Multiparty presidentialism and its effects on pandemic Management

The multiparty conditions in Indonesia could be an obstacle to the acceleration process of handling the pandemic or emergency conditions that require quick action. Especially if the fragmentation of political parties is so great that political lobbying is always needed in every decision-making. So, how does the multiparty presidential system affect pandemic handling policies?

Populi Center discussed it in the Populi Forum with the theme "Multiparty Presidentialism and Its Impact on Handling the Pandemic", Thursday (11/25). The discussion was held online via the zoom application and the YouTube platform. The discussion, moderated by Rafif Imawan (Researcher at Populi Center), presented three speakers, Ramlan Surbakti (Professor of Political Science, Airlangga University), Djayadi Hanan (Lecturer, Paramadina University), and Hurriyah (Lecturer of Political Science, University of Indonesia).

At the beginning of the discussion, Ramlan Surbakti (Professor of Political Science, Airlangga University), said that in extraordinary conditions such as Covid-19, fast and firm policies are needed. According to him, there is no significant difference between democratic and authoritarian countries in handling Covid-19. "This means that each has its own success and failure factors," he explained.

In an emergency situation like this, he said that leadership is needed in a centralized policy. Although in its implementation there is a role from the local government. Ramlan further highlighted the issue of the multi-party system. He criticized the minimal role of parties in making and overseeing policies. "Many parties are not oriented towards policy but more towards technical issues such as participating in the implementation of vaccinations, even though that is not the main task of political parties," he said. In addition, the Professor of Political Science at Airlangga University also highlighted the issue of weak policy implementation. "One example is the low level of public compliance with the Covid-19 health protocol and the less assertive role of the government," he said.

Ramlan explained that ideally the number of political parties in Indonesia is six parties at most, but in the matter of handling the Covid-19 pandemic, the problem is not the multiparty system in Indonesia but the implementation of policies that have not been maximized. He also highlighted the performance of the legislature which should have worked more in making laws and regulations.

The second resource person, Hurriyah (Lecturer in Political Science, University of Indonesia) explained that the problem of the presidential system with multi-party systems is at least in three major issues, namely pseudo-presidentialism, executive policy unreliability and pandemic politics. Furthermore, in highlighting the impact of pseudo-presidentialism or half-hearted conditions, Hurriyah explained that there are at least four impacts. First, the difficulty in building a cabinet format based on a vision, mission and program. Second, the President does not have full authority to regulate and run the government. Third, the effectiveness of the government is not running well due to the problem of power relations and accommodative politics. Fourth. The power relations between the executive and the legislature are colored by a tendency towards legislative heavy. "There is a paradox between presidential reform and the practice of presidential real politics in
Indonesia," he said.

Furthermore, Hurriyah explained the consequences of presidentialism making the legislative institution as one of the political forces usually much more autonomous. As a result, in the policy-making process, compromise and negotiation with the legislative institution are unavoidable. "In Indonesia, the practice of pseudo-presidentialism has implications for the emergence of potential executive policy unreliability, including in handling the pandemic and this condition can give rise to public distrust," he said.

Hurriyah again reminded the importance of strengthening the practice of the presidential system, especially in policy-making in emergency situations such as Covid-19. "The practice of combining a multi-party presidential system not only has an impact on the formation of pseudo-presidentialism and a fat coalition government, but also has the potential to give rise to unreliability issues in executive policy-making," he concluded. He also criticized the issue of multi-party coalitions that emphasize transactional politics.

Slightly different from Hurriyah, Djayadi Hanan (Lecturer, Paramadina University) said that the Covid-19 pandemic is like a natural experiment to test the validity of each model of government system in various countries in the world simultaneously. Djayadi said that "There is no significant difference between the models of government in the world in handling the pandemic". As in Indonesia, Djayadi assessed that the acceleration of the Covid handling policy was not influenced by the presidential and multi-party issues. "There is no strong correlation between the multi-party presidential government system and the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic," he explained.

However, he agreed with Ramlan that the factors influencing the handling of Covid-19 were more outside the multiparty factors such as leadership issues, government capacity, public discipline, and political stability. At the end of the discussion, Djayadi reminded the importance of building political stability in the current Covid-19 pandemic situation. The coalition is not about the number of parties, but about the quality, because the coalition is still needed as a consequence of the multiparty presidential system. However, he noted that the tendency of political parties is to follow the government (form a coalition). "Becoming a coalition is more profitable in terms of political calculations than the opposition," he said.

Contact Person
Jefri Adriansyah / 0852-1653-7088