Prodita Sabarini, Jakarta – Almost 30 percent of eligible Indonesian voters think academics and intellectuals would make the best regents, governors and presidents, a much higher proportion than those preferring candidates from political parties, a survey has found.
Paramadina University's Lead Institute and Indo Barometer presented the findings of their nation-wide survey dubbed "Visionary Leaders: Indonesia's Public Hope on Political Leadership" on Friday.
They surveyed 1,200 eligible voters in 33 provinces. The survey had a 3 percent margin of error.
Some 29.3 percent of respondents said people from academic backgrounds would create quality leaders.
Meanwhile only 20.4 percent of respondents said political parties would breed quality leaders, 1.4 points lower than the 21.8 percent of eligible voters who said they had no idea where good leaders came from.
"This shows that people are disappointed with politicians and political parties that are too pragmatic and filled with money politics," Lead Institute Executive Director Arya Bima said Friday.
Some 11.2 percent of respondents preferred candidates from mass organizations, 8.3 percent preferred the military, 5.3 percent the bureaucracy, 2.5 percent the business sector and 1.2 percent non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
According to the chairman of NGO Pedoman Indonesia, Fadjroel Rachman, the survey lent credibility to calls for allowing independent candidates to run in elections.
Under the 2004 Regional Autonomy Law candidates must be nominated by a political party or a coalition of parties to qualify for regional elections. A candidate must also have a combined backing of at least 15 percent of the vote from the region's previous legislative election.
Economist Faisal Basri and legislator Sarwono Kusumaatmaja, among others, lost their chance to run in the August Jakarta election because they were unable to achieve the backing of political parties.
The Constitutional Court is currently reviewing the Regional Autonomy Law.
"Political parties are monopolizing political recruitment," Fadjroel said. Academics and intellectuals outside the parties should be given chance to lead, he added.
But Indo Barometer Executive Director Mohammad Qodari said the survey did not mean that academics were necessarily better leaders. "Academics and intellectuals should not let their egos get inflated,"
"This just shows people's disappointment with political parties and that they're looking for alternatives in which to place their trust. This survey does not prove that intellectuals are better. Some people also seem to still be confused about who to place their trust in, seeing that some 21.8 percent said they didn't know what stream good leaders came from," Qodari said.
"The reason more people trusted academics than politicians was because they view academics as having no self-interest compared to politicians, as being less corrupt than bureaucrats and being less pragmatic than businessmen," he said.
"(But) placed in political positions, academics could fall into the same holes as the others, as seen in the General Elections Commission and other (cases)," he said.
The academic Mulyana W. Kusumah was involved in a graft case while serving with the commission.
Qodari said the survey's findings could spur political parties to improve their performance.