False Leaders

True intelligence lies in knowing what others don’t know. Surya Paloh knows this and that make him twice as smart as the know-it-alls. True enough, not only he is smart, but he also owns a great wealth. The Media Groups which own Metro TV, Media Indonesia along with other newspapers distributed in different parts of Indonesia is his. But, his vast wealht cannot be used as a yardstick to measure his intelligence, indeed, his form of intelligence would only be calibrated in units of intangibles.

You see, before the chaos, confusion and strife for the passing of UU Pilkada, the hot debated bill whether we ought to have direct election or through representations a month ago, the man has already had a perspective about it exactly a year ago. What Paloh proposed was for Indonesia to have a new model of democracy to restore our nation-state system, including the re-evaluation of direct election of local leaders. He went on to say, “Nasdem (Surya Paloh’s party) supports the elimination of Pilkada (direct elections) and to put back (the power) in the hand of DPRD (the Regional Legislative Councils). There are too much time, energy, and cost wasted without optimal result since the implementation of Pilkada.”

So, he concurred that the Pilkada or direct election is not the political dogma of democracy. It is subjected to verification or refutation. This is in contrast of his position today. He defined, it almost seems, so as to be beyond testing, and exist in the realm of faith, like theology. From what he said a year ago, we heard from him that local leaders that were directly elected by the locals were not necessarily had the qualities and integrities required. These were proven by the numbers of local leaders that were indicted of corruptions and other criminal charges. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ data of 2013 there were 298 case of corruptions that linked to provincial, districts, and municipal elected leaders. Yet, all of these evidences that he brought up last year are incompatible with his today’s thesis. He is jumping to a different gamesmanship, or maybe as “part of a cover-up,” or something that we don’t know.

Of course, we can always ask the big question which is none other than where has voting gotten us? The 2014 Indonesian Presidential Election gave us the big picture of contemporary Indonesian Politics. A glance at the House of Transition of the elected president offer us a strong impression that our democracy is a democracy of, by, and for the big businesses. The presidential campaigns that led to the office were a trillionaires’ playing field. During the campaign days, when the candidates were supported by money by the trillions, he could shout from the skies and the rest of us had to listen. We were given a perception with a lack of perspective, lost in the world of illusion.

Sure, we can vote to choose our own leader after the reformation. But, the candidates are now sponsored entities, puppets of finance capitalism. It required tens to hundreds billions rupiahs to run a campaign for governor, it requires even more to run for president. Guess where our politicians get that kind of money, and then you’ll have a good idea who really runs the country. Verily our choices are between which of two or three scapegoats to throw muds at. Unseen others make all the rules. The real government don’t want publicity.

In a nutshell, our democracy may be more likely to produce “leaders” that are only symbols, chessmen in the ceremonial Monopoly Gameboard Indonesia. We are too willing to deceive ourselves into getting a sense of “empowerment” by having a direct election. I am sure that many of our politicians got the same ideas that were expressed by Surya Paloh last year. Too bad, nothing kills lofty ideas quite like the pragmatic hypocrisy of their bearers.