Adisti Sukma Sawitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Jakarta has realized its democratic conversion with the holding of the first direct gubernatorial election this year. Citizens were given the chance to determine the future of their city by choosing their own leader.
In the August election, which was the biggest local election to have been held in the country to date, Deputy Governor Fauzi Bowo was elected as the new governor with 57.87 percent of the 3.6 million votes counted.
Despite the fact that the election went smoothly with no serious problems other than major traffic jams, it was hardly an example of vigorous democracy.
It resembled any other local election in Indonesia, with exactly the same glitches during the process -- from candidates starting the campaign ahead of the official schedule to unclear candidate-nomination mechanisms.
It was only on a more intense scale with the involvement of the national media in scrutinizing the process.
The most significant event during the election process was the ruling of the Constitutional Court to allow non-party candidates to run in the election after candidates who had failed to be selected joined forces to protest the nomination requirements set out in the Local Autonomy Law.
The law stated that only a party or a coalition of parties that garnered 24 percent of the vote in the last election could name candidates.
The root of all the glitches was the hegemony of the political parties that supported Fauzi Bowo, even though potential candidates from a wide range of backgrounds were available -- from economist Faisal Basri to legislator Sarwono Kusumaatmadja.
The fear that the Prosperous Justice Party, the victor in the 2004 legislative election, would win led to all of the other parties throw their weight behind Fauzi.
The parties were afraid that if the PKS had won the election, it would present a hurdle for the other parties in the 2009 election.
This fear would seem unreasonable if one realizes that the PKS only won about 900,000 votes to give it victory in 2004, and the city has a long history of being a difficult market that no single party has been able to dominate over the last decade.
The parties' hegemony brought a head-to-head battle between Fauzi and the PKS candidate: retired police general Adang Daradjatun.
Fauzi was accompanied by retired Army general Prijanto while Adang had a PKS worker, Dani Anwar, as his running mate.
Yet, Jakarta's citizens once again proved that they are quite rational in deciding who to vote for. They opted for Fauzi, who has lengthy experience in running the city, to Adang, who was considered to lack expertise.
Despite many surveys indicating that Jakarta citizens were not happy with the two tickets' old-fashioned campaign styles, they still came out to cast their ballots on polling day.
Observers say that better access to information makes these urban dwellers more politically literate and less emotional in expressing their political preferences.
That was also why, despite being disappointed by the "controlled election" managed by the parties, people refrained from becoming involved in physical clashes.
The Jakarta Election Commission recorded that about 65.41 percent of the 5.7 million registered voters came to the polling booths on election day.
It is true that the hegemony of the political parties, which are supposed to be the main guardians of democracy, has ironically undermined democracy itself. However, with the growing demands for good and reliable leaders, even this kind of election still raises hope that a capable leader will eventually emerge.
Over the next five years, if Fauzi wants to run for a second term, he will have to prove that he has already made Jakarta a better place to live. People will be easily able to pinpoint his failures based on the manifesto he promoted during the campaign.
Conversely, those who would challenge him in the next election should now start studying how to solve the city's problems rather than just criticizing the development programs of the existing administration.
As for the political parties, it would be better for them to stop believing that citizens are so na‹ve that they can continue to manipulate them.
If they really want to act as agents of democracy, they should start practicing real democracy by selecting candidates for public office based on a transparent process that reflects the preferences of their own supporters.
If they refuse to improve their roles as pillars of democracy, it may be expected that fewer and fewer people will bother to vote.
And, sooner or later, our country's belated encounter with democracy will be undermined by a surge of mistrust in the political parties.
