Antonia Timmerman – A lack of civil liberties and political rights has caused Indonesia to slide four points on the United Nations Development Program's latest Indonesia Democracy Index, published on Wednesday.

According to the UNDP report, Indonesia's score dropped to 63.2 points in 2012 from 67.3 in 2010, measured on a scale of one to 100. The index measures the level of democracy present in each of the country's 33 provinces. Jakarta recorded the highest score with 77.4, while Southeast Sulawesi scored lowest with 54.8.

Lukita Dinarsyah Tuwo, the deputy head of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), said on Wednesday that despite the drop, the government still considered democracy in Indonesia as continuing to improve.

"It does not mean that we are a less democratic nation than we have always been," he said. "The index measures the people's attitude and manners in practicing it." He added that violent demonstrations were among the drawbacks that led to the nation slipping in the ratings.

Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi said that Indonesia prided itself on its "homegrown democracy" that upheld universal principles while also managing to retain its traditional values. "The democracy system that we have now is not a foreign product. It is ours and we shape it ourselves," he said.

However, according to the UNDP, non-democratic practices are incited when people begin to realize that the system cannot be the answer to all their problems, thus challenging Indonesia to build an even stronger democracy that caters to all layers of society.

One of the authors of the 2010 IDI, Maswadi Rauf, called for better cooperation between the government and the people to work together in building democracy.

"The government will, of course, give its best performance to serve the citizens, but to continue building democracy is in the hands of us all," Rauf said. He also added that the government could use the UNDP report as a guideline in planning, developing and directing future political policies.

Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used to compose the index. Quantitative measurements include gathering news reports and written documents, while qualitative measurements include conducting focus group discussions and in-depth interviews.