Jakarta – Indonesia is showing less-than-impressive performance in good governance, despite approaching one of the most critical stages in its steps toward full-fledged democracy, experts say.

The 2008 Partnership Governance Index, which rates governance, showed the average index for all Indonesian provinces was a middling 5.11 on a one-to-10 scale, with the median at 5.5.

The index was produced by the Partnership for Governance Reform in 2007, using data from various sources, including the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), regional budgets, and input from local experts. It features profiles of governance performance for all of the country's provinces, and the rank of each one.

Paramadina University rector Anies Baswedan said Thursday at a lecture on measuring democratic governance that the country was currently going through its third phase of democratic transition, which began in 1998 with the downfall of Soeharto's New Order.

During the third and fourth phases of democracy, Anies said, citizens began judging whether democracy was actually working for them.

Poor performance in governance and bureaucracy might influence the people's judgment, thus deterring further steps toward full-fledged democracy, he said. "It could easily fall back to the pre-democratic phase," Anies said.

He added that a democracy in progress was a vulnerable system. "A democracy under construction runs the risk of dying for good," he said.

The index revealed that of the country's 33 provinces, Jakarta showed the best performance, topping all others with a rating of 6.51. East Java and West Sumatra were next with 6.06 and 5.98.

However, Thursday's lecture in Central Jakarta pointed out that the capital's performance was not necessarily something to celebrate. Jakarta's score ranks as "fair" on the index's normative scale.

"The index shows so much variability among the provinces. That is not good for a lot of things," said Partnership's Abdul Malik Bismar.

He added disparities in public satisfaction between different areas could pose a threat. "People everywhere report different experiences, and this disrupts the solidarity," Abdul said.

One of the reasons for this is that different provinces allocate different amounts in their budgets for key sectors, such as health-care and education, he added. The index revealed the provinces allocated an average Rp 14,004 (US$1.50) for health services per resident per year.

However, provinces such as North Sulawesi, Gorontalo and West Java allocated less than Rp 4,000.

The index also showed provinces allocated an average 6.3 percent of their budgets for education, despite the Home Ministry demanding that they allocate 20 percent.

Abdul said such numbers implied the country still had much to do to improve, including on the issue of decentralization.

"It's not that the people have stopped believing in decentralization, but there are still misperceptions about decentralization," he said. (dis)

Governance Index

Top five: Jakarta 6.51, East Java 6.06, West Sumatra 5.98, Bali 5.87Lampung 5.82

Bottom five: North Sumatra 3.55, West Kalimantan 4.15, North Maluku 4.29, West Sulawesi 4.36, West Papua 4.37