Political parties under attack

Dissatisfaction

Indonesians are not so keen on political parties. At least that’s what a polling agency, IndoBarometer, recently stated after conducting a research on people’s perception about the performance of the country’s political parties.

No less than 54.6% of the respondents covered by the research said they were not satisfied with the existing political parties. It was not something new actually because about a month ago Transparency International-Indonesia (TII) also announced that in their perception index, political parties ranked the fourth on the list of most corrupt institutions in Indonesia.

But like it or not, this is really the era of political parties. There are so many of them today while during the authoritarian regime of ex-president Soeharto, there were only three.

Political parties were not only limited in number at the time but their growth was also strictly under control that on many occasions they could not name their own chairman as everybody holding such a “strategic” position must first of all earn the government’s “blessings.”

That’s no longer the case. They don’t need such blessings because they have become so powerful that—especially through the legislative rights at the House of Representatives (DPR)—they can practically interfere in each and every decision making process by the executive.

But has the power been truly dedicated to the people? Hasn’t the power been turned into something to benefit politicians, or their close circles, only?

The fact is, despite the euphoric emergence of political parties in the country, a very large number of people still live in poverty, economic growth has not been well distributed, education and health services are still scarce.

Of course, it is easy to say that the current administration should be held responsible for all the country’s major socio-economic problems. However, considering the fact that the legislative branch is holding a very big and influential power, probably it is high time to ask: what have the politicians—who represent political parties at the DPR—been doing all these times?

As the year 2007 almost comes to an end, we can only urge political parties to carry out some self-evaluation—introspection will be even better—on their roles. Otherwise, we can see a bigger number of people who are dissatisfied with their performance next year, something which can cost them a huge number of votes in the 2009 general elections.