The stages of the 2024 General Elections have begun. We are currently in the registration phase for legislative candidates for the Indonesian People’s Representative Council (DPR RI), Provincial, District/City DPRD, and the Regional Representative Council (DPD). Meanwhile, the registration phase for the presidential-vice presidential candidates will start in October 2023. However, the political climate in the country has already started heating up.
The temperature rise of politics began when political parties started to reveal the names that they would put forth as presidential candidates. It is predicted, or feared, that the 2024 Presidential Election will be very heated, even brutal, due to the contagion effect from the 2017 Jakarta Local Election. Will it be the case?
Indeed, whatever happens, elections and the transition of power are inevitable in a democratic country. Without it, there is no democracy. However, the problem lies in developing countries, or those where democratic traditions are not yet firmly rooted, elections and power transitions always become a gamble. A gamble for the future of democracy itself.
Because, those who vie for power through a democratic system are not only those who love and believe that democracy is the best or most suitable system. There are also those who are antidemocratic, who want to change the democratic system to another one, who participate and exploit democracy for different purposes. The proponents of the Caliphate, for example, endorse a system they advocate for via a route they detest or consider haram. This means, the power gained through democracy could potentially be used to kill or corrupt democracy.
This fact is demonstrated by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt in their book, How Democracies Die. The book presents research results from various countries across continents whose democratic systems have been corrupted or killed by power obtained through democracy. The issue is, we don’t yet have an early warning system to identify antidemocratic figures participating in the democratic process.