A positive signal for the strengthening of democratic values and processes, reflecting a renewed commitment to fairness in governance
Jakarta, IO – The image of a blue poster bearing the words “Emergency Warning” above Indonesia’s national emblem – the mythical bird Garuda – was widely shared on social media on Wednesday (21/8), as a symbol of civil resistance. It morphed into a popular movement after the House Legislation Body (Baleg DPR) swiftly held a meeting to revise the Regional Elections Law (Law 10/2016), following the Constitutional Court (MK) ruling on regional head nomination requirements on Tuesday (20/8).
The top court’s verdict (No. 60/ PUU-XXII/2024) was handed down in response to the judicial review filed by two small political parties, the Labor Party and Gelora Party, concerning the eligibility threshold for regional head (governor, regent or mayor) nomination which a political party or coalition of political parties must meet, namely 20 percent of legislative seats in the Regional Legislative Council (DPRD) or 25 percent of the popular votes, as stipulated in Article 40 (1) of the Regional Elections Law.
MK ruled that the provision was no longer applicable to the November elections. Instead, it lowered the threshold to 7.5 percent of popular votes for a province, with the number of eligible voters between 6 million and 12 million (such as Jakarta) and 6.5 percent for a province with more than 12 million eligible voters (such as West Java and Central Java).
MK also announced its verdict (No. 70/PUU-XXII/2024) on the judicial review against Article 7 (2) of the Regional Elections Law, in which it ruled that the minimum limit for gubernatorial and vice gubernatorial candidates had to be 30 years of age by the time they were registered to run by the General Elections Commission (KPU), not by the time they were inaugurated.
In response, Baleg DPR held a back-to-back meeting on Wednesday, to revise the law. In fewer than seven hours, all but one of the nine parties in the House agreed to make the court order apply only to small political parties with no seats in DPRD, and revert the ruling on a minimum age of a candidacy per the existing law. The proposal was endorsed by the government, represented by the Home Minister and Law and Human Rights Minister. PDI-P was the only party that rejected the revisions.
House member of the PDI-P faction M. Nurdin argued that MK rulings No. 60 and 70 were clear, namely, erga omnes (applicable to all). Thus, they need no further interpretation. PDI-P stated that it would submit a formal note of objection if the bill discussion were to ignore the MK verdicts.
The amendment was scheduled to be ratified in the House plenary session on the following day, Thursday (21/8). However, it triggered an avalanche of protests in Jakarta and several major cities, spearheaded by university students, scholars, laborers, social activists, artists, public figures and people from different walks of life. They took to the streets and held rallies outside the Parliament House and MK building. The social media was also lit up with the “Blue Garuda” images, Emergency Alert messages and hashtags #KawalPutusanMK (guard the MK decision).
The protesters slammed the House maneuver as an attempt to subvert the Constitution. The common perception was that the rushed revision was intended to prevent a popular candidate (Anies Baswedan) from contesting the Jakarta gubernatorial election, while paving the way for Kaesang Pangarep, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s younger son, to run as a vice gubernatorial candidate in Central Java. The President was accused of trying to cement his family’s influence and establish a political dynasty (his eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka was elected Vice President in February of this year at the tender age of 36). Interestingly, MK also played a role in Gibran’s candidacy, which was only made possible after the court ruled that presidential and vice presidential candidates under the age of 40 would be allowed to contest an election, provided that they had prior experience as elected regional leaders.
Confronted with the massive protests and demonstrations (which at some moments turned increasingly violent, after protesters managed to breach the Parliament grounds), the House plenary session was postponed, due to a lack of a quorum (at least half of the House members from more than half of the number of factions). This signifies that at least 288 lawmakers must be present in session for a ratification. However, in the event only 89 representatives showed up. As a result, the bill was shelved. This capped a tense and tumultuous week in Indonesian politics, ahead of an imminent transition of power.
Pent-up disenchantment, political propriety
In my observation, the resistance stemmed from pent-up public disappointment or frustration that could no longer be contained. The Baleg’s maneuver on August 21 was just the trigger. In physics, there is the so-called “pressure theory”. It refers to the notion of pressure in a substance, for example in fluids (liquids and gases). However, this concept can be applied metaphorically, to explain social phenomena, including social movements.
It explains how various social, economic, political, and cultural factors suppress or pressure certain groups or individuals in society. This pressure can derive from dissatisfaction, injustice or social exclusion. When it continues to build, and there is no channel to vent or seek release, it eventually “explodes” in the form of social movements, protests, demonstrations, civil disobedience or popular uprisings.
For example, in a society suffering from severe economic injustice, social pressure can accumulate among the working class or oppressed groups. If this pressure is not “released” through sound policies or meaningful reform, it will lead to a large-scale social movement, demanding change.
In this theory, pressure denotes the force that drives change, while resistance is the status quo (government, institutions, and other nexus of power) that stands in the way. When the pressure is powerful enough to overcome resistance, social change occurs, similar to how pressure in a confined fluid can burst forth, with displacement or flow.
This pressure theory is used to explain many famous social movements in various countries. One of them is the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. In the mid-20th Century, the US felt significant social tensions, arising from by racial issues. Policies of racial segregation and systematic discrimination against the African-American community led to an accumulation of disillusionment, disenfranchisement and suffering among the blacks.
If we take a closer look at the chronology, the “Blue Garuda” movement and protests came as a climax of public disappointment. Actually, the root of the issue is not about Anies or Kaesang, but rather political practices that the public perceives as “too rough”. We cannot avoid being subjected to such public perception. After witnessing the series of fast-moving events, we cannot blame the public for thinking that there must be a hidden agenda or sinister plot to defend certain interests by manipulating the laws or circumventing a legal process.
In the public mind, which is fundamentally based on common sense, obedience to the law is vital, because law is the basic framework that sustains order, stability and justice in society. The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates emphasized the importance of obedience to the law. In the dialogue “Crito” written by Plato, Socrates, who had been sentenced to death by the court for corrupting youth and impiety (or teaching about new gods) rejected an offer from his friend Crito of escaping from prison.
Socrates argued that doing so would damage the legal and moral order, and betray the unwritten agreement between citizens and the state. According to him, obedience to the law is a moral obligation that must be fulfilled, because the law is the basis of order and justice in society.
Thousands of years later, in his famous “Leviathan” (1651), English philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued that humans naturally live in a chaotic and conflicted “state of nature”, where “man is a wolf to man” (Homo homini lupus).
To avoid this chaos, according to Hobbes, humans formed a society (and a government) with a social contract of laws and regulations to govern their lives. Hobbes emphasized that obedience to the law is important, because law is the only way to ensure peace and security. Without law, society would return to a brutal and anarchic state of nature.
Unproven predictions
Unlike previous cases, the Blue Garuda movement surprisingly managed to force the postponement of the Regional Elections Law amendment. Why is this surprising? Because even the waves of protests against the revisions of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Law and Jobs Creation Law several years ago failed to stop them from being passed.
Chronologically, the plenary meeting whose agenda was to ratify the revision of the Regional Elections Law began at 9.30am WIB in the Nusantara II building of the Parliament House, Senayan, South Jakarta. The meeting was opened by the House Deputy Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad.
Other House leaders who attended the meeting were Deputy Speaker Rachmat Gobel of NasDem and Deputy Speaker Lodewijk F Paulus of Golkar. Also present from the government side were Home Minister Tito Karnavian and Law and Human Rights Minister Supratman Andi Agtas.
However, since no required quorum showed up, the meeting was postponed for 30 minutes. At 10:00 am, Dasco announced that the meeting would be canceled, as it still lacked a quorum. Thus, despite the Baleg’s approval, the meeting was dismissed. As a result, the MK decision became the prevailing law in the conduct of the 2024 regional elections.
What is also of interest is the comment by the House Committee III member Arteria Dahlan of PDI-P that President-elect Prabowo Subianto played a key role in the cancellation of the bill’s ratification. It was interesting because the statement did not come from the Onward Indonesia Coalition (KIM) – the group that supports Prabowo – but from the PDI-P faction, his rival in the recent presidential election.
“What is my conclusion? In my honest opinion, if Mr. Prabowo had not been there, this could not have happened. People who we consider to be authoritarian, totalitarian, tyrannical of militaristic can do good, if given the opportunity,” said Arteria, in a meeting with Law and Human Rights Minister Supratman Andi Agtas on August 23.
If what Arteria said is true, then it dispelled concerns among various quarters on the future state of Indonesia democracy under a Prabowo presidency. For instance, on June 17, 2014, Indonesian politics researcher at the Australian National University (ANU) Edward Aspinall wrote an article in New Mandala titled “Indonesia’s democracy is in danger” in which he feared that Indonesia democracy would suffer a serious setback should Prabowo win the 2014 presidential election.
Like most political scientists, Aspinall’s fears seem to be grounded on the notion that Prabowo is a “product” of the Soeharto New Order. Based on his own observation, Prabowo’s personal history, rhetoric and leadership style were a strong indication that his victory will bring authoritarian rule back to Indonesia.
Aspinall also viewed certain of Prabowo’s remarks as exuding undemocratic tendencies. For example, Prabowo often asserts that democracy, or at least the version of democracy as practiced in Indonesia, is the main source of corruption and other national ills. According to him, the main danger lies in the combination of Prabowo’s emphasis on the principle of firm leadership and his personality.
However, as we can see so far, that prediction is a far cry from reality. Based on Arteria’s testimonial, Prabowo actually has a mature calculation of public perceptions and the consequences of ignoring them.
Aspinall’s mistake in predicting the future of Indonesian democracy under Prabowo can be explained referring to Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable”. Black Swan is a metaphor he employs to describe an event that has three attributes: (1) It is an outlier, i.e., it is so rare that even the possibility that it might occur is unknown; (2) It has an extreme impact when it occurs; (3) In spite of its outlier status, explanations are created for it after the fact, making it predictable in the future.
The main thesis of the Black Swan is that humans are actually unable to make predictions about the future, even though they always claim to the contrary. As an example, Taleb points to the Maginot Line, that led to the invasion and defeat of France by Nazi Germany. In World War I, the Maginot Line did indeed manage to hold back a German invasion; thus, the French military became overly-engrossed in building a complex series of fortifications system. However, the Wehrmacht instead focused on increasing the number of German tanks to break through the Maginot Line. As a result, France was defeated in just six weeks.
The Maginot Line has since become a metaphor for expensive efforts that offer a false sense of security. It was also mentioned by Jared Diamond in his book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”. In the same vein, Jared wrote that the French were trapped by their own experience, because the Maginot Line had previously held back a German invasion.
They relied on that experience as a basis for predicting the future, and were convinced that it would happen the same way. This caused them to eliminate other possibilities and fully concentrate on the Maginot Line. This is similar to Japan’s miscalculation in the Pacific War, when they calculated that the US would not take the great risk of crossing the Pacific Ocean to strike back. Japan was trapped by its own prediction.
Democracy and public perceptions
According to an analysis titled “Guarding MK ruling: Public voices unite under emergency alert” by big data consulting company Drone Emprit, during the protests against proposed changes to the regional elections law, social media was dominated by positive sentiments. This study was based on data gathered from the social media platform X and online news outlets using keyword search, in the period from August 21-22.
The company also revealed that the increase in the number of mentions of the protests began on Wednesday (21/8) afternoon, spiking at 5,263, driven by the amplification of the call to rally behind MK, while at the same time denouncing President Jokowi and his family.
Meanwhile, the number of mentions on online news outlets started to spike at 4:00 pm WIB, mostly on preparations to march to Senayan, and the Emergency Alert when the House brought up bill for discussion. The sentiment on social media with respect to the protests saw a total of 70,299 mentions, with 60,252 (86 percent) of them positive. The topics consisted of calls to support the MK ruling, the mock-up of an emergency alert system, calls for the House to respect the verdict and appreciation of the protesters.
There were 478 negative mentions (1 percent of the total). The topics included actions driven by parties and figures, and violent clashes between demonstrators and security officers. Meanwhile, 9,569 (14 percent) of the mentions were deemed “neutral”.
On online news media, several outlets were highly active in reporting the issue, namely, CNNIndonesia. com (11), Kompas.com (9), IDN Times (6), and Fajar.co.id (5). Of the 337 articles analyzed, 332 (99 percent) had a positive tone. The topics included demonstrations by societal elements (students, workers, activists) in a number of regions and outside the Parliament House, information about the Emergency Warning, and artists and public figures voicing their support. There were five neutral articles, but no negative ones.
Public perception is a key element in democracies, because the practice of democracy is essentially a system of governance based on the will of the people. In a democracy, the government derives its legitimacy from the support of the people.
Positive public perception of the government and its policies imparts legitimacy to democratic leaders and institutions. When the public feels that the government is working in their best interest and is managing the country well, the legitimacy and stability of the government will increase. Conversely, negative perceptions can erode legitimacy and lead to a crisis of trust. Positive public perception also encourages more active political participation, such as voting, participation in campaigns and engaging in public discussions. This participation is important to ensure that the people’s voices are heard and well-represented in the decision-making process. When people have a healthy perception of the democratic process, they are more likely to engage and feel that their participation matters.
In addition, public perception often influences the government’s policy priorities. Democratic leaders will tend to respond to issues that are considered important by the public, because they depend on popular support to stay in power. For example, if there is a strong public perception that environmental issues should be prioritized, the government may implement more environmentally-friendly policies.
A healthy democracy requires oversight mechanisms, and this is where public perception plays a crucial role. A public vigilant and critical of government stances can help prevent abuse of power and corruption. Through the media, civil society organizations and the citizenry can highlight issues that need to be rectified.
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In a democracy, public perception serves as a check on power. Political leaders who feel that their policies are not accepted by the public may have to reconsider their approach. This prevents unchecked power and fosters more inclusive and responsive governance.
Most importantly, positive public perception of the democratic system and the government contributes to social and political stability. When people believe that the democratic system is working well and is benefiting them, any risk of unrest, protests, or civil disobedience will be minimal. Widespread negative perception, on the other hand, can trigger instability and undermine social order.
To conclude, public perception plays a vital role in maintaining the health and sustainability of a democratic system. Governments that are responsive to public perception and aspirations tend to be more effective in maintaining popular support and ensuring that democracy remains strong and stable. (Khairul Fahmi)