Sebagai seseorang yang sempat menyelesaikan pendidikan Diploma Tiga (D-III) Bahasa Inggris dan menekuni bidang filsafat politik, saya berniat membuat suatu tulisan berbahasa Inggris tentang koalisi politik dalam sistem demokrasi kita. Salah satu tujuannya adalah untuk mengasah kembali bahasa Inggris saya yang sudah rada berkarat (rusty). Hasilnya adalah artikel di bawah ini. Semoga ada sedikit manfaatnya.
Traces of Oligarchy in Indonesia's Political Coalition Building
One of the most shocking political plot twists in Indonesia's current political system is the unison of nearly all political parties, minus the Indonesia Democratic Party for Struggle (PDIP), hopping on the board of President Prabowo Subianto administration-backing coalition, despite the fact that in the last presidential election 2024 they fought toe-to-toe to secure victory for their respective presidential candidates. Another ironic fact is that even Muhaimin Iskandar of the National Awakening Party (PKB), the running mate of the losing presidential candidate Anies Baswedan, decides to gladly accept President Prabowo's offer to become a cabinet minister.
Amidst the political twist and confusion, however, this unique phenomenon essentially confirms a bitter fact that Indonesia's political system has been under the tight grip of oligarchy, which further poses a threat to the sustainability of democracy that Indonesia has built over nearly 27 years since the so-called "Reformasi" (Reform) era.
Theoretical landscape
According to political scientist Jeffrey Winters in "Oligarki dan Demokrasi di Indonesia" (Prisma 1, 2014), oligarchy is a political order ruled by a small number of wealthy individuals controlling vast financial resources. In other words, oligarchy is a politics of wealth defense that may adopt varied forms in line with the changing threat against the oligarchs.Â
Winters adds that the material resources gap separating the oligarchs from the average citizens in one country can be measured by the Material Power Index (IKM). In Indonesia, the IKM is 630,000 to 1, a highly extreme figure that is 50 percent higher than Philippine, two times higher than Thailand, three times above Malaysia, and 20 times exceeding Singapore.
Combined with the reality of high-cost politics in Indonesia, both Winters' theory and the IKM indicator lead to an irony that any presidential candidate in Indonesia will find it hard to escape from the necessity of coming from the oligarchs themselves or being sponsored by the oligarchs. It is because the high-cost politics in the country necessitates huge financial and material resources that only the oligarchs or web of oligarchs can provide. In turn, whoever candidate succeeds in becoming the President, he or she will be sitting on a hot seat surrounded by temptations to defend his own wealth (if the President is an oligarch himself) or to exploit public financial resources needed to "pay the debts" to the oligarchs (if the President is sponsored by the web of oligarchs).
DangerÂ
Why is the current condition of oligarchy in Indonesia's political coalition posing a danger to democracy? It is because such a condition hypothetically will make it hard for the President to become independent or autonomous from the interests of the oligarchs or web of oligarchs that have put him in the highly coveted office. As a result, the President can hardly longer serve the public interests, but instead cater mainly to the interests of the web of oligarchs. Democracy, in turn, becomes a lip service democracy that is only ideal on idea level but weak on implementation.
What will be more disappointing is that our politics under the clutches of the web of oligarchs will no longer prioritize platforms, ideas, and programs to improve people's welfare. Instead, politics will be degraded into a mere arena for pragmatic calculation to secure and protect the concentration of wealth. And if this continues, politics will fail to fulfill its noble mandate to create welfare for the people. Let's hope for the best and pray that God will help the President as well as this country.
