Jakarta – The nation's enthusiasm for democracy could be losing momentum, with a new survey finding a growing public distrust of political parties.
A survey by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) shows that the public overwhelmingly distrust the political parties, which they deem as dysfunctional.
"There are only 22.4 percent of respondents who believe that political parties still perform well," CSIS researcher Sunny Tanuwidjaja told a media briefing on Monday.
He said that the growing public distrust was attributed to the current poor performance in law enforcement, efforts to eradicate poverty and stopping corruption, which were the public's main concerns.
CSIS questioned 2,220 respondents randomly from 23 provinces nationwide as part of the survey, conducted between Jan. 16 and 24. The survey found that 92.2 percent of respondents did not know the names of the legislators who come from the party of their choice.
"It shows us that there is a wide gap between legislators and their constituents. Therefore, the House of Representatives and the political parties can no longer claim themselves as people's representatives," Sunny said.
Analysis of the results found that the deep distrust could reduce the quality of the upcoming 2014 general election, as more people might avoid using their vote or perform a "donkey vote".
If legislative elections were held at the time of the survey, the Democratic Party would garner just 12.6 percent of the national vote, the Golkar Party 10.5 percent and the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) 7.8 percent.
In the 2009 legislative elections, the Democratic Party garnered 20.85 percent vote, the Golkar Party received 14.45 percent and the PDI-P gathered 14.03 percent.
The survey suggests that the National Awakening Party (PKB), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) or the United Development Party (PPP) would garner between 0.7 percent and 4.5 percent of the vote.
But with almost half of all respondents holding back their vote, CSIS's Politic and International Relations department head Philips J. Vermonte said that the 2014's general election would be very competitive for political parties but not for good reasons.
He said that the competition came because people feel that there were not any good options to choose from. "Right now there are no distinct political parties that favor certain groups of people or ideology, they all have turned to be centrist parties," Sunny said.
A similar survey conducted by Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) in May last year, revealed a declining public participation in legislative elections caused by a weakening relationship between political party and their constituents that could lead to 20 percent less people voting within a decade.
Meanwhile, Australian National University political expert Marcus Mietzner said that the biggest problem for political parties was their funding systems – which could be responsible for corruption.
"Indonesian political parties are forced to raise their money because there is no reasonable financing system," he told The Jakarta Post on Monday. "If you don't fund the political party, they have to get the money from somewhere; it's logical."
Mietzner said that the problem with corruption was that it was systemic and structural, despite assumptions that it was a failure of morals and ethics.
The survey also suggested that the government was doing a better job than the Corruption Eradication Commission's (KPK). "Some 55.3 percent of respondents think that the government has shown good performance, while 50.7 percent of respondents think that the KPK has shown good performance," Sunny said.