Lots of Votes – Little Voice: Indonesia’s 2019 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections

The recent Indonesian elections signalled relative stability in spite of the rise of contentious politics. To explain this, the article first discusses the way the incumbent Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration has handled the rise of Muslim populism sponsored by his political opponents. This has included a reliance on illiberal measures, the political adjustment and “triangulation” of his policies, and a revival of Indonesia’s socio-religious and ethnic politics. Second, the article provides a longer historical perspective to show how the failure to restore the liberal parliamentary politics of the 1950s, and the inability to sustain the popular reforms of the mid-2000s that brought Jokowi to power, constitute more fundamental explanations both for the undermining of Indonesia’s democracy and for the provisional political stability.

選票衆多，聲音稀少：印度尼西亞2019年總統及議會選舉

關鍵詞： 印度尼西亞，選舉，民主，民粹主義， 大衆政治。

近期的印度尼西亞大選表明，儘管爭議性政治有擡頭之勢，局勢尚堪稱相對穩定。為解釋此現象，本文首先討論了現任佐科·維多多（Joko Widodo）—— 又稱佐科威（Jokowi）——政府處置他的政治對手所扶持的日漸高漲的穆斯林民粹主義的手法。這些手法包括采用非自由的手段、對他政策的政治性調整以及交叉配合，以及對印度尼西亞社會宗教以及族群政治的復興。 第二，本文提供了一個更長期的歷史視角，表明五十年代恢復自由議會政治的失敗，以及無力維持二十一世紀第一個十年中期進行的將佐科威帶上權位的那些廣受歡迎的改革，其實是真正構成印度尼西亞民主的衰退以及暫時性的政治穩定的更根本性的原因。

Translated from English by Li Guo