Malukus election nears resolution
Updated
In Indonesia, a provincial election dispute in a potentially-volatile region appears to be moving towards a resolution.
And according to the International Crisis Group, this is thanks largely to what it calls Indonesia's "robust democracy". A winner was named in late September last year, but his opponent is still challenging the result.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Sidney Jones, senior advisor to the International Crisis Group in Indonesia
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LAM: Sidney Jones welcome to Radio Australia.
JONES: Thank you very much.
LAM: Sidney can you first of all background this for us? What was the north Maluku election for and what happened?
JONES: Yes, this was one of Indonesia's elections for governor. Since 2005 Indonesia has been holding direct popular elections for local officials, and this was one election that was taking place in an area that had been completely wracked by Christian-Muslim fighting in 1999 and 2000 to the point where we had over 3,000 deaths. So when we had a contest here that went wrong and it went very wrong from an electoral point of view -- just complete disputes over the counting, over the preparation for the elections, clashes in the streets over who won -- we were all afraid that this was going to turn into another eruption of communal violence, and it didn't happen that way. What's happened is that even though it took over a year for this election to be decided, it looks as though it's going to be decided peacefully in the courts, although we're still waiting for the final ruling.
LAM: Indeed, I understand it's being challenged in the constitutional court now and that the ruling is expected next month?
JONES: Yes, we expect it at the end of the first week in February. And the interesting thing about the constitutional court is that it's the newest of Indonesia's various judicial bodies. And while most of the court system has a horrible reputation for corruption, incompetence and lack of professionalism, the constitutional court has been quite good. And one of the decisions that the Indonesian parliament, )which also doesn't have a great reputation) made after a series of these local election disputes, was to give authority to this new body to decide and resolve any election disputes, which was a very good decision and a sign that even the Indonesian parliament is learning from past difficulties and is able to reform the Indonesian system more generally. So it's all a very good decision that now the constitutional court has the authority to decide these contests.
LAM: What do you think it is about the constitutional court that makes it so competent? Is it precisely that it's young, that it doesn't have any of the hang-ups from the past?
JONES: Yes I think that's very much the case, that this was the first major judicial body formed after the reform era was initiated with Suharto's resignation. So the whole idea of a new judicial body that would embody a spirit of reform has led to good people being appointed to the justice positions, and to some controversial but generally creative, innovative and wise decisions being made by this body.
LAM: And how do you account for the fact that there was no violence despite the very messy election? Is it because local politicians are perhaps more sensitive now to sectarian differences... that they make sure that disagreements didn't spiral out of control?
JONES: Yes I think that was very much a factor, although it wasn't violence-free entirely, but at the point where we began to see house burnings which was characteristic of some of the earlier communal violence, it was at that point that basically, the politicians stepped in and restrained their followers. So it wasn't violence-free but when it looked like it might get out of hand, it was at that point that people decided more generally we don't want to have the same kind of violence that we had ten years ago.
