Netizens Call Indonesia "Konoha-Wakanda"—Is Indonesian Democracy Deteriorating?

Presidential candidate Anies Baswedan assesses that the current state of Indonesian democracy is unhealthy.

According to Anies, this is reflected in the style of conversation among netizens or social media users, who often use fictional names when criticizing the Indonesian government.

"We see that on social media, many who want to write (criticize the government) use names like Konoha, Wakanda. What does this mean? This shows there is self-censorship," said Anies at the UI FISIP National Lecture in Depok, Tuesday (29/8/2023).

Konoha is the fictional village name in the Naruto anime, while Wakanda is the fictional country in the Black Panther movie.

Anies believes these names are used by netizens as a substitute for "Indonesia" due to fear of criticizing the government.

"These are signs of unhealthy democracy. There are two systems in this world, democratic and non-democratic. The pillar of non-democratic systems is fear, while the pillar of democratic systems is trust," said Anies.

"When we are in a democracy and there is fear, this is actually a sign of unhealthiness, so it must be addressed," he added.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)'s Democracy Index, Indonesian democracy is indeed classified as a flawed democracy.

Since 2006, the EIU has routinely assessed the state of democracy in 165 countries based on five major indicators: electoral process and political pluralism, government governance, level of public political participation, political culture, and civil liberties.

The results are then formulated into an index on a scale of 0-10. The higher the score, the better the quality of a country's democracy is assumed to be.

The EIU also categorizes the index scores into four types of democracy:

* Index score > 8: Full democracy
* Index score > 6 to ? 8: Flawed democracy
* Index score > 4 to ? 6: Hybrid regime
* Index score ? 4: Authoritarian

According to this assessment method, Indonesia's democracy index during the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) tended to increase, from 6.41 (2006) to 6.97 (2014).

Then, at the beginning of President Jokowi's administration, the score dropped to 6.39 (2015), and slowly rose again to reach 6.71 (2022).

Although the numbers have changed, throughout the SBY and Jokowi eras, Indonesia's democracy index score remained in the flawed democracy category, with no significant improvement or deterioration.

In 2022, Indonesia achieved relatively good scores in electoral process and political pluralism (7.92), government governance (7.86), and political participation (7.22).

However, Indonesia's scores were low in civil liberties (6.18) and political culture (4.38).

The EIU assessed the civil liberties score from various variables, such as the level of press freedom, freedom of association, freedom of expression in public, restrictions on internet content access, and religious tolerance.

The political culture score was assessed from variables such as public belief in democracy, public preference for military or technocratic leaders, and the separation of powers between state and religion.