Among the most expensive elections

INDONESIA COMPLETED ITS LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS PEACE-full but, despite this good news and the enormous cost, serious concerns have arisen over whether they can deliver the best result for the people.

The government, through the  General Election Commission (KPU,) spends Rp 22 trillion (around $2 billion) for the election. That is the equivalent of $12 per voter.

Best on United National data, this is relatively higher than comparable countries. As a relatively stable consolidating democracy, the cost of elections in Indonesia seems much higher than its peers.

The economic of scale due to the huge number of voters should lower the cost per voter, so it hard not to agree with the critics that the elections were far from being effecient.

The 2009 election elected 580, around 2,000 and around 16,500 legislative members at national, province and district levels respectively. Ignas Kleden (Kompas, April 10, 2009) indicates that more than 1.5 million candidates participate in this festival democracy of democracy.

Assuming conservatively that each national, provinces and district candidate spend Rp 500 million, Rp 150 million and Rp 25 million respectively, the money spent by all candidates combined could reach Rp 60 trillion. If we include KPU expenditure, it would be as high as Rp 80 trillion; this is before we consider political parties’ spending.

Just to illustrate how huge this sum is, the amount is close aware of the growing needs for places to nurture new talents in the globalized world, Universitas Paramadina establishes a “home” for exploration, innovation, and networking. With its Graduate School of Diplomacy, Graduate School of Business and Graduate School of Communication, Universitas Paramadina provides a venue for intellectuals and professionals to explore new frontiers in the fields of diplomacy business, and communication.

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Tabel:

it is clear that reducing the number of political parties and candidates

is a crucial aspect of having an efficient election

to half the national budget for education; equivalent to 40 times the cash transfer to the poor program[BLT]; and as expensive as sending 40.000 PhDs to the world’s universities, while at the moment we only have around 8,000 PhDs nationally.

Real cost of the elections

SOME EXPERTS BELIEVE THAT POLITICAL CAMPAIGN EXPENDITURE is a from of economic stimulus. In fact, some believe the elections will help Indonesia to sustain economic growth during the global crisis. I can’t agree more with statement. However, if we call it stimulus, it could be the worst stimulus ever, since most of the money is spent in non- productive activity with a relatively meager multiplier effect.

The real cost of the expensive election doesn’t come from the Rp80 trillion, but more from the opportunity cost, Expensive elections could deter good and clean candidates from participating since they tend to hesitate to do ambiguous fundraising to finance a political campaign.

Clean candidates tend to lose the election because the election result is kewed to those who have the money to finance media campaigns and to organize a massive campaign team- image-building through the media is effective especially if the target is those with low education levels.

Expensive elections also give the opportunity for “political investors ‘’ to influence the result. With the capital they have, they could invest by picking and supporting certain political parties or candidates.

When the time comes, those “investors’’ will reap the return by controlling the public policy-making process to serve their interests, not of the people. This situation is the origin of state capture, a major cause of resource misallocation.

Finally only less than 20.000 will be elected as legislative members.This means that more than 1.5 million people spent most of their time, energy and money over the last one or two years for almost nothing. Imagine if we had directed those efforts to more productive activity. The impact might have changed the direction of this nation.

Efficiency enhancement

THERE IS AMPLE ROOM FOR US TO IMPROVE ELECTION EFFICIENCY. Among them is implementation of electronic polling. The excuse that Indonesians are not ready for such a system due to lack of education is not justified. India-the world’s largest-democracy- in which close to 30% of its population is illiterate- has successfully implemented electronic elections since a few years ago. The result is not only much cheaper, but also provides more transparency.

While the initial investment for infrastructure could be quite significant, with one national election and more than 450 regional elections every five years it should be a worthy investment. Another source of inefficiency is the huge number of political parties and candidates. The mushrooming of political parties in Indonesia is in part due to the ease of establishing a political party. The authority should raise the bar to reduce the number of political parties in the future.

The huge number of candidates is another source of inefficiency. The average ratio between elected and not elected is 1:80,providing a very slim chance. Improving the ratio or, in other words, reducing the number of candidates, could improve efficiency.

I will not discuss the detail of an ideal election system since this is not the intention of this column, but it is clear that reducing the number of political parties and candidates is a crucial aspect of having an efficient election.

Quality of democracy

INDONESIANS HAVE DECIDED TO ADOPT DEMOCRACY AS THEIR route to prosperity. However, only a well- functioning democracy is capable of realizing this promise. Consequently, enhancement of the quality of democracy should be on our list of priorities. Democracy and elections are like two sides of a coin, inseparable. A good election is a gateway to a functioning democracy. For most Products there is a tendency of positive correlation between price and quality, but elections are a unique ‘’product’’ in which cost and quality tend to be negatively correlated. Making an election efficient and affordable not only enables us to utilize resources more efficiently, but also invites good candidate to participate and limit the influence of ‘’ political investors,’’ en route to a well- functioning democracy and a recipe for prosperity.

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WIJAYANTO is a deputy rector at paramadina University . He is also a Fulbright scholar and a former investment banker. He can be reached at wija.dc@gmail.com