TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsIndonesia’s democracy problem is not backsliding, but weak foundations
To fix Indonesia's weak democratic foundations, the country needs to undergo a total reform of its political system through a rewrite on the 1945 Constitution as well as a shift to parliamentary administration, as suggested by scholars.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
A demonstrator holds a banner reading “Save democracy” on March 20, 2024, during a protest in Aceh’s provincial capital Banda Aceh alleging fraud in the 2024 general election. (AFP/Chaideer Mahyuddin)
I
ndonesia is not experiencing democratic backsliding but rather has suffered from fundamental weaknesses in its democratic system since the fall of the authoritarian New Order more than two decades ago.
Speaking at a discussion of his latest book Democracy and the Rule of Law in Indonesia: A Legal Philosophical Analysis, Jesuit priest and legal scholar Stefanus Hendrianto challenged the widely held view that the country is in a democratic decline.
Instead, as he argued, Indonesia had failed to establish a strong and mature democracy following its transition from the authoritarian regime under former president Soeharto in 1998.
“If we say there is democratic regression, we must first establish that there was democratic progress,” Stefanus said at the discussion hosted by Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Wednesday.
“I don’t think Indonesia ever had a healthy and strong democracy in the first place,” he continued.
He argued the country has spent the past quarter century prioritizing a narrow form of democracy that focused largely on electoral competitions but neglecting broader democratic objectives such as civic virtue, constitutionalism and active citizenship.
Read also: Civic groups urge solidarity amid 'shrinking' democracy
