Jakarta – Political parties in Indonesia have failed in their role as the key providers of political education for their members as well as the general public, said a politician Thursday.
"The political parties in Indonesia are still very primitive," said Nurul Arifin, a member of the Golkar Party, during a public discussion on democracy and the organization of political parties hosted by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) at Bumi Karsa Hotel in South Jakarta on Thursday.
"The political parties are too busy competing for access to power and too absorbed in never-ending internal conflicts."
Speaking also as a representative of a working group for the organizational reform of political parties, Nurul said providing a comprehensive political education for their members, let alone the public, is not yet part of the parties' agendas.
The working group, consisting of 16 members of political parties, non-governmental organizations and academia, presented its proposed changes to the 2002 Political Party Law, currently under deliberation in the House of Representatives.
The group recommended appending three additional clauses to Article 9 on political education within a party, suggesting that a party be responsible for providing political education for its members.
Chairman of the special committee deliberating the bill, Ganjar Pranowo, who also spoke at the CSIS discussion, said the recommendations had merit.
"The current political parties are not attuned to the acceleration of political change and the democratic process. We need to make sure they are," Ganjar said. "This so-called political package, a set of regulations for the political parties, needs to be synchronized with other regulations."
A professor of the Social and Political Sciences Faculty at Airlangga University, Ramlan Surbakti, said parties function more as organizational managers than as motivators of people.
"The law doesn't provide any guidelines on how the political parties should organize political education," he said, adding that details on implementation should be determined by the parties themselves.
He said one of the weaknesses within the parties was their dependency on core leaders, making parties too personality-oriented.
"The development of the political parties is too reliant on certain figures. The parties need to educate their members to produce leaders capable of replacing past leaders," Ramlan said.
The working group also suggested changes in Articles 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10, to ensure the political party bill guaranteed the participation of women and marginalized communities such as the young and people with disabilities.
The recommendation also included changes to facilitate the development of the parties' capacity, transparency and accountability.
Parties receiving subsidies from the government, for example, were asked to make their financial reports available to the general public. (lva)