During the first round of this year's Indonesian Presidential election campaign, presidential candidates demonstrated their singing prowess to the public. The campaign was characterised by the use of artistic performance. It was also distinguished by a lack of violence that has marred previous Indonesian polls.
Presenter/Interviewer: Claudette Werden
Speakers: Professor Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin, chairman, Indonesia's Electoral Commission; Dr Jennifer Lindsay, senior visiting research fellow, the Singapore National University's Asia Research Institute; Jaya Suprana, Jakarta tv personality, composer and pianist. They were guests in Melbourne of the Monash Asia Institute.
Nazaruddin: Everybody was trying to give a good image of course to the people, so to say that they wanted to show the people that they are just a proper leader to become president. And then the problems that everybody knows that, and they are all good and at least pretending to be good, nice and proper leader to become president. And then it's very hard for people to choose.
Werden: Was it a campaign of style over substance?
Nazaruddin: Well I think very much so, but in many cases the candidates were talking about more in general than quite specific what they are going to do once they become real president.
Werden: Jaya Suprana perhaps I can ask you, you are a noted television presenter, you're a pianist, composer and comedian, much was made of the candidates' various singing abilities. How important was this to the campaign?
Suprana: Yeah for the campaign it is very important because music, performance is an attraction, without music no campaign. Because they all talk only empty promises, like also in Australia, so the music is very, very important. Not for the image building but to attract people to their campaign.
Werden: And then after that, after they attract them where is the substance?
Suprana: The substance come back to people, I think our people are not so stupid, you have to choose based on singing as a president, they will choose from the bottom of their heart I think and they know who is better and who was not.
Werden: And do you think it had the same impact in the city as well as in rural areas?
Suprana: Yeah, oh yes, the most powerful is the Dandut music. If you can get a Dandut star then you can get many, many people can come to your campaign ..just come to their campaign, but there's no guarantee that they will choose you.
Werden: Dr Jennifer Lindsay you're a research scholar at the Singapore University, what do you think about the inaugural candidates' debates? Were they a success?
Lindsay: I saw them only on television of course in Indonesia. What interested me about the debates was precisely the whole performance of it, and Butet and Arswendo were the two commentators, and so they commented on the performance of the candidates, whether their body language was working, how they were presenting themselves, how their voices were, all of the analogies that they were making were to theatre. I think that people watched those debates very much also as a kind of theatre, and I think that's wonderful. I think that's precisely what such debates are. So I think it was very healthy approach. Werden: Professor Nazaruddin the fact that they were playing a role, how does that relate to being a good leader?
Nazaruddin: Well as Jaya Suprana said every leader should have their own personalities to show to the public. Apart from using the artist like for instance SBY, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, he sang himself. Megawati, she also danced on the stage. So this kind of mixture between your own activity, your own skill, you mix it with what artists skill, there's a thing, they attract people to come. This also would help to create the situation, the condition to become very, very calm and quiet. I think that's very good, yeah.
Werden: Jaya do you think also was at an attempt by them to portray themselves as being more human?
Suprana: Yeah, and to be more attractive. But actually it's ok. The best president from the United States was Ronald Reagan, and you know the best president from Poland is not Lech Walesa, but Jan Paderewski, he's a pianist. I think the people love attractive people.
Werden: Ok, tell me the qualities that you find attractive. What do the Indonesian people find as attractive?
Suprana: That they can sing, they can write a poem and they are human beings and they're kind and they are smiling, like Mr Sjamsuddin, and also Jennifer.
Werden: Would you agree?
Nazaruddin: Well I think that's one quality what we need. Also I think apart from that a leader needs to show the public that he or she is smart, and then has the ability to show the people that he will be able to do things once he or she is in power.
Werden: Do you think that these candidates show that they were smart?
Nazaruddin: In my question right now I can't really tell.
Werden: But you're laughing, why are you laughing Jaya?
Suprana: It is impossible to show the people that I can do something in five years. That is a lie, this is impossible because the government is management, management skill cannot be promised, management skill must be performed in five years, not on the stage but on the country.
Werden: Jennifer Lindsay you described it as carnivalesque? What did you mean by that?
Lindsay: I meant that people were having fun, they were really having fun, they were having fun over the campaigning period, on the television, their candidates were having fun it seemed to me, and ordinary people were certainly having fun just reacting to a new kind of election where party politics were really not so much the issue, and it was much more to do with personalities and celebrities. So it meant that people could talk across party lines much more freely. So yeah, it was very carnivalesque, it was a very nice atmosphere in Indonesia.
Werden: Is there a danger though that the glitz will overtake the substance?
Lindsay: We're talking about presidential elections not party elections; we're not talking about the people being elected into the house of Parliament. So you know it's sort of like the glitz that happens with presidential elections elsewhere. I don't see why people need to be so worried about a danger of it, really. I mean what is this preoccupation with this being a danger? I see that it's just one moment, it's a campaign, it's when people are selling themselves. They have a few minutes in front of the media to do it, and above all else, the selection was a media event. And a media event means people sell themselves on the media as they do elsewhere in the world. So, yeah I think you have to keep that in mind.
Werden: Perhaps I can ask you Jaya Suprana, it's reported that Gus Dur once told his public appearances were no longer fun after his aides banned him from cracking jokes. Is that true?
Suprana: He is always funny, Gus Dur. No, that's not true. There are two kinds of jokes, good jokes and bad jokes. Of course in the campaign it's better that you tell good jokes.
Werden: Ok, good jokes. What defines a good joke?
Suprana: A good joke that makes people laugh and love, yeah laugh and love, and don't make people angry. Sometimes in the politics we make a bad joke because we hurt the other side's feeling, that is dangerous. I agree with Jennifer. Now this pemilu campaign now in 2004 is really a festival of democracy. The last time there was violence and so that's not good, because of the bad jokes.
Werden: Is this the type of democracy that the Reformasi movement wanted?
Suprana: That is the process, because we in the pursuit, the quest in Indonesian democracy, the quest in the process now. Not yet the end, it is just the beginning.
Werden: Professor Nazaruddin what do you think?
Nazaruddin: Well I believe in democracy. I'm encouraging people to be involved in this process. I hope this will work at least for my electoral commission at least.
Werden: That was a good joke yes?
Nazaruddin: Well if you want to say it's a joke, but I don't think I was joking.
Werden: Jennifer finally do you think that? Do you think the Reformasi movement would be happy with this kind of democracy?
Lindsay: I'm going to change the question slightly, I don't want to give the impression that everything is trivial because people are having fun, and treating this as an event. It's not trivial at all. But people are having fun and treating their presidential candidates with some kind of disrespect, which is very healthy. And I think this is a wonderful thing in Indonesia, that no longer people are looking for a hero to come and save the day, and thinking of their president as going to be the answer to all of their problems. They are just ordinary people and they might have some of the answers, and surely that's a good thing for people to see that, rather than to be holding out for some hero, which will probably be a military figure to save the nation by other ways. If they see people as bad singers, bad jokers, they haven't got good jokes, they can't read poems well, they're just ordinary people, I think this is wonderful, a wonderful step, and maybe Reformasi has brought that about, yes.