Camelia Pasandaran – A book published on Tuesday paints a picture of widespread corruption and power-sharing agreements between Indonesia's political parties.

Political analyst Dodi Ambardi, the author of "Politik Kartel" ("Cartel Politics"), said local political parties had no other option than to join the ruling coalition as they lacked financial independence, meaning they needed to ensure that party members secured strategic positions within the House of Representatives and the cabinet.

"This way they can secure money from the projects they get with their positions," he said. "Then they give the money as a fee to their political parties to support their political activities."

Dodi said cartel politics, in which political parties agreed to actively support each other, had been a feature of the so-called reform era since 1998.

He said that collusion, as opposed to competition, between the parties enabled politicians to serve their individual interests or those of their parties while ignoring the needs of the people who voted them into office.

Dodi said he interviewed a number of former legislators and party officials as research for the book, but refused to identify his sources.

The lack of an effective opposition group within the House of Representatives (DPR) and the power of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's ruling coalition have been roundly criticized by opponents, who fear that the House will act as a rubber stamp for executive policies and fail to implement badly needed bureaucratic reforms and a crackdown on pervasive corruption.

Syamsuddin Haris, a political researcher from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said the harmful effects of the cartel system were clearly evident during the recent legislative and presidential elections.

He said the parties failed to address the real issues, coming up instead with vague slogans such as "people-friendly policies" which Syamsudding called "skin deep." "While the winner is eager to attain more power, the losers also need to secure their position," he said.

Even parties that did not formally claim to be coalition members preferred to remain in a gray area as strategic partners, he said in reference to the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

PDI-P legislator Ganjar Pranowo, who was present at the book's launch, said the party had chosen to be a strategic partner because their was no real concept of opposition in the Political Party Law of 2008. He did not deny that political parties colluded to get strategic positions of power.

Priyo Budi Santoso, a senior member of the Golkar Party and the House deputy speaker, said the concept of cartel politics was supported by the fact that there were no substantial differences between the parties.

"Political parties are zero in terms of ideology and idealism," he said. "Without differentiation, we need to ask who will uphold democracy. In the end, this will only give birth to a new style of authoritarianism."

As one solution to cartel politics, Dodi suggested revising the Political Party Law to provide for alternative finance sources.

"The government should subsidize the political parties, especially concerning the big expenses for campaigning," he said. "The government could regulate [spending] or give some free TV ads to all the parties."