Harriet Conron & Nicole Jade Millane, Jakarta – Businesses are the most trusted institutions in Indonesia ahead of the media, nongovernmental organizations and governments, according to a recent survey.
The 2014 Edelman trust barometer survey revealed a 10 percentage point increase in Indonesia's trust index, an aggregate of the nation's confidence across the four institutions.
This year, 82 percent of respondents put their trust in businesses compared to 78 percent for the media, 73 percent for NGOs and only 53 percent for government.
At the release of the survey this week, Stephen Lock, Edelman Indonesia chief executive and head of public affairs for South East Asia, said the results, indicating Indonesia's increasing trust in businesses "reflect faith in a strong economy."
"It suggests that people are looking to business leadership, to play a role in the development and change in the country, because they don't believe that government will make that change," he said.
The survey collected data from 33,000 respondents in 27 countries, polling the general population as well as a university-educated informed public. This is the 14th year of the annual global study, Indonesia has been included in the survey for the past six years.
In last year's Edelman survey, Indonesians labeled government officials or regulators as the least credible when compared with other professions. This year, their trust rating jumped six percentage points, to 53 percent from 47 percent last year, demonstrating a newfound belief in elected institutions.
Stephen Lock described the rise in trust levels for government in Indonesia as "unexpected."
Despite the rise, trust in government leadership remains poor in Indonesia. Just 14 percent of Indonesians trust government leaders to fix problems, and only 15 percent trust government leaders to tell the truth.
The survey found poor trust in government is common across the globe, and Indonesia is no exception. "This reflects a larger institutional failure of governments to connect with their populations," Lock said.
The nations that performed well in this category were not democratic countries. Chinese survey respondents had some of the highest levels of confidence in government's ability to make ethical decisions. "There is a general sense of malaise in worldwide democracies," Lock said.
He believes this can be accredited to two factors. The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), in its role to hold power to account, has been very visible in the past year. Secondly, the new generation of local leadership that has sprung up across the country, has engendered optimism about what government can achieve.
The survey revealed Indonesians strongly prioritize infrastructure development above all other roles for their government, including free market access. Forty-five percent of survey respondents rated updating the countries poor facilities as imperative while just 5 percent of respondents viewed free market access as a priority. This will create headaches for Indonesia as it is poised to enter the Asean Economic Community (AEC) next year.
With the 2014 election quickly approaching, Lock says "the government has an obligation to get the country ready for AEC at the end of 2015," and that the AEC will be a "nightmare" for whoever is in government following the elections.
Business leaders are still far more credible than government officials in Indonesian eyes, overall results showing that 82 percent of respondents put their trust in businesses, an increase of 8 percent from last year.
The Edelman survey shows Indonesians believe businesspeople are twice as likely to tell the truth, compared to government figures and more than three times more likely to correct issues in industries that are experiencing problems.
Indonesians' trust in business leaders was significantly higher than the rest of the world, the survey found. Indonesia ranked third, behind Brazil and India for confidence in business leaders, showing emerging markets are most likely to put their faith in corporations.
"That is a huge investment of trust in business leadership, and that tells us that Indonesians want their next government to be run much more like a business, to get things done," Lock said.
"Indonesians are really supportive of the role of business to be involved in policy and the direction of the country, but not to the extent that they want to deregulate and let business have a completely free hand."
Big businesses and publicly listed companies are viewed as more trustworthy than family or state-owned firms in the Indonesian market, according to the survey.
"Its kind of interesting because if you look at the last few years of the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono government, most of the change it has tried to effect, in areas like infrastructure, has been through state-owned industries," Lock said.
The survey also found Indonesians are more likely to trust recognizable Western brands than their local counterparts. "There is still a residual well of trust that Indonesians have for big Western brands in preference for Indonesian brands," Lock said.
Trust in NGOs has also risen sharply from last year. More accountability, better standards and the rise of the "corporate NGO" may be driving this, the survey states. After three years of dropping confidence in NGO's, this year Indonesia's trust levels rose 22 percentage points to 73 percent from 51 percent last year.
Past mistrust of NGO's can be sourced to the lack of transparency about where they get their funding from and what they did with it, according to Lock. "One of the drivers is that we've seen a lot of big global donors switch off the tap for Indonesia," Lock said.
As Indonesia is now a middle-income country, international organizations are reducing aid relief and NGOs have to compete much harder for funding.
Trust in the media rose one percentage point to 78 percent from the 2013 results. Indonesia had the second-highest confidence level in the media out of the 27 countries surveyed.