State of Indonesian Democracy. Part Two: The Invisible Effect of Political Elite in Indonesia
Political elite, a peculiar word doesn't it? those very words differentiate them from people like us, the ordinary citizen.
political elite means a small group of powerful people, who hold disproportional amount of wealth privilege, political power, or skill in a society, as it was defined by Cambridge Dictionary.
but in this opinion piece, we are going to talk about the people who hold political power in Indonesian Politics
Take a look at the house of representative seats, this is the result of Indonesian 2019 parliamentary race, government coalition holds 471 seats which include PDI-P, Golkar, Gerindra, Nasdem, PKB, PAN, PPP and the opposition only hold 104 seats which include Demokrat and PKS with the total seats of 575. an overwhelming majority of support to the current Jokowi administration.
each individual of our representative have the power to vote on our laws, but the thing is these people, those who hide behind their political party, THE ELITES are the one who actually has the controlling and lobbying capability to some of our public policy.
These elites are mostly senior member of the political party or the leader of the political party themselves, political lobbying, meetings, movements, and statements actually matters more than the activities of our house representatives.
these leader of political party holds power to choose which people could run the race. Thus they demand obedience to their party members. why and should they have such powers? the process of our democracy doesn’t stem from the people and for the people, the majority of our political dynamics comes from those elites . why do we have to depend on their political will to change our nation for the better, not from our representatives? they are elected from their internal party process.
House Representatives are meant to help us, their constituents even the people that don't vote for them not their political elites, our politicians are more terrified of their political elites rather than the citizens that vote for them.
Indonesian politics would change when our representatives are afraid of their responsibilities to their voters rather than their responsibilities to their party. but could the chain be broken? could the people change? could the politician change? our democratic process is broken and we can’t hold the elites accountable. a grim reality for our nation.
