Friday, March 29, 2024 | 04:53 WIB

“Money Politics” on the Presidential Threshold

Gede Sandra
Gede Sandra, A Lecturer at Bung Karno University

If the party using money politics wins, it will create many laws that make life difficult for the working class, farmers and most people, decaying society. As a consequence, the poor get poorer; labor wages decrease, farmers’ welfare deteriorates; fishermen struggle; children are malnourished. This is the dilemma of being poor. The vicious cycle is never-ending. The poor seem to have no choice but to elect politicians who will only make them more impoverished in the future. 

Yet, the rich get richer. It comes as no surprise that those with deeper pockets are incumbent government officials. The president’s and ministers’ families hit the jackpot after their kin come to power. The leaders of the political parties winning the election are also becoming more affluent. Political parties are being treated like a business. Blessings and approval of the party chairman for a candidate come with a price. 

This is money politics at the elite level. And the price of money politics at this level is enormous. It could range from hundreds of millions of Rupiah at the city or district level to hundreds of billions at the national level. The political party leaders suddenly strike it rich and become richer. They never run for president but always “sell” their party to support the presidential candidate financed by the rich. 

Read: The IKN Nusantara: an ill-protected new state capital

Instead of supporting the party’s general chairman as a presidential candidate, the party offers the “ticket” to presidential candidates who are not from the party – those who are puppets of the rich. The party, which is supposed to have an ideology, has a good organizational training system and a state system that is in line with the party’s vision and has a loyal and ideological mass support, will end up without a presidential candidate from its own party because it has fallen into the clutches of super-rich money. 

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