Local Elections and Party Politics in Post-Reformasi Indonesia: A View from Yogyakarta

This article examines elections for local executive heads in post-Soeharto Indonesia, particularly in relation to the reactivated and decentralized political corruption in democratic political institutions. "Money politics" — a term preferred by many Indonesians, including scholars and even ordinary citizens, to differentiate from the corruption of the authoritarian past — still dominates political discourse despite earlier hopes for responsive and accountable government, which underpinned the reformasi movement that forced Soeharto to step down in May 1998. The author uses the 2001 Yogyakarta mayoral election as a case to examine how such undemocratic and corrupt practices as local assembly members' vote selling in elections for regional heads has emerged as an actual pattern of the revitalized multi-party parliamentary politics in Indonesia.