2013: A Prelude to the Political Year of 2014

Abstrak

The year 2013 has been seen as a prelude to the so-called political year of 2014. One of the weirdest political scenes in 2013 was when political parties had to advertise in the media in order to find people to be listed as their candidates for the parliamentary election. Moreover, the parties had to rush in recruiting the candidates to meet deadlines for names submission set out by the Indonesian Election Commission (KPU).

This can be understood as a symptom of how dysfunctional our political parties are. Party recruitment and training program are indicators of whether or not a political party is well-functioning. A political party has to be ready with its recruitment process immediately after an election is done. It has to start all internal political process right away. By doing so, those who lost in the election will be able to quickly regroup while the winner consolidates.