Provide Dialogue Space to Reduce Political Polarization
By: Anindya Lazuardi *
The political elites who are at odds with the implementation of the 2019 election should rightly open themselves to dialogue so that political polarization in the community gradually subsides. Political division is not only detrimental to the parties that are in conflict, but also to people who do not participate in practical political competition. The dialogue is urgent. The political elite must provide an example to the community.
The impasse due to differences in political views can be broken through a meeting between leaders who have choices across the 2019 election. We still have space, opportunities and political resources as well as the values and spirit of deliberation. It would be nice, this is not wasted so that this difficult period can be passed right away.
The meeting between political coalitions certainly must be a common awareness to melt the ice. That awareness has actually been built at the grass roots. In Jember and Madiun, for example, the losing party in the recapitulation of vote counts can accept it so that there are no protracted problems.
The initiator of # 2019 hashtag The President, Mardani Ali Sera, no longer wants to echo the change of President, because he realizes that the campaign period is over. The PKS politician said that # 2019 the President had closed the book after the 2019 election ended.
“As of April 13, I have forbidden myself from being able to shout again to replace the president. Already completed. Why? Because it was the last day of the campaign. Now, especially. The competition has finished. We’re back to normal. Change the President to close the book, “said Mardani.
Instead, he wanted to invite both candidate pairs both TKN and BPN to be able to meet after the 2019 presidential election in order to create a conducive national atmosphere. He then revealed that all parties can be wise if the decisions related to the president and vice president for the period 2019-2024 have been determined by the KPU. Then if there is someone who cannot accept the results, he also says that this can be conveyed through a mechanism that has been determined.
“Anyone who is elected later. “If it has indeed gone through a good process, complaints have been resolved, it’s the people’s voice and I have to respect it,” he said.
If deemed necessary, cross-group dialogue can also be encouraged by services, both from civil society and religious organizations such as NU, Muhammadiyah, Indonesian Bishops’ Conference, Communion of Churches in Indonesia, and Representatives of Indonesian Buddhists. CSOs – these organizations can initiate or encourage meetings between elites and their respective support coalitions for the benefit of the nation.
The Dialogue Room which brings together the two camps between BPN and TKN is expected to eliminate revenge and all differences after the 2019 Election. The dialogue room is needed because before the General Election on April 17 2019, political tension gets hotter, where various issues are fried, hoaxes are increasingly exhaled . Many people also chose to enter into the vortex between the two camps. However, not a few also prefer to remain silent for various personal reasons.
For some people who have been included in the political vortex, not a few of them are then debating with friends, relatives or colleagues, so that sometimes the debate gives birth to a boundary of intimacy.
The high political tension is also rife on social media, besides the # 2019 tag over the president, there is also a frequent sign that invites foreign monitors to participate in monitoring elections in Indonesia. Social media has become like a war arena, where every status and chirp written, slides like a bullet and throws bombs that provoke anger from warganet, which sometimes they do not know each other, but have cursed each other only because of the different numbers 01 and 02.
Of course we still remember a wise sentence spoken by the late Gus Dur, which is more important than politics is humanity. These words certainly should be contemplated for all those who are caught up in political fanaticism.
It is fitting for the political elite to be responsible for the cold-hot conflict that surrounds the lives of Indonesians, namely by opening the space for dialogue between the two camps, so that a sense of unity can be intensified, while giving the community an example that does not mean breaking the sense of unity.
- The author is a Social Media Activist