Golput dan Pemilu

No Vote for Corruption

By Sofian M. Asgart

The strengthening of the no-vote trend in the 2004 Election is a surprising indication of political apathy. Why are political parties slighted and abandoned by their constituents?

OLD wine, new bottle. This saying seems to encapsulate the stagnant and unimproved political situation of late. At a glance, it is clear that the victor of the 1999 Election still occupies the highest place on the 2004 Election vote ladder. Yet a closer look will show that the Big Five of the 1999 Election have failed to keep the people’s trust. This botch-up can be seen in the comparison of votes in 1999 and 2004 (Table 1).  PDI-P as the ruling party previously gained 35,689,073 votes (33.74 percent), after which it slid to second place with 21,026,629 (18.53 percent). Even though the number of votes for Golkar gained a little, making it number one at the 2004 Election, it also experienced a decline in percentage from 22.44 percent (1999) to 21.58 percent (2004). Ditto the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the United Development Party (PPP). The National Mandate Party (PAN) had the worst of it: it was scrapped from the Big Five, after being elbowed out by two new kids on the block, the Democrat Party (PD) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). Presiding over all this is the no-vote category (or ‘golput,’ those who elect not to choose—Ed.): the real winner of the 2004 Election. Their total number is 34,509,246 (23.34 percent) in the legislative election. In the first round of the presidential election, the no-vote figure shot up to 48,307,455 votes (31.05 percent) and is estimated to have swelled between 34 to 40 percent in the second round. At the very least, this phenomenon explains three things. First, the dawn of voters’ reason. In a relatively safe, peaceful and democratic election, people feel they are better able to express their freedom and sovereignty through the exercise of reason. The 2004 Election is its testimony: it has, in political analyst Daniel Sparingga’s words, put to trial the country’s elite who have let the people down.  Second, the fact that alternative political parties simply don’t pass muster. While the freedom to form parties does create opportunities, it also generates fragmentation in the reformist camp. This sort of condition on the one hand can become an impediment to democratic consolidation as new parties emerge half-heartedly with myriad primordial interests. Chairman of the People’s Struggle Party (PPR), Gustaf Dupe, concedes to the difficulty of uniting these reformist groups into a solid alternative party. According to him, what is gaining ground are precisely the primordial instincts and the private interests of the shock parties’ new elite. Third, there is no denying that today’s political parties are in serious malfunction, especially with regard to their representative function. Perhaps this is the portrait of political parties oft-maligned by political observer Riswanda Imawan: political parties are simply unable to aggregate the interests of their constituencies. Little wonder that golput becomes the course of choice. In the research conducted by Demos, most sources have reiterated that the needs and aspirations of the people are not adequately represented by existing institutions such as the parliament and political parties. Because of that, the Regional Assessment Council (RAC) recently organized by Demos, a forum involving many local pro-democracy proponents, yielded a recommendation to establish local parties. The demand came from the West Sumatran contingent, the whole of Kalimantan, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Maluku and Papua. This hints at people’s increased disillusionment towards existing political parties. Meanwhile, the decreasing numbers of registered voter turnout marked by the rise of golput figures in many places beg serious questions regarding the representative quality of our political parties. Poor quality of representation is one of the important findings of the Demos research (Table 2). Of those seven aspects of representation, only the quality of the second is judged to be good. The rest is very poor. Since 1999, the trend of representation tends to worsen or remains the same, making it not just an inadequately addressed problem, but a real case of neglect. We all know that political parties should accommodate the needs and interests of their constituents. What is happening instead is quite the reverse: the party electorate is being forced to toe the party elite line. The elite coalitions that have cropped up like mushrooms after the rain are but an example of high-level political intrigue that confuses the public. Party constituents are intimidated into complying with elite aspirations. For example, when the National Awakening Party (PKB) went into coalition with Golkar to assure the victory of the Wiranto-Wahid duo, the PKB ranks scrambled to marshal the PKB base (as well as the supporters of Nadhlatul Ulama, the country’s largest Muslim organization) to jump ship. Yet in the second round of the presidential election, the PKB mobilized NU supporters to support another candidate. Here is a portrait of the people as political constituents being tossed about by their own spokespeople. Such is the reverse logic of our party elites, who should be following the wishes of the people, not the other way around. The 2004 Election appears to carry a valuable lesson for our politicians: as people’s representatives it is their duty to prioritize the interests of the people. Diminished registered voters turnout is proof that if the needs and wishes of people are corrupted, they will retaliate with no votes. Tempo, No. 21/V/Jan 25 - 31, 2005