good returns for chinese search search indonesians · ago, jokowi was defeated by prabowo who...
TRANSCRIPT
2/4/2015 Good returns for Chinese Indonesians
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2014/09/15/goodreturnsforchineseindonesians/ 1/4
New Mandala New perspectives on Southeast Asia
HomeThailandMyanmarIndonesiaMalaysiaLaosCambodiaSingaporeBook Reviews
RSS FeedTwitterTwitter
How to contribute to NMAbout
Good returns for ChineseIndonesiansByChong Wu Ling, Guest Contributor– 15 September 2014Posted in: Indonesia
Deputy Jakarta Governor Basuki ‘Ahok ‘Tjahaja Purnama.
Things are looking up for Chinese Indonesian political candidates, but itall depends on where and at what level they run, writes Chong Wu Ling.
Today, as opposed to the Suharto era, Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese minority arefree to participate in electoral politics and run for public office.
I’ve crunched the numbers of Chinese Indonesians elected as nationalparliamentarians in the 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014 elections. Looking at thefigures there is one clear pattern; they are much larger than the sum total ofethnic Chinese elected as regional or local government heads.
In 1999, there were seven Chinese Indonesians elected into the nationalparliament. The number increased to 13 in 2004 and reached 15 in both 2009and 2014.
These parliamentarians were mostly elected in constituencies with high ethnicChinese populations such as Jakarta, West Kalimantan and Bangka Belitung.But there were also several Chinese national parliamentarians elected inlocations with low ethnic Chinese populations such as West Java, Central Java
Announcement
Want to workfor New Mandala?06 January 2015 9:15AM | 2 Comments
New Mandala looksto appoint a parttimePostdoctoral Fellowand Editor.Applications close 5February 2015.
Read More
Recent Posts
On“supersessionism”:Abrahamic faiths inhistory Aung San Suu Kyi in2015Detention withouttrial: Going beyondColdstore?Soldiers withdemocratic hearts?DefendingIndonesia’s anticorruption fightersMyanmar intransitionJokowi’s NationalPolice Chief debacleReply to Dr Poh SooKai’s rejoinderJokowi: The FirstHundred DaysReview of Burma’sSpringReview ofStorytelling in
Search...Search
Recent Comments
Islam, a religion ofpeace (29)
Peter Cohen:Given thatRaymondIbrahim, anEgyptianAmericanCopticChristian,suffered...Andrea: Ifpeople areinterested in adivergent viewfrom thatespoused byTimothyDaniels then...
On“supersessionism”:Abrahamic faiths inhistory (3)
Peter Cohen:Plan B, Not sofast. Let usrecognize the50 % of theKurdishPeshmerga thatare...plan B: PeterYou and I andmostcommentatorshere are inagreement ofMuslims ofauthorities...Peter Cohen:
2/4/2015 Good returns for Chinese Indonesians
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2014/09/15/goodreturnsforchineseindonesians/ 2/4
and East Java.
They contested under the flagship of popular mainstream political parties suchas the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), the National MandateParty (PAN) and the Party of Functional Groups (Golkar). These arereligiously open parties.
This implies that it is possible for a Chinese Indonesian to be elected as anational parliamentarian in a constituency with low ethnic Chinese populationsif he or she is affiliated to a popular mainstream secular party. To get intoparliament, Chinese Indonesian candidates need to pick a solid electoralmachine.
On the other hand, to date there have only been eight Chinese Indonesianselected as regional or local government heads. One of them, Yansen AkunEffndy (张锦坤), was elected as regent of Sanggau, West Kalimantan in 2003through the local legislative assembly.
The rest were elected in 2005 or later through local direct elections. This showsthat local direct elections favour ethnic Chinese candidates.
Candidates running for local direct elections must be nominated and supportedby political parties or party coalitions that gained at least 15 per cent of thevote or parliamentary seats in their respective electoral areas.
Most of the elected Chinese regional or local government heads werenominated and supported by wellestablished mainstream political partieswhen they contested in local direct elections. They were mostly elected asregents or viceregents.
Only one of them was elected as mayor and another two were elected as deputygovernors (One of them used to be the regent of East Belitung).
Perhaps more importantly was the way these ethnic Chinese Indonesians wereelected.
At the parliamentary level, racial slurs are rare. But things are different at thelocal level where smear campaigns are rife.
For instance, Sofyan Tan (陈金扬), the only ethnic Chinese mayoral candidatein the 2010 Medan mayoral election, became the target of attack from his rivalswho urged Muslim voters to support the incumbent mayoral candidate on theground that it was against the teachings of Islam to vote for a kafir (infidel).
Before the polling day of the second round of elections, many Chinese voterswere intimidated by rumours and mobile phone text messages that warned thatif Tan was elected, there would be antiChinese riots in the city. Voters werescared off and Tan lost.
Nonetheless, Tan later contested for a seat in the national parliament this yearrepresenting North Sumatra 1 (Medan, Deli Serdang, Serdang Bedagai andTebing Tinggi). He and nine other candidates were elected out of 119candidates but his votes were the highest among all of the electedparliamentarians.
Playing deputy to an indigenous candidate seems to provide no respite fromsmear. Christiandy Sanjaya (黄汉山) and Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (钟万学),two ethnic Chinese deputy gubernatorial candidates contesting gubernatorialelections in West Kalimantan in 2007 and Jakarta in 2012 respectively, alsoexperienced similar racist and religious attacks and backlash during and afterthe elections.
It is worth noting that in both West Kalimantan and Jakarta constituenciesseveral Chinese Indonesian national parliamentarians were elected in postSuharto elections without encountering rampant smear campaigns from theiropponents. What explains the different experiences for ethnic Chinesecandidates at the national and local levels?
If we take a look at the locations where Chinese Indonesian candidates havebeen elected as national parliamentarians or regional or local governmentheads, we notice that most Chinese Indonesian national parliamentarians andall Chinese Indonesian regional or local government heads were elected inareas that had voted for Joko Widodo (Jokowi) in this year’s presidentialelection.
Conversely, in Medan where Sofyan Tan lost in the mayoral election four years
Thailand and LaosAn annotatedbibliography ofOperation ColdstoreImpeaching YingluckShinawatraWill Australia’s cuprunneth over in Asia?Singapore’s “Battlefor Merger” revisited– Part II
Book Reviews
Review ofBurma’s Spring20 January 2015 8:02AM | 27 Comments
Chit Win reviews abook about Myanmarthat offers stories soreal, yet so oftenoverlooked.
Read More
Review ofStorytelling inThailand and Laos16 January 2015 9:02AM | 1 Comment
ArthidSheravanichkulreviews a book thatfocuses on theVessantara Jatakascroll painted bySopha Pangchat(19091966)
Read More
Review of RedStamps and GoldStars29 December 201411:52 PM | 2Comments
Keith Barney reviewsa useful resource forboth senior scholarsand youngerresearchersembarking uponfieldwork for the firsttime
Read More
Review ofKingdom in Crisis12 November 201412:24 AM | 21Comments
Patrick Jory and LeeJones offer twodistinctive reviews ofan important new
“The basicchallengefacingMuslims, andthe Muslimworld, today isnot...
Aung San Suu Kyiin 2015 (6)
plan B: Thelady has seenher destiny as a‘catalyst’ forchanges. Whenshe was the...tocharian:Contrary towhat I said,Suu Kyi is stillin the news inthe West,occasionally!Here...NicholasFarrelly:Thanksaiontay, Theseare interestingquestions, andI don’t think...aiontay:Speaking ofcold hard math,what are thepercentages byethnicity inpotentialvoters...Moe Aung:She’s certainlybeen accusedof having anautocraticmindset whichperhaps goes...tocharian:Sitting on thefence is aspecialty of theBurmese rulingclass, whichincludes Suu...
Press coveragereaches new heightsin Naypyitaw (3)
Peter Cohen: Idon’t know.Do you like tobe smacked byshoes ?Moe Aung: Isit just me ordoes this beginto smack of ashoe fetish?
Mekong bridge atChiang Khong (12)
TM: At theGoldenTriangleborder, LaosBokeo casinois another socalled...
2/4/2015 Good returns for Chinese Indonesians
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2014/09/15/goodreturnsforchineseindonesians/ 3/4
Share this:
ago, Jokowi was defeated by Prabowo who gained 52.16 per cent of total votesin the city. Can we therefore say that there’s a correlation between ethnicChinese failure at the local level (and to a lesser extent, at the national level)and proPrabowo electorates? Maybe not yet, but there does seem to becorrelation between proJokowi electorates and successful Chinese electoralcandidates in national or local elections, as the table below suggests.
The reluctance of some indigenous Indonesians to accept a Chinese Indonesianregional or local government head is due to three factors.
Firstly, regional or local government heads have relatively greater powercompared to national legislators. In decentralised Indonesia, mayors andregents have more power to directly control local resources and to revenues bytaxing the local population.
By contrast, parliamentarians only have the power to propose and pass laws.There’s less at stake for the indigenous majority that continues to see ethnicChinese as an alien minority group and hence candidates are less likely to facesmear campaigns. In other words, it is relatively easier for a ChineseIndonesian to be elected as a legislator than as a regional or local governmenthead because they have less power to shape their local electorates.
In addition, local elections are about presenting a mirror to local society, hencethe rise of putra daerah (local boy) politics. Ethnic Chinese do not ethnicallyreflect local populaces and as a result, local communities don’t want to berepresented by them.
Finally, we might observe that the success of Islamic parties in electoralpolitics has waned, challenged by internal competition and ideologicaldifference. Exhortations to vote for a Muslim (against a presumably Christian,ethnic Chinese candidate) reflect the growing anxiety of some Islamic partiesabout their relevance and electoral competitiveness.
Things are generally getting better for Chinese Indonesian electoral candidates.It is encouraging to see 15 Chinese Indonesians elected into nationalparliament this year. They account for 2.68 per cent of the total 560 nationalparliamentarians across the country, which is much higher than the percentageof Chinese Indonesians in the total population of Indonesia (1.20 per centaccording to the latest census in 2010).
We can be optimistic about the future of Chinese Indonesians in Indonesianpolitics.
Chong Wu Ling has just completed her PhD in sociology from the NationalUniversity of Singapore. Her research explores the role of ethnic ChineseIndonesians in shaping the democratisation process as well as their position inpostSuharto Indonesia across business, politics and civil society.
Email Chong Wu Ling for a copy of her data on Chinese Indonesiancandidates.
No Comments
Start the ball rolling by posting a comment on this article!
Leave a Reply
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Name *
Email *
Website
book on royalsuccession anddemocracy inThailand
Read More
Review ofCatchUpIndustrialization05 November 20148:15 AM | 2Comments
Rick Doner reviewsan impressive studythat addresses thecore challengesfacing "latedevelopers"
Read More
Review ofPersonal Names inAsia29 October 201412:31 AM | 2Comments
Nicholas Farrellyreviews an importantbook on namingpractices across theAsian region
Read More
Review of AHistory of Phuket17 October 2014 7:03AM | No Comments
New Mandala's BookReview Editor,Michael Montesano,looks closely at aphysically massiveand generallysprawlingcontribution
Read More
Review ofBrothers in Arms13 October 2014 7:32AM | 2 Comments
Ian Storey reviews amasterful account ofChina’s failed policyof support forDemocraticKampuchea
Read More
Review ofMasked: The Life ofAnna Leonowens29 September 20147:20 AM | 10Comments
Soldiers withdemocratic hearts?(19)
casuist: TwononlethalIEDs explodein a shoppingmall and it isthe junta,rather than anyof...tocharian:@MoeAungAs a“newcomerfrom the ThirdWorld”, I don’thave your...Moe Aung:Bully for you,toch. I arrivedin the Westdecades agomyself albeitwith a strong...plan B:Thailand cannot affordanotherincident similarto yellow shirttake over andshutting...R. N. England:I like Richard JTukwan’switticism.Prayuth is notat presenttrying to...plan B: “Themodernconcept of“ethnicity” isquite differentfrom thisprimitive...
Detention withouttrial: Going beyondColdstore? (5)
gostan:Whatever thetruth of he saysshe says wecan onlyuncover thehistory if wekick the...Peter Cohen:Poh had takenan oath, longago, but itwasn’t theHippocraticOath. For a...Lawrence Koh:On oneoccasion, Dr.Poh gave acommunistcourier threetypes ofmedicine –...Jason Lee:
2/4/2015 Good returns for Chinese Indonesians
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2014/09/15/goodreturnsforchineseindonesians/ 4/4
About Arras WordPress Theme
Copyright New Mandala 2006 2015. All Rights Reserved.
Comment
You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbrtitle=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code><del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Post Comment
Notify me of followup comments by email.
Notify me of new posts by email.
E. Bruce Reynoldsreviews a new bookthat he doubts will bethe final word on anendlessly intriguingsubject
Read More Review of Energy,Governance andSecurity19 September 20147:47 AM | NoComments
SuAnn Oh reviewsan importantcomparative study ofenvironmentalpolitics in Thailandand Myanmar
Read More
Review ofState and UncivilSociety in Thailand17 July 2014 7:24AM | 5 Comments
Volker Grabowskyreviews a book thatanalyses People’sAlliance forDemocracy efforts toexploit borderconflict
Read More
Neutral thirdparties haveemerged, withno stakes in the1963 eventsexcept for the...Peter Cohen: Ieveryconfidence thatany intelligentSingaporeancan read theselfserving...
ImpeachingYingluckShinawatra (31)
lerm:According totoday’s CNBC“Thailand’sbenchmarkstock indexhas...
Categories
Select Category
Archives (2006 – 2015)
Select Month
Admin
Log inEntries RSSComments RSSWordPress.org