Commemorating 10 years of reform: Reform phase II

Jakarta, Partnership. Indonesia’s economy is at a crossroads, and oligarchic power is endemic down to local level; such opinions were shared during an expert roundtable discussion organized by the Partnership to evaluate the decade since 1998’s Reformasi. In addition to commemorating a decade of Reform, the event also marked other anniversaries such as 80 years since the Youth Pledge and the Centennial of National Awakening, in Jakarta (27/6).

UGM’s economist, Sri Adiningsih, in her presentation concluded that economic reform in the last decade is still ’on track’. “However, people’s lives are becoming more unbearable, economic reform has reached a crossroad,” she asserted.

While macro economic stability is being maintained and economic growth is increasing (the quality, on the other hand, decreasing), economic policies are too liberal, the budget is trapped in short term policies and, global competitiveness remains very low.

Government needs to make fundamental changes in managing the economy. Policies need to be formulated that consider a long term perspective and by put national interest before power and political parties. Sri Adiningsih also stressed the importance of opening the market in compliance with domestic readiness.

Syarif Hidayat (LIPI) discussed the issue of decentralization and local autonomy policies, a dominant characteristic of the Reform era. Syarif also felt that power relations tended to be concentrated in a handful of elite groups. ”Consequently, oligarchy occurs in local government,” he concluded.

Two other experts supported Syarif’s opinion; ”There has been no change of regime”, said Hendro Sangkoyo from the School of Democratic Economics. ”What differentiates us from the new order is that we have a fragmented oligarchy. It used to be centralized in the hand of Pak Harto, now it is spread every where,” said Kacung Marijan from Unair.

Syarif stressed the need to stop policies dictated by political pragmatism. Local autonomy and local elections (pilkada) need to be integrated. Political parties also need to improve their recruitment mechanisms and political party cadre promotion.

Former Provincial Secretary of DI Yogyakarta, Bambang S. Priyohadi gave a local view of the implementation of reform. According to him, central government regulations limit the local government’s room to move. And many new regulations have emasculated the experiments in change such as the Minister of Home Affairs Regulation on Organizational Structure for Work Procedure (SOTK) and the implementing regulations of the Government Regulations (PP) 38 and 41/2008.

In addition, Bambang added: ”The idea of reward and punishment - such as early retirement and incentive mechanisms - that were, supposed to be the strength of the reform program were not accommodated by the central government.”

Wardah Hafidz from the Urban Poor Consortium asserted that the so called reform was an historical accident. What was supposed to happen after the fall of Soeharto was transformation, not reformation. ”The result was that, after only one year civil society was weakened and we lost momentum in key areas, such as demilitarization.”

Wardah’s view was supported by Kusnanto Anggoro from the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Indonesia. He referred to a similar proposal he promoted in 1999 to enforce institutional empowerment until 2004. Interestingly, he continued, military reform shows good results, particularly from the institutional perspective.

Reform phase II

All experts attending the discussion agreed on the need for Reform: phase II.

Current reform is busy developing the image of the state, and forgetting the actual practice of the state. ”It’s high time that we bring the state back to reality,” Syarif said.

”The Partnership could start by facilitating an agenda for Reform Phase II to be submitted to all political parties and presidential candidates,” Sri Adiningsih suggested.

Abdul Malik Gismar from the Partnership responded to the suggestion positively. ”The Partnership is trying to capture strategic issues coloring the discourse, and hopefully shaping the discourse.”

Also attending the discussion were the Partnership’s Senior Advisor, Bambang Widjojanto, DPR member,Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, Naimah Hasan from Womens Organization Coordinating Body (BKOW) Aceh, Indra Piliang from the CSIS, Denny Indrayana from UGM, as well as Utama Sanjaja and Topo Santoso from the Partnership.