In The Era Of President Jokowi, Democratic Resilience Weakened

Photo illustration of the DPR plenary session (Mery Handayani / VOI)

JAKARTA - In the hands of President Jokowi, democracy has decreased in quality, the endurance of democracy has weakened (freedom of speech, freedom of expression). The decline in Indonesia's Democracy Index in 2020 according to The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

In this report, Indonesia gets a score of 7.92 for the electoral process and pluralism; 7.50 for government functions and performance; 6,11 for political participation; 4.38 for political culture; and a score of 5.59 for civil liberties.

We really hope that the president's discourse to revise the ITE Law is not just political lip service, the president can immediately intervene, followed up by the president's political parties in the DPR (Parliament), just as the president can intervene in the elections in 2024 postponed through the accomplice of the central figures chairperson of political parties.

Logically, the revision of the ITE Law should also be able, if someone refuses, the president should be able to solve the problem, because the president as the head of state and head of government has quite a strong legitimacy, power, and influence in the design of Indonesia's presidential system.

How important it is for the state to respect the people's right to express their views, thoughts, and words in the online and offline media expression spaces. Even Freedom House is used as a parameter to fulfill the freedom of civil rights and democracy.

Respect for civil liberties and includes freedom for minorities. Freedom House can include Indonesia in the list of democratic countries at a crossroads because the channels for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association have started to become blocked.

An authoritarian system is a system that is always suspicious of humans and their freedom. If the democratic system is the opposite, it is a country that is under constant suspicion and strict supervision by humans and their freedom. The era of President Jokowi that occurred was the phenomenon of the state being overly suspicious of thoughts of the freedom of its people.

The president was transformed into an anti-criticism god, became completely feudal, society was silenced and freedom of expression was castrated.

Thank God the president has woken up so there is an intention to revise the ITE Law, but is this just a political joke or a stage play?

From the start, we were worried that the rubber article of the ITE Law, which was passionate about silencing freedom of speech, would end up imprisoning common sense which is known to be vocal about criticizing the government, too many victims of this act.

The president seemed to wake up after the country had lost vitamins, due to dry criticism, while praising the government for being obese.

The phenomenon of critical citizenship in the area of an ideal democratic system, the emergence of critical citizens to stabilize political life, the presence of spiritual democracy indicates a healthy political life when followed by pressure for institutional improvement.

In a democracy, one thing that is guaranteed is civil liberties. Civil liberty can be defined as "the freedom of individual citizens to get the same opportunity as citizens to pursue their dreams, to realize and fully express themselves, regardless of inherent primordial traits".

Civil liberties in democracy, namely; a) freedom of speech and expression, (2) freedom of association and organization, and; 3) freedom of religion and belief. An example of an organization that has been dissolved by the state without going through a democratic mechanism, in this case, the court's authority, is it true that FPI was dissolved because it was radical or just because it was critical of the authorities? freedom of religion regarding the polemic of the headscarf through the regulation of the SKB 3 ministerial regulations, unilateral tolerance which also tends to be unfair and appears to be discriminatory.

The decline in Indonesia's democracy index clearly has logical consequences on the level of world confidence in investing in Indonesia, related to loans and others.

To borrow Sir Churchill's opinion", it is said that democracy is the worst government unless all other forms are tried from time to time"

Pangi Syarwi Chaniago

* Political Analyst

* Executive Director of the Voxpol Center Research and Consulting

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