SMRC: Government Performance Determines Democracy Performance

JAKARTA - Founder of Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) Saiful Mujani believes that the government's performance contributes to citizens' assessment of democracy's performance.

Saiful said that in the Political Surgery Program with Saiful Mujani Episode "Government Performance Determines Democracy Performance?" which airs on the SMRC TV YouTube channel, Tuesday, May 24.

Citing Freedom House data and SMRC national survey data, Saiful shows that democracy in Indonesia is in decline.

"Then, what is important to know is why the assessment of democracy in Indonesia has decreased? What are the variables that are directly related to the decline?" he said quoted by Antara.

According to him, there are several explanations that can be used to explain this decline, one of which is the government's performance.

He said that the government's performance in carrying out day-to-day governance was declining, which had an impact on the performance of democracy itself.

"If our society sees the condition of our democracy as deteriorating, it is because people see the government running its government badly. So, people judge the performance of democracy from a very practical aspect. Not only on conceptual-abstract aspects," said Saiful in a press release.

There are many dimensions to assessing government performance, but one that is quite simple and summarizes the complexity of these variables is the assessment of the president's performance.

"How satisfied are the people with President Jokowi's work, for example, are they satisfied or dissatisfied. Very satisfied or very dissatisfied," said Saiful.

Based on data from the SMRC national public opinion survey since 2009 from President SBY to President Jokowi, Saiful found that people who are very satisfied or quite satisfied with the president's performance will say they are positive or satisfied with the performance of democracy.

"On the other hand, citizens who judge the president's performance as unsatisfactory will make the public dissatisfied with the performance of democracy. So, how to strengthen the assessment of democracy, make people satisfied with the government's performance. Because that in turn has a positive effect on democracy itself, " said the Professor of Political Science at the State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta

If the government performs poorly, he said, it is a very serious threat to democracy.

He added that there are many indicators that can be used to measure government performance, such as infrastructure and economic development.

"In terms of the economy, we do a lot of development. But people are not used to debt. Even though the government assures that it is still safe, the public in general views it as something that is worrying. It will affect people's attitudes in viewing or judging the performance of the president," he said.

Apart from infrastructure and the economy, according to Saiful, many other aspects that must be considered are those related to "civil liberty".

Di gave an example of how the police handled problems that developed in society, demonstrations, and others. It contributes to an assessment of the performance of democracy.

Another thing that contributes to the assessment of the performance of democracy, he said, is the economic condition.

"The public perceives that the economic condition is better, it strengthens the performance of democracy. On the other hand, those who say that the economic condition is worse, the satisfaction with the performance of democracy is very low. So, there is a relationship between economic conditions and satisfaction with the performance of democracy," said Saiful.

He added that the correlation between government performance and democracy performance occurred in Western European countries.

"For countries that have embraced democracy, the correlation between the two is very close. Poor government performance can threaten the performance of democracy itself. On the other hand, if the government performs well, it will strengthen democracy," said Saiful.