Indonesia as a New Democratic Power

[mizuniverse]

Indonesia as a New Democratic Power


Newsweek
Indonesia As the New India

This stable democracy with a hot market economy resembles another Asian giant in the 1990s.
George Wehrfritz
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Oct 20, 2008

Jakarta today could be any of Asia’s 21st-century boomtowns. The malls buzz, traffic snarls and modern office towers dominate the skyline. It all feels profoundly normal—but that’s big progress in a place that, barely ten years ago, seemed destined for ruin. Following the fall of longtime strongman Suharto, and with Indonesia reeling from the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, many analysts feared that Asia’s third-biggest country (population: 235 million) would go the way of Yugoslavia. Instead, it has become a cohesive, robust and exuberantly democratic moderate Muslim nation. Things are so buoyant that Indonesia invites comparison to another Asian giant: India.

Both remain corrupt, chaotic and excruciatingly complex. Yet each is also an attractive emerging economy, and in India’s case, a star of the developing world. Could Indonesia be next? Its economy grew by 6.3 percent last year, the main stock exchange ranks among the world’s best performers since 2003 and last year foreign direct investment nearly tripled, to a respectable $4 billion. All of which resembles India in the 1990s, when reforms kick-started a potentially massive economy—though outsiders barely noticed until the IT sector took off and growth passed 8 percent. In Indonesia, the key sectors are energy, mining and soft commodities like rubber, palm oil and cocoa. And in an exclusive interview, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono says he sees no inherent reason why a big democracy like his can’t grow as fast China, which has posted 10 percent growth rates in recent years.

That would put Indonesia on a lot of magazine covers. In fact, the country already looks better than India in two ways: its per capita income ($3,348) is a third higher, and thanks to Jakarta’s fiscal austerity, it now boasts one of the lowest debt ratios in the world. “After ten years of restructuring, Southeast Asia’s largest economy is in great shape,” says Nicholas Cashmore, CLSA’s country head and chief researcher in Jakarta.

Indonesia’s political turnaround has been just as dramatic as its economic one. The president, known universally as SBY, is a former general who was elected in mid-2004 and has since become the country’s most effective democratic leader. In four years, he has helped Indonesia roll up its terrorist problem and rebuild from the 2004 tsunami. Less appreciated (but more enduring), he has backed a profound political decentralization program, empowering hundreds of local administrations. Jakarta now rules by consensus, not decree. This has its downsides: it makes it impossible to railroad through big national development projects of the sort China is famous for. As SBY himself admits, “in many circumstances, we face local communities that don’t agree with government projects, so we have to convince them. I do not think the system is wrong. In a democracy like ours, change, reform and resistance are normal.”

The country’s largest parties now basically agree on economic policy and the need to reduce corruption, improve the rule of law and make government more efficient. Key democratic institutions—including a free press, impartial courts and a legislature chosen by voters—are remarkably robust, and the once all-powerful military has largely removed itself from politics. Meanwhile, regional autonomy has triggered economic booms at the periphery, in contrast to the typical Southeast Asian model. “From the U.S., the U.K. or even Hong Kong,” writes Cashmore, “it is difficult to comprehend the magnitude of Indonesia’s potential [or] appreciate just how much more there is to the country beyond Jakarta.” By his calculation, greater Jakarta now accounts for just 15 percent of Indonesia’s GDP, a relatively small share compared to other Asian capitals.

Indonesia’s accomplishments are all the more impressive when you remember how far and fast the country has come. The fall of Suharto’s New Order (a highly centralized system that vested absolute power in the dictator and his cronies) 10 years ago was accompanied by a financial meltdown so severe that the IMF had to step in. Indonesia also faced fierce separatist insurgencies, Christian-Muslim violence and Islamic extremism underscored by the 2002 Bali bombing. The country seemed to be teetering on the brink of wholesale disintegration. Yet today, as Australian National University economist Andrew MacIntyre and the Asia Foundation’s Douglas Ramage argued in a recent report, observers should start thinking of Indonesia “as a normal country grappling with challenges common to other large, middle-income, developing democracies—not unlike India, Mexico or Brazil.”

In some ways Indonesia’s democracy is even more sophisticated than those other states’. Take decentralization. Jakarta, like New Delhi, oversees national defense, internal security, finance, foreign policy and the justice system. But unlike the Indian government, Indonesia’s—thanks to two “big bang” reform packages passed in 2001 and 2006, and supported by SBY—must now coordinate most other activities through the country’s 33 provinces and nearly 500 local administrations, where popularly elected leaders make policy, manage two thirds of all civil servants and oversee everything from schools to economic development. As World Bank economists Wolfgang Fengler and Bert Hofman observe in a soon-to-be-published study, Indonesia has turned itself from “one of the most centralized countries in the world into one of the more decentralized ones.”

To see what that means on the ground, follow the money. Under a new fiscal system implemented in 2001, regions are allocated a huge slice of the country’s budget to spend more or less as they please. Poor and remote areas receive the most per capita, and those with abundant natural resources get shared extraction revenues. According to the World Bank, regional governments in Indonesia now account for 36 percent of all public expenditures, compared with an average of just 14 percent in all developing countries. And locals can promote whatever agendas they choose. “This is the real revolution,” says Erman Rahman, who heads the World Bank’s local governance initiatives in the country. Regions with proactive leaders have become laboratories of experimentation from which innovative anti-corruption, public-health and economic-growth initiatives have emerged. For his part, SBY has enabled this process by maintaining macroeconomic discipline and political stability. And his support for local autonomy has undermined separatism, extremism and communal violence.

One regional pioneer, Gamawan Fauzi, took power in West Sumatra’s Solok region in 2001 and quickly created a one-stop shop for government services, replacing an opaque and complex web of offices and brokers. Fauzi’s concept was to bring all government services under a single roof, post set fees, promote autopayment and guarantee prompt service as a means of rooting out corruption. And it has worked: the model has since been emulated across Indonesia, and Transparency International reports that corruption, while still high, has been reduced substantially.

Other local leaders have earned fame by initiating innovative new programs. Gede Putrayasa, who heads the poorest of nine regencies on the tourist island Bali, won office in 2001 on a pledge to provide universal medical insurance and free education. The latter proved relatively easy (he simply waived the 5,000 rupiah monthly fees), but improving health care without breaking the local budget was tougher. Under the old system, funds went to hospitals and local administrators, who did things like stockpile pharmaceuticals procured from companies that paid kickbacks. Putrayasa’s innovation: provide every local household free health insurance that compensates clinics for services actually provided. “There’s not a big savings,” says Putrayasa, “but everyone is covered and the efficiency is much better because there is no longer any corruption.”

Such reforms have stimulated economic growth. Putrayasa’s health-care and education initiatives (as well as a jobs program that sends underemployed rice farmers to Japan) have reduced the local poverty rate fourfold to just 5.5 percent today. Better local governance has also made Indonesia a major beneficiary of the global soft commodity boom. Together, the value of its four largest crops—rubber, coconut, palm oil and cocoa—rose from $2.3 billion in 2000 to an estimated $19 billion in 2008, CLSA calculates. That’s thanks to local leaders like Fadel Muhammad, governor of the hardscrabble province of Gorontalo on the island Sulawesi, who turned his constituents into the country’s best corn farmers by deploying teams of agricultural consultants; providing subsidized seeds, fertilizers and rental machinery to farmers; and giving cash rewards to village leaders who boost yields. Since 2002, Gorontalo’s poverty rate has shrunk from 49 to 29 percent.

Of course, decentralization has its problems. Analysts and watchdog groups say that while the number of effective leaders in the 500 local administrations has spiked from a handful to 50 or more under SBY, they are sometimes particularly effective at blocking necessary national reforms and projects. The result, says Ramage, is that progress will be “evolutionary, not revolutionary.” For example, the Trans Java highway, which would link Jakarta with Indonesia’s second-largest city, Surabaya, was launched in 2004 with a target completion date of 2009, but is still only 10 percent done because of local opposition.

Nonetheless, Indonesia has already become a beacon of stability in Southeast Asia and the Islamic world. Its antiterrorism campaign—Indonesia has shut radical madrassas, established an effective counterterrorism force and kracked down hard on suspected cells, while also avoiding human-rights abuses—is seen as a model for the region. And as the world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia’s democratization has implications from Morocco to Mindanao in that it exemplifies an alternative to zealotry, intolerance and extremism. “Indonesia is not immune to radicalism we see worldwide, but this is exactly why we must maintain our identity as a moderate, tolerant nation,” says Yudhoyono. “It enables us to prevent a clash of civilizations.”

SBY is likely to win re-election next year, but even if he loses, analysts don’t expect any sharp change in policy, because all the major political camps in Jakarta agree on the current reform blueprint. Even India does not enjoy that kind of stable consensus on how to catch China.

With Greg Hunt in Hong Kong
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/163572

Maju terus!

[mizuniverse]

She is not THAT good

News about the might of Indian Economy has been flooding in to our newspapers, TVs, and discussed by many high profile economist and politician. Last time, Sir Frank Williams, the founder and owner of F1 William Team said here in Singapore, that Indian Economy will surpass China's in 20 years to come. Note it...TWENTY years (only).
Well, now i think it is time for me to deliver to you my disagreement. Why? Simple....INDIA is NOT THAT GOOD.

1. One potential obstacle is geopolitical: India is in a HUGE need to promote peace and stability in order to have a strong claim to be a major world player. But South Asia is an especially tough neighbourhood. India shares borders with countries that are embroiled in civil war (Sri Lanka), have just emerged from civil war (Nepal), or are under military or military-backed rule (Myanmar and Bangladesh). Pakistan is very very unstable now, and this has gone all the way to India, last bombings in some cities in India will surely halt investors to come and spend their money. This will also force India to 'spare' their limited energy to deal with this instability before it grows even bigger in the future.

2. On this list of strategic headaches, India's decades-long stand-off with Pakistan is the most dangerous. Conflict with nuclear-armed Pakistan is hardly a far-fetched scenario—India and Pakistan have fought three wars since becoming independent in 1947. The territorial dispute over Kashmir that sparked two of those wars remains unresolved. Indeed, a fresh wave of violence in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir suggests that the situation there is growing increasingly volatile
. -- from Economist.com


Poverty in India
3. There are 65% of indian people live with only less than $2 / day. If you raise the perimeter a bit to $ 4 / day, the number will surely surge significantly. Seems like only 'few' Indians enjoy the growth of their economy.

4. Only 11,000,000 (less than 1%) millions of Indians have an internet access, compared to Indonesia (30,000,000 active and occasional internet users).

5. Infrastructures in India is far from satisfactory, far behind china.


I am sure, the west is trying to put 'someone' to be a competitor to China, and they have been using their media to try to convince the world, that India is on the very right track to take over China, and reshape the world. Nah.....sorry, I dun believe that.

http://akhyari.blogspot.com/2008/09/...that-good.html

Bagaimana menurut Anda?

[luna_croz]

india itu memang sangat hancur kl diliat dari Sdmnya yg kbnykn anak2 dbwh15 taun,blum lg pariwisatanya suka terjadi perampokan alias diperes ama hotel2nya.. gw jg bingung yg bikin ini negara maju apa? apakah dari sisi produksinya?

[kucinkz]

tergantung bro.. indianya wilayah mana....ada kota2 yg memang miskin ada jg kota perdagangan yg memang subur... jgn bandingin bombay sama calcuta..tapi kalo itungan overall ya jelas penduduk miskin lebih banyak
yang jelas india maju di dunia entertainment kali ya...sampai2 indonesia di "jajah" pertelevisiannya sama india liat aja sinetron di tv

[luna_croz]

maybe u rite..
tapi gw perna liat semacam satpol ppnya india nangkep2 in org2 yg memperkerjakan anak dibwh umur buat jadi pembantu eh malah diserang balik satpol ppnya ama warga2 sekitar.. berarti uda parah moral2 disitu..
belum lagi anak2 umur 11 taun da dijual ke tempat porstitusi..
bayangin coy.. disini aja masi 16-18taun.. itu disana 11 taun parah..

[Menara_Jakarta]

Ya, India memang lebih parah, sayangnya banyak orang yang malah memuja India. "Indonesia as the New India" mungkin perlu diganti "Indonesia as the new USA" karena sebagai democratic power.

[shadow_reborn]

Indonesia jgn berkembang seperti India donk, tdk bagus....di India kesenjangan Sosialnya aduhaiiiii tdk bisa dibayangkan. bahkan aku liat di MetroTV bagaimana penduduk miskin india menjual organ tubuh buat kehidupan keluarga. NOT GOOD

[mizuniverse]

Iya lah, gw setuju sama menara, lebih baik as new USA, jangan India -_-

[mizuniverse]

India baru ? bukan...better india,...bernama Indonesia.



Datanglah ke Jakarta sekarang. Sungguh sangat berbeda dengan Jakarta ketika saya tinggalkan sekitar tahun 2003...5 tahun lalu. Begitu cepatnya Jakarta bergerak, sehingga wajah Jakarta menjadi wajah metropolis yang megah dan nggak kalah dengan kota kota di negara lain. Gedung gedung tinggi, jalanan protokol yang tertata dan hijau, mobil mobil baru lalu lalang. Seorang teman dari Bangladesh datang bersama saya ke Jakarta dan takjub setengah mati, dan bertanya pada saya "Crisis? in indonesia? What crisis?" hehe

Bertahun lalu, setelah turunnya pak harto banyak orang memperkirakan Indonesia akan menjadi seperti Yugoslavia atau Russia..negara besar yang kolaps dan runtuh menjadi negara kecil kecil. Negara2 tetangga sudah siap siap dan girang bukan main kalau Indonesia benar benar runtuh. Tapi, sungguh di luar dugaan, saat ini Indonesia malah menjelma menjadi negara yang 'meriah', tumbuh, dan makin kuat. Kenapa? Banyak alasan...
1. Sepuluh tahun lalu, Indonesia 'hanya' mempunyai cadangan devisa sebesar $ 22 milyar, sekarang kurang lebih $ 60 milyar.
2. Ekonomi tumbuh 6.3 % tahun lalu, tertinggi kedua di ASEAN (setelah vietnam), dan membuat banyak ahli ekonomi dunia terkejut dengan pencapaian ini. Dengan kacau balaunya sistem politik kita, ternyata ekonomi bisa tetap merangsek maju.

Banyak orang yang berpikir, India adalah BINTANG BARU Asia, mengherankan,..banyak orang tidak melihat Indonesia juga maju, bahkan lebih baik dari India. Pendapatkan perkapita kita (GDP dibagi jumlah penduduk) $ 4,100, atau lebih dari 3 kali lipat pendapatan rata rata orang India, selain itu cadangan energi India tidak banyak, dan mengandalkan impor dari Iran atau Pakistan, dan Indonesia. Sementara itu, selain BBM, Indonesia bisa mempunyai gas alam, batu bara, dan (sedikit) minyak...dan pada dasarnya bisa mencukupi kebutuhan sendiri. Masa Depan Indonesia juga lebih baik dibanding India, kita selama ini sangat terpukul dengan kerusuhan kerusuhan antar etnis dan agama, lalu *** bali, *** marriot dsb. Alhamdulillah, saat ini hal itu tidak terjadi lagi. Konflik konflik kecil terjadi di beberapa tempat, terutama masalah masalah PILKADA (yang bikin muak). di India, *** ***, kerusuhan kerusuhan, terjadi hampir tiap hari dengan skala besar, korban puluhan. Kalau anda ke India (daerah pinggiran), naiklah bis. maka di sana ada pengumuman, 'Mohon periksa bawah tempat duduk anda kalau ada ***". Begitu parahnya...

Intinya, Indonesia punya lebih banyak kesempatan untuk menjadi the next ASIAN STAR dibandingkan India. Saat ini saja, menurut majalah Newsweek, Indonesia sudah menjadi Menara Suar, lambang, dari kestabilan politik di Asia Tenggara, dan dunia islam. Kesuksesan Demokrasi di Indonesia berhasil mempengaruhi negara negara dan komunitas islam dari Maroko sampai Mindanao.

Siapapun yang terpilih menjadi presiden tahun depan, sepertinya rakyat sudah memiliki konsensus tak tertulis, bahwa kestabilan, keamanan, dan kebersamaan, adalah satu satunya cara menjaga kestabilan ekonomi. Konsensus seperti inilah yang sulit dimiliki India, sampai saat ini.

Jadi, bersiaplah, Indonesiaku..untuk mengejar China.

http://akhyari.blogspot.com/2008/10/...iabernama.html

Indonesia as the new China and USA!

[mizuniverse]

Most of indonesians are now very pessimistic about their future, some regret why they supported the reform movement 10 years ago (Reformasi). You know what? SO WERE THE RUSSIANS !!! They were frustrated when communism fell, and experienced the worst economic condition in their history.
Now look at them !

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, presidential adviser for 39 developing countries in Asia, South America and the leftovers of USSR, said this very encouraging views..

"“It is not fair to compare Indonesia with it’s neighboring countries such as Singapore and Malaysia, or any other country in the world in that case. Indonesia has changed from a totally centralized country to a decentralized country virtually overnight. Indonesia has changed from a Dictatorship to a Democracy virtually overnight. Indonesia has changed to a liberal country virtually overnight. No other country has been through what Indonesia has been through virtually overnight. The closest example is the USSR. When the USSR split up, it experienced similar changes to what Indonesia had, virtually overnight. In that condition, Russia’s economy had a NEGATIVE growth that year. In that same condition, Indonesia’s Economy GREW. It had POSITIVE growth. If I were an Indonesian, I would be proud of that achievement. And I would predict a much brighter future".

http://akhyari.blogspot.com/2008/07/be-more-optimistic-indon esians.html

Mazu teruz

[shadow_reborn]

Most of indonesians are now very pessimistic about their future, some regret why they supported the reform movement 10 years ago (Reformasi). You know what? SO WERE THE RUSSIANS !!! They were frustrated when communism fell, and experienced the worst economic condition in their history.
Now look at them !

Sangat Objektive....namanya jg negara baru merdeka, baru reformasi...blom (jgn sampe) revolusi. tp banyak contoh didunia yang patut kita belajar. ak stuju sama pendapat ini.

[doyan]

India baru ? bukan...better india,...bernama Indonesia.



Datanglah ke Jakarta sekarang. Sungguh sangat berbeda dengan Jakarta ketika saya tinggalkan sekitar tahun 2003...5 tahun lalu. Begitu cepatnya Jakarta bergerak, sehingga wajah Jakarta menjadi wajah metropolis yang megah dan nggak kalah dengan kota kota di negara lain. Gedung gedung tinggi, jalanan protokol yang tertata dan hijau, mobil mobil baru lalu lalang. Seorang teman dari Bangladesh datang bersama saya ke Jakarta dan takjub setengah mati, dan bertanya pada saya "Crisis? in indonesia? What crisis?" hehe

Bertahun lalu, setelah turunnya pak harto banyak orang memperkirakan Indonesia akan menjadi seperti Yugoslavia atau Russia..negara besar yang kolaps dan runtuh menjadi negara kecil kecil. Negara2 tetangga sudah siap siap dan girang bukan main kalau Indonesia benar benar runtuh. Tapi, sungguh di luar dugaan, saat ini Indonesia malah menjelma menjadi negara yang 'meriah', tumbuh, dan makin kuat. Kenapa? Banyak alasan...
1. Sepuluh tahun lalu, Indonesia 'hanya' mempunyai cadangan devisa sebesar $ 22 milyar, sekarang kurang lebih $ 60 milyar.
2. Ekonomi tumbuh 6.3 % tahun lalu, tertinggi kedua di ASEAN (setelah vietnam), dan membuat banyak ahli ekonomi dunia terkejut dengan pencapaian ini. Dengan kacau balaunya sistem politik kita, ternyata ekonomi bisa tetap merangsek maju.

Banyak orang yang berpikir, India adalah BINTANG BARU Asia, mengherankan,..banyak orang tidak melihat Indonesia juga maju, bahkan lebih baik dari India. Pendapatkan perkapita kita (GDP dibagi jumlah penduduk) $ 4,100, atau lebih dari 3 kali lipat pendapatan rata rata orang India, selain itu cadangan energi India tidak banyak, dan mengandalkan impor dari Iran atau Pakistan, dan Indonesia. Sementara itu, selain BBM, Indonesia bisa mempunyai gas alam, batu bara, dan (sedikit) minyak...dan pada dasarnya bisa mencukupi kebutuhan sendiri. Masa Depan Indonesia juga lebih baik dibanding India, kita selama ini sangat terpukul dengan kerusuhan kerusuhan antar etnis dan agama, lalu *** bali, *** marriot dsb. Alhamdulillah, saat ini hal itu tidak terjadi lagi. Konflik konflik kecil terjadi di beberapa tempat, terutama masalah masalah PILKADA (yang bikin muak). di India, *** ***, kerusuhan kerusuhan, terjadi hampir tiap hari dengan skala besar, korban puluhan. Kalau anda ke India (daerah pinggiran), naiklah bis. maka di sana ada pengumuman, 'Mohon periksa bawah tempat duduk anda kalau ada ***". Begitu parahnya...

Intinya, Indonesia punya lebih banyak kesempatan untuk menjadi the next ASIAN STAR dibandingkan India. Saat ini saja, menurut majalah Newsweek, Indonesia sudah menjadi Menara Suar, lambang, dari kestabilan politik di Asia Tenggara, dan dunia islam. Kesuksesan Demokrasi di Indonesia berhasil mempengaruhi negara negara dan komunitas islam dari Maroko sampai Mindanao.

Siapapun yang terpilih menjadi presiden tahun depan, sepertinya rakyat sudah memiliki konsensus tak tertulis, bahwa kestabilan, keamanan, dan kebersamaan, adalah satu satunya cara menjaga kestabilan ekonomi. Konsensus seperti inilah yang sulit dimiliki India, sampai saat ini.

Jadi, bersiaplah, Indonesiaku..untuk mengejar China.

http://akhyari.blogspot.com/2008/10/...iabernama.html

Indonesia as the new China and USA!

BANGGA MENJADI WARGA INDONESIA

Btw,gambar gedung di mana itu yah??
Mungkin 2-4 tahun ke depan tidak hanya JAKARTA saja tapi kota" besar di JAWA,SUMATRA,KALIMANTAN,SULAWESI,DAN PAPUA berdiri dengan megahnya..
I wish
Contohnya proyek" besar banyak yang baru di laksanakan,Makasar misalnya..
Berharap tidak teganggu oleh crisis GLOBAL d

[Menara_Jakarta]

Sangat Objektive....namanya jg negara baru merdeka, baru reformasi...blom (jgn sampe) revolusi. tp banyak contoh didunia yang patut kita belajar. ak stuju sama pendapat ini.

Ya, bahkan kita bs lebih baik. Dilihat dari pidato Jeffrey Sachs, dia bilang Rusia dulu mengalami pertumbuhan negatif, sementara kita pertumbuhan POSITIF.

[gabrielle]

gw jadi makin bangga menjadi orang indonesia...

btw..kl bisa jgn bahasa inggris dunk..kl perlu diterjemahin ke bahasa indo..jangan hanya cuman copas..kasian yg bahasa indonya kurang....

HIDUP I N D O N E S I A !!!

[mizuniverse]

gw jadi makin bangga menjadi orang indonesia...

btw..kl bisa jgn bahasa inggris dunk..kl perlu diterjemahin ke bahasa indo..jangan hanya cuman copas..kasian yg bahasa indonya kurang....

HIDUP I N D O N E S I A !!!

Itu sudah saya post kok summary dari bahasa inggris itu dalam bahasa Indonesia, yang mengenai "India baru ? bukan...better india,...bernama Indonesia. ", dengan sedikit opini tentunya, dan opini tersebut IMHO benar.