Pandemic politics: The acceleration of democratic erosion and autocratization in Indonesia during Covid-19

After the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesia experienced a democratic transition that many observers hailed as a model for other Muslim countries. Twenty years after the reforms, many scholars have noted the erosion of democratization, including the rise of intolerance and conservative majoritarianism, threats to civil liberties, human rights abuses, and the decreasing quality of elections. In this article, we show how the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated these tendencies. Since 2020, the government has finalized at least five controversial legal drafts. This is particularly sobering to promoters of liberal democracy because the government is headed by Joko Widodo, whom many considered the more democratic candidate in comparison with his opponent, former military leader Prabowo Subianto. Not only the content of these bills but also changes to the legislative process potentially threaten Indonesia's democratic future. The Indonesian government has pushed the bills through despite the massive criticism and rejection of all five bills by NGOs, scholars, human rights activists, and even some politicians. It cited public health and the Covid-19 pandemic as a reason for limiting spaces for political deliberation. We argue that there are at least three levels on which the Covid-19 pandemic act as a catalyst to the democratic decline tendencies in Indonesia: firstly, by executive aggrandizement and weakening of democratic institutions through legislative means; secondly, by curtailing public participation; and, thirdly, by depriving the next generation of the education and social conditions necessary for political engagement.