Problem-Based Learning In Policy Making Process

Transcription

1 Network of Asia-Pacific Schools and Institutes of Public Administration and Governance (NAPSIPAG) Annual Conference 2005 Beijing, PRC, 5-7 December 2005 Theme: The Role of Public Administration in Building a Harmonious Society Workshop on Enlarging Citizen Participation and Increasing Autonomy of Local Government in Achieving Societal Harmony Problem-Based Learning In Policy Making Process Deddy S. Bratakusumah, PhD and Erna Irawati Head of National Leadership Training and Development Centre, and Lecturer of School of Administration National Institute of Public Administration, Republic of Indonesia 1

2 I. Introduction The last few years have seen unprecedented change taking place in the Indonesian local government system. In all localities the functions and responsibilities of local authorities have been subjected to extensive reform. For democracy reason, new legislation has redefined the need of direct people involvement in the local government democracy. This direct involvement is not only to choose legislative but also for executive (the Major and Regent and also the vices). To choose the legislative (the House of Representative and the Local House of Representative), under the old legislation, people choose political party but under the new legislation they choose political party and candidates. The system is called indirect district election system. Although this is the specific election system, perhaps only implemented in Indonesia, but this process has dramatically changed the pattern of direct people involvement in the democratic process. Democracy can be defined as the political system to conduct the political decisions with the participation of the people individually. The democratic government is demonstrated by the participation rate of the people in decision making process, and accountability system, so that people can play a role in directing of the governance. The more interesting thing is the direct election of Majors and Regents. Under the previous legislation, the House of Representative or the Local House of Representative chooses the President, Majors and Regents. But under the new legislation, people choose their own candidates. The direct election for the Head of District or Municipal (Bupati or Walikota) is a new mechanism for the people. The government has done several things to make easier the Pilkada, stand for Pemilihan Kepala Daerah or Local Government Head Election, process such as delivering some speeches, workshop, and producing some technical guidance. Unfortunately in practices, some problems have been occurred. The problems are different from one region to another. The problem might in the administrative support, the financial, the Information Technology, the administrative people, the educational background of the people or community, and the unclear technical guidance. There are some benefits and problems in the Pilkada implementation, since the system and the process are something new for the Indonesian democracy. Some direct benefits such as; (1) People learn about direct involvement in the political and democratic agenda, and (2) People know about the candidates. However the constrains and challenges among others are; (1) The incomplete technical guidance and regulation, (2) The partial arrangement of the election (logistic and human resources), (3) The minimum and short time of socialization and dissemination, and (3) The budget constrains. This paper explores the idea of problem-based approach. In the first section, the direct election at local government level in Indonesia will be discussed. In the second section, the problem-based approach will be described in detail. Conclusion will be presented to summarize all the though in the last section. II. The Participative Process of the Election of Mayor and Head of District in Indonesia. Local government in Indonesia has a big challenge right now. There are facing the direct democratic mechanism in its environment, such as the election of the head of local government. Toward this end, the local government have to work hard. In the first stage of implementation of Law No 32 year 2004, regarding Local Government, there are several problems dealing with the implementation of such direct democratic mechanism. Several problems that can be noted such the absence technical arrangement from the central government, of technical assistance (including standard operating procedure) for the election, financial assistance, and also proper socialization of the new system. Firstly, the absence of technical arrangement is lead to the problem of security and confusion in the implementation. Secondly, the absence of technical assistance from the central government lead to miscounting of the turn out, and mismanagement of human resources dealing with election. The central government has experiences to conduct election national wide, but for local government this is the first time experience. So that coordination and fostering from the 2

3 central to the local is the crucial factor, but there is lack of coordination in this stage or lack of communication. Another big problem in the implementation of election in local government is financial matters. Under the regulation it is said that central government would provide financial assistance to local government to conduct the election. But at the time the central government budget was not ready to support the money due to the budget allocation and revision procedures. As a result, local government has to fund this election using their own budget. Due to the limitation of local government budget, the equipment and tools used in the election process are not fits to the law. The local election is implemented by the Local Election Committee called KPUD (Komisi Pemilihan Umum Daerah). This is the independent agency which developed for the new system of election in Indonesia. The fist test for them is the election for the house of representative and the direct election for the president and his vice. The independence of the KPUD was disrupted by; (1) the internal conflict of the political parties, (2) the verification of candidate process, (3) the management matters, (4) the logistic procurement problems, and (5) the professionalism of the KPUD staff. The poor overall management on local government election has lead to some problems such as the disappointment of community due to the miscounting, the poor facilities, and the complaints from the people. The first batch of Pilkada was implemented in June 2005 for 173 localities. The problems and the complaints for the June 2005 are depicted in Table 1. TABLE 1 Problems and Occurrence in PILKADA 2005 No Problems Occurrence Percentage 1. Voter Registration Candidate Verification Election Process Election Day Election Results Riots after Election TOTAL (Data Source: Those problems can be solved either by the KPUD themselves or by the courts. The process of complaints resolution took days to months to overcome or to come to the solutions. If the problems went to the high court it would take many months, so that the final decision of the winners also will delay. Among the court verdicts are the annulment of the first round election results. Therefore the election had to be rerun, or the election should be conducted for the second round. Although, the direct voting of the local government head election is the first system implemented in Indonesia, but the people participation In the election on average was 73%, and the lowest is 49.64% participant out of registered voter and the highest is 99.79% participant. The low participation was found in urban area, while the highest was in rural area. Whatever the participation rate, this is the optimistic turn out, so the democracy development in Indonesia is quite satisfactory. In specific, our paper will explore some strategies to minimize those constrain and problems. Strategies will be focused on the upgrading civil engagement to support the democratic agenda in Indonesia. All the experiences suggest that the agenda approach introduced by central government was not success. In the point that local government need central government guidance and assistant for the first election is acceptable. The poor management and preparedness from the central government is the key point from the failure 3

4 in Indonesia election process. It was take time to process and implement the central government guidance, finance, coordination, and also other technical support. To be the truth those problems are common for Indonesia because this is the first time we conduct the direct election for regional government level. Those problems can be used as input for the next process or for other local government that will conduct their election in the recent future. To be useful, the government should move further into the next step with a new strategy. In the first step of implementation, the government did the delivered-socialization from the central government to the local government election body (KPUD) or to the local government body that support the election process. It means that the central government is the leading actor for the local government election process. So, the central government set the agenda, technique and strategy for socialization. In the second round, the central government should minimize their direct involvement in the socialization process, and give the authority to the local government to do the socialization. And the local government have to move from the government agenda-based approach to the problem-based learning to solve the real problem in the election process. Base on those experiences it is believed that both level on government have to consider different approach to reduce the problems. While in the first stage, central government played the important and vital role, in the second phase (stage) the local government has to control and play the important role in election process. III. Problem-Based Approach for Local Government Head of District in Indonesia The direct election for the Head of District or Municipal (Bupati or Walikota) is a new mechanism for the people. The government has done several things to make easier the Pilkada process such as delivering some speeches, workshop, and producing some technical guidance. Unfortunately in practices, some problems have been occurred. The problems are different from one regional government to another. The problem might in the administrative support, the financial, the Information Technology, the administrative people, the educational background of the people or community, and the unclear technical guidance. Those problems can be used as input for the next process or for other local government that will conduct their election in the near future. The government should move further into the next step with a new strategy. In the first step of implementation, the government did the delivered-socialization from the central government to the local government election body (KPUD) or to the local government body that support the election process. It means that the central government is the leading actor for the local government election process. So, the central government set the agenda, technique and strategy for socialization. In the second round, the central government should minimize their direct involvement in the socialization process, and give the authority to the local government to do the socialization. And the local government have to move from the government agenda-based approach to the problem-based learning to solve the real problem in the election process. In this approach, the local government have to work actively to gather a meeting with the local government election body, the community, and others which have a relation or contribution to the election process. This meeting is conducted to identify the problems in the election process and make the list of priority among those problems. The list is the guidance of the next step, which is the small group discussion. Each local government might have different approach and reasons to do the short list from the priority list. So, it is up to the local government to decide how many problems will be discussed for the solutions. The ultimate goal of the small group discussion is the problem solving strategy. So the member of the discussion is chosen in a professionally bases. This discussion member is different with the previous step, the meeting to make the priority which is conducted openly to public or anybody who concern with the election process. The discussion member is limited to the professional. The process flow is presented in Figure 1. 4

5 FIGURE 1 Problem Based Approach Policy Making Process THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT FIRST STEP LOCAL GOVERNMENT KPUD PUBLIC MEETING (GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL, KPUD, COMMUNITY, LOCAL HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE, NGO) RESULT THE LIST OF PROBLEMS AND PRIORITY SECOND STEP SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION FOR PROBLEM 1 SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION FOR PROBLEM 2 SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION FOR PROBLEM 3 The approach is to cater the heterogeneous of Indonesian society. Every locality has a special characteristic, dynamism, and specific style of problem solving. Using the small group discussion the specific problem can be solved in an exclusive manner. For example the problem of election logistic in a specific area should be solved by the small group discussion in the area. It is important because in Indonesia the variation among area is very large. In one area the logistic can be transported by land transportation, but in other area they need sea, or water transportation. So the problem is different. IV. Conclusion Although the new system of local election was implemented for the first time in Indonesia, but the result is quite satisfactorily. The problem arose in the system in general can be categorized as ; (1) the internal conflict of the political parties, (2) the verification of candidate process, (3) the management matters, (4) the logistic procurement problems, and (5) the professionalism of the KPUD staff. Using the problem based approach the specific problem can be solved with the exclusive solution. Therefore the hetoregeneous Indonesia can be suited in the problem solving. Upgrading civil engagement using dissemination and socialization efforts is urgently needed to support democracy and to have clear, reasonable, and accountable Pilkada. 5

6 VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Analisis CSIS, Vol. 34, No. 2, Juni 2005, Peran Masyarakat dan Demokrasi Lokal (The Role of Citizen and Local Democracy), CSIS, Jakarta, Indonesia. 2. Bratakusumah, Deddy S. and Dadang Solihin, 2001, Otonomi Penyelenggaraan Pemerintahan Daerah (the Autonomy of Local Governance), PT.Gramedia Pustaka Utama, Jakarta, Indonesia. 3. Robertson, David, 1993, Dictionary of Politics, Penguin Books, New York, NY, USA. 4. Republic of Indonesia, 2004, The Law No 32, Year 2004, regarding Local Governance, Jakarta, Indonesia. About the Author Deddy S. Bratakusumah was born in Bandung, Indonesia in December 19, His elementary and middle educations was completed in Bandung. He was graduated the degree of Civil Engineer from ATN in 1977, and the degree of Sanitary and Environmental Engineer from ITB in In August 1991 he was granted the degree of Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the Urban and Regional Planning Program, School of Architecture, University of Miami, Florida, USA. During the summer 1990 he also attended the Harvard Institute of Affordable Housing at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He received Master of Science degree in Regional Science from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA, and finally he granted the PhD in Regional Science in May 1996 from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. 6