International Support for Domestic Election Monitoring Organizations in Indonesia

Abstract

Democratic election is believed as one of the important keys to democratic development of a nation, and the election monitoring is recognized as one of the most effective means to assure that the election is implemented in a free and fair manner. Supporting domestic election monitoring organizations (DEMOs) become, thus, on the agenda for democracy assistance of the international aid community. In Indonesia, democracy assistance and DEMOs are relatively new phenomena in its political system. This study will analyze the role of democracy assistance in the form of supporting Indonesian local DEMOs in the democratization of Indonesia, by addressing three questions. First, what kind of democracy assistance has been distributed in the General Elections of 1999 and 2004, and how has the assistance affected the functions and characteristics of Indonesian local DEMOs? Second, how has democracy assistance improved the relationship between Indonesian local DEMOs as civic actors and state actors such as General Election Committee as official election supervisory body in formulating and realizing democratic election? Third, how have donor countries influenced the performance and sustainability of Indonesian local DEMOs? Overall, this study purposes to analyze how democracy assistance can have a positive role in supporting domestic actors at different levels to cooperate with each other, and to get themselves actively involved in the democratization of Indonesia.