The Foreign Service Journal, October 2004

documentary comparing U.S. and Indonesian elections, Suyatno lamented, “Indonesian elections must seem back- ward compared to American polls. We vote under plastic tents and count the votes with pen and paper!” I felt compelled to remind him of the 2000 election in the U.S. There, I explained, the winner is decided by an electoral college, not by the total number of popular votes. Stepping back, Suyatno replied: “That’s democracy?” Indeed, after years debating and formulating the shape of the current presidential polls — in which voters are given a single, non-transferable vote—politicians and aca- demics are thinking twice about the U.S. being the democ- racy to emulate. They decided against having legislators choose a president; instead, they gave that choice back to ordinary citizens. Hadi Soesastro, head of a Jakarta think- tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says of the U.S. electoral college: “Compared to our own elections, where we elect the president directly, the U.S. system now looks very antiquated.” Disbelief is also a standard reaction when Indonesians are told that only half of America’s population votes during presidential elections, and even fewer during legislative elections. “If so few Americans vote, why should we copy the U.S. model?” asks Riyanti, a student at the University of Indonesia. Riyanti had long regarded the U.S. as an exemplary electoral system. Now she is not so sure. A Vote for Multilateralism If many Indonesians are still learning about the weak- nesses about the U.S. electoral process, they have clearer opinions about American foreign policy — and how the upcoming presidential poll can change its direction. Most vehement amongst Indonesians eager for a change in leadership in the U.S. are those who spent many years living there. They are not just nostalgic for the America of their yesteryear. Indonesians want a change in U.S. foreign policy because they believe this change will reverberate in domestic Indonesian politics. Harvard University graduate Daniel Budiman, 37, for example, is a Christian concerned about recent religious conflict in Indonesia. He worries that the current military operations in Iraq do not help efforts to “win the hearts and minds of the Islamic world,” including in Indonesia. Budiman would like to see Democratic Party presidential candidate John Kerry in the White House because he believes Kerry shares his goals of multilateralism—and that these goals would impact religious harmony at home. Says the investment banker: “Another four years (of President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney) would be destructive to the U.S. and to the world.” Indeed, as militancy rises in pockets of Indonesia, the country’s moderate Muslim majority fears that external conflicts will fuel internal discord. Protests by Indonesian Islamic groups against U.S. military operations in Iraq are commonplace. Umar Juoro, an economist at the Center for International and Development Studies, an Islamic think-tank, believes that resentment against the Bush administration’s Middle East policy is mounting among Indonesians, turning moderate Muslims into hard-liners. Boston University graduate Juoro prefers John Kerry’s promises of multilateralism, specifically the involvement of more Muslim countries in solving the region’s problems. “Muslims know how to deal with other Muslims. We need to be included more in those issues,” says Juoro. “Issues” and “problems” are code words for another foreign policy juggernaut that has a direct bearing on Indonesia: terrorism. Indonesia has thrice been a victim of major terrorist attacks: a 2002 bombing in Bali killed 202 people; in 2003, a car bomb at Jakarta’s Marriott Hotel killed 12 and injured more than 100; and in 2004, the bombing of the Australian embassy killed nine and injured more than 180. Criticisms of U.S. anti-terrorism policy are plentiful. Aristides Katoppo, editor of the daily newspaper Sinar Harapan , points out that while many suspects of the Bali bombing and other terrorist strikes have been detained and put on trial, the chief suspectedmastermind, Hambali, remains in the custody of U.S. officials. Indonesian inves- tigators have had scant access to Hambali. This is yet another example of American unilateralism, says the U.S.- educated Katoppo, and one that impedes Indonesia’s efforts to tackle terrorists in its backyard. Wimar Witoelar, 59, a former spokesperson for former President Abdurahman Wahid and a popular television commentator, is equally unsympathetic toward the Bush administration. Witoelar, too, spent his early adult years in the U.S. and maintains an affection for the America he once knew, an America that is “a strong, mostly benevolent leader of the world … [gaining leadership] not just by attacking enemies, but by consolidating nation states and the budding civil societies in the developing world.” He sees that America fading away under a government led by a president he describes as having “no talent nor desire to be an international citizen.” F O C U S O C T O B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 31