Despite Declining Index, CSIS Researcher Calls Indonesia's Resilience Of Democracy Strong, Here's The Reason!

Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) researcher Arya Fernandes as a panelist (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) researcher Arya Fernandes said that the resilience of democracy in Indonesia is relatively strong despite the decline in the democracy index.

"In the midst of a declining democracy index, I think we still have optimism (to improve again) because we have a strong democratic resilience," said Arya Fernandes when he was a panelist in a public discussion in Jakarta, Antara, Wednesday, December 8.

That endurance, Arya continued, stems from Indonesia's strong social capital. This capital can be seen through the existence of mutual trust among the people, harmonization of life, and the attitude of Indonesia as a country that tends to avoid conflict.

In addition to social capital, said Arya, Indonesia also has a strong democratic resilience because of the public's trust in the government.

"Public trust in executive institutions is quite high. The problem is trust in non-executive institutions," said Arya.

According to him, public trust in non-executive government institutions needs to be improved so that the resilience of democracy in Indonesia can be strengthened.

In addition, said Arya, in the midst of the decline in its democracy index, Indonesia still has a relatively strong democratic resilience because public satisfaction with the government is still high, which is above 60 percent.

"Public satisfaction with democracy as the only political system suitable for Indonesia is quite high. If we look at the aggregate of the Indicators survey, it is 67.4 percent and the last survey is 71.9 percent," said Arya Fernandes.

Regarding the decline in the democracy index in Indonesia, Arya assessed that this condition occurred due to three factors.

First, he said, the decline was due to the worsening party system in Indonesia, as observed by Australian National University analyst Marcus Mietzner.

Marcus Mietzner believes that the deterioration of the party system in Indonesia is due to three aspects, namely weak representation, strengthened political personalization, and the absence of internal party democracy.

Second, there is also political polarization that has strengthened in the last two elections and the third is political corruption. These things, according to Arya, lower the index of democracy in Indonesia.