Democracy and Participation in Indonesia

The Jakarta Post, August 28, 2014

It is a good time to be young in Indonesia. Indonesian youths have good

reasons to be optimistic about facing the coming years, despite
challenges that we still need to face from adapting to the imminent
ASEAN Economic Community to rising inequalities within the country. The
reason being Indonesian youths are starting to be better equipped to
tackle such issues in a democratic manner.
More and more of us are becoming well educated and qualified, as well as
perhaps more importantly willing to actively participate in our
democracy. One important indication is the increasing use of IT by
Indonesian youths to navigate Indonesias politics. There were at least two
interesting developments regarding the use of IT in the past two
elections.
First, the legislative election showed the rise of an online repository of
candidates track records. Some even had rudimentary scoring systems to
help voters decide which politicians to vote for.
Second was the rise of kawalpemilu.org, which can be inconveniently
described as an online election watchdog and activist site dedicated to
monitoring vote counting, to deter possible tampering with the result. An
estimate showed hundreds of volunteers participated from across
Indonesia. While the catalogue of candidates itself was impressive, the
information about the candidates experiences and qualifications was not
as complete as it could have been. The problem lies in the quality of data
about candidates that is readily accessible.
Indeed, comprehensive information about the candidates is very hard to
find, that not only thorough information about new legislative hopefuls is
difficult to come by, data about the incumbents and all of their successes
and failures is also incomplete. Therefore, votes resulting from online
deliberations remain a combination of hits and misses.
However, the second development is quite a success in terms of achieving
its desired outcome: Ensuring that the final data announced by the
General Elections Commission (KPU) matched that collected at local
voting booths. Some observers have correctly pointed out that this was
made possible because of the number of people willing to sacrifice their

time to do the gruelling work of monitoring the number of votes.

However, let us not forget that if the KPU decided to not upload the data
in the first place, such voluntarism would not have occurred. Again, this
shows the importance of having reliable and accessible data.
Online activism might be the answer for better interaction between the
government or the legislature and the people. To this end, it is important
to facilitate this development by encouraging greater and better
participation.
Both the government and the legislature should therefore open up more
relevant data. Imagine if the number of meetings attended by our
lawmakers was published. The public could know which meetings and
which issues were considered important by which representatives. We
could also know which candidates were free riders so that we could
mercilessly bully them on Twitter. (Or, to be more politically appropriate,
stop them from being re-elected.)
Also, imagine if data on the legislation supported by each representative
and political party was available. We would actually know the policies that
they stood for or against.
The burden of making this data available to public should not rest only on
the shoulders of activists. Since the source of the data is not from them
with the notable exception of WikiLeaks they should only make data
presentable and able to be read by the layperson.
It is the duty of the government and the legislature to make relevant data
publicly accessible. The data should also be able to be collected easily to
ensure an efficient transfer of information. This means that the uploaded
data should not simply be multiple scans of paper copies, but ones that
can be digitally and quickly collected for ease of access by activists.
Finally, although such use of IT in our political lives is truly a welcome
development, it is not a cure for all of the problems within our democracy.
It is a tool that could pave the way for the public to have a more
meaningful engagement with the political elites. Who knows, it might
even be the door for a government that can deliver tangible answers to
even the strongest critique.