Indonesian Government Opens Up, But Will It Battle Corruption?

Open Government Indonesia (Source: opengovindonesia.org)

Since the political reformation in 1998 that led changes in Indonesia, the shift from the term 'New Order' to 'Era Reformasi' or 'Reformation Period' has seen the  reform of various governmental institutions. The new order's extravagant nepotism and corruption had caused a deep distrust among most indonesians toward the government and affected public demand for the transparency, accountability of government institutions. Sixteen years of democratization process has passed, but still a lot remained to be done and asked whether Indonesia today is getting better or even worse than the New Order.

During the Reformation Period we have seen a turning point from the old to the new regime in which fundamental power has changed in Indonesia. Yet, many people are not entirely satisfied as corruption still remains rampant and as if it is the cultural norm. Even during the Reformation Period, the relationship between business and politics appears too close. Accusations of collusive practice abound between business, politics and the public sector.

Accordingly, Indonesian Government is commited to foster a global culture of open government by participating in Open Government Partnership, as the co-founder and later co-chair from 2012 - 2014. Through Open Government Indonesia (OGI), the government have 38 programs and actions plans implemented in 2012. Open Government Partnership is a new multilateral initiative that designed to transform the values of openness, empower citizens, good governance through public participation and technological innovation. The essence of this process is cooperation between government and civil society to work together and relate as 'open government reformers'. The question is can such an initiative succeed in Indonesia?

However, the revolution of this open government is a tough business  requiring insightful political leadership, technical savy, sustained effort and investment. There are many obstacles such as businessmen engaging in  political parties nowadays and becoming media owners, can give rise to conflicts of interest. The effect of regional decentralization are not able to reduce corruption which is mostly done by its local government, where funding for the election campaign is costly and there are efforts to retrieve the money through corruption when they are in power.

Corruption Reforms (Source: harvardpolitics.com)

The availability of information to the public in Indonesia is also disappointing, this shows a low level of responsibility of elected official, civil servants for their work, that resulted a total distrust of citizens in their government. In order to improve the integrity of the state and stability of society, the government must work in the interests of citizens by taking more responsibility in this regard.

Public has a strong desire to fight corruption but there is no enough protection and an effective way for the public to make complaints or just to report incidents of corruption. With the existence of Open Government Indonesia brings the hope to energize the civil society participation to stimulate concrete actions and hold government's account. The key objective of reforming an open government in Indonesia is to make sure that the real change is happening on the ground, and this change must be benefitting citizens. Public should have a voice in making decisions and the government must develop complaint mechanisms which allow citizens to report incidents of corruption within engaging community members in the process of monitoring government responsiveness to those complaints. In some cases, the insufficiency within citizens participation can be attributed to a poor understanding of the benefits of Open Government.

Indonesia should learn from other countries, that's what we call 'peer learning', and replicate their innovations from one country to other (but also learn from the failures). For example, Greece outlined an initiative to keep updated all decisions taken by government and will not be valid unless made transparent to the public. Ireland highlighted to have an open formal pre-legislative debate before legislation gets crystallized, giving the public an opportunity to engage in policy-making.

The long-term goals of Open Government Indonesia may in part be predicted on how well it strikes the openness of the government to public between Open Government Indonesia as a platform for domestic reformers vs a domestic political agenda to only restore public faith in government. Politics is a key but without transparency, there will be no accountability. With demands of the citizens for better governance, Now is the best time for the government to take concrete actions, or risk letting the opportunity for meaningful change slip away for good.