Bali. Bali Democracy Forum (BDF) that has been held eight times is hoped to be a hub for participating countries to share knowledge and best practices in democracy in order to promote better democracy to the world.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla stated this when delivering his speech in the opening ceremony of the 8th Bali Democracy Forum (BDF) with the theme “Democracy and Effective Public Governance”, held today at Nusa Dua Convention Center, Bali.
Democracy, the Vice President added, is not the objective, yet it is a medium to realize public welfare which is notably the objective of every nation.
He believed that democracy that is running well in a country will result in good governance.
“When democracy works, it will make the government system be more effective and could tackle problems like poverty, terrorism, and so on,” he said. A democratic country, he continued, will always evaluate the development of its democracy.
The Vice President also wished that the advance in political democracy, implemented through general elections for instance, would in turn promote the development of economic democracy.
“This is absolutely homework for Indonesia to make its economic democracy run in line with its political democracy,” he said.
In economic democracy, Mr Kalla added, everyone will have the same opportunity to be economically independent, to realize justice and equality.
He then underscored the weakness of democracy in Indonesia, which is the imbalance between executive and legislative powers which frequently causes democracy not run effectively.
Mr Kalla also stated that terrorism and radicalism spread out in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria, are the result of failed democracy.
“Terrorism and ISIS are growing due to the fact that western countries interfered the internal affairs of the countries and forced democracy to be applied there. Democracy could never be enforced with non-democratic efforts,” he affirmed.
Each country, he further said, has their own uniqueness and thus will run democracy that might be different to that in other countries.
Previously, Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno L.P. Marsudi at the same event hoped BDF would produce concrete and applicable initiatives, including cooperations and capacity building programs in several countries held by the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD) as BDF’s implementing arm.
Participating the forum are more than 250 representatives from 86 countries and 3 international organizations. The forum is slated to last for two days, from 10 to 11 December 2015.