wear in public.
During the campaign period, each party held meaningless, noisy street rallies. Suharto called these ridiculous processions "festival of democracy".
The people were forced to vote for Golkar. I remember last year of high school students graduate being said depended on it, and a military widow warned there would be no more pension if she did not choose Golkar. election day was not a holiday. Indonesian colleagues said they were encouraged to vote for Golkar twice :. the first time in a polling station near the house, and near the office
at the time, the ballot was simple, with a yellow star on the green (PPP ), a banyan tree on yellow (Golkar), and the head of a black bull on the red (IDPs). Every voter had to do was to use a nail to make a hole in one of three Protesting symbols voters put a hole in the three symbols -.. but vote counters could match them for Golkar using their fingers to cover the holes in the rival symbols
the euphoria that followed the fall of Suharto May 1998 was incredible. There were great expectations for the first democratic election in Indonesia in more than four decades, which took place in June 1999, contested by 48 parties. In those days, I spent almost every night of binge drinking in Blok M. Early one morning in Lintas Melawai nightclub, a security guard asked me to help enlist some pretty bar girls for an Indonesian Democratic Party rally Megawati struggle (PDIP). I spent the rest of the day with a group of women at the top of a large van being driven around Jakarta. We all wore t-shirts PDIP and I was waving a massive flag PDIP. Reformasi was the song of the day.
PDIP won the election, while Megawati had to settle for the vice presidency until parliament launched cunning Muslim cleric Gus Dur out of office in 2001. Mega PDIP and proved to be a huge disappointment. It also says a lot about Indonesian democracy that Golkar has not been erased but remains a powerful political force to date.
Democracy simply means that instead of Golkar and the army control the pie, each opportunist could try to catch a slice. When the General Election Commission (KPU) was formed to conduct the 1999 election, one of its decisions was to produce 1.2 million flags to the campaign period. Only 240,000 flags were produced, while about Rp.5 billion allocated for the rest of the flags was rather divided between representatives of each of the competing parties. Corruption flourished both under dictatorship or democracy.
The KPU continued to have much larger scandals. The Constitutional Court, established in part to determine the results of disputed elections, has also been plagued by corruption.
The Indonesian political scene remains a big scam, in which people spend money to get elected and then spend much of their time in the office themselves, their families and business associates enriching. For a time it seemed that the political elite in 2014 would continue to fly the democracy of the people. But now that Joko Widodo is running for president on the ticket of IDPs, there is room for optimism.
As usual, people are paid to attend rallies. There will probably be dead and duplicate names on electoral lists people. Many people will not be properly registered to vote. Some polling stations will not have enough ballots. losing parties and presidential candidates will claim this is evidence of misconduct -. but it is generally fair incompetent management that puts all candidates in the same boat
After 10 years in opposition, IDPs will return to power this year, unless the Constitutional Court can be convinced of to decide otherwise, Jokowi and become the seventh president of Indonesia. This should be a reason to celebrate with a drink.