Yogyakarta- UGM sociologist, Arie Sudjito, criticized the behavior of political elites who currently more prioritize personal and party’s image rather than conduct their duty and responsibility to alleviate poverty and improve people’s welfare. What have been done by political elites today, according to Arie Sudjito, is not different from the behavior of fake politics. “If we let fake politics continue, democracy will get brittle,” Arie said in a discussion taking place in Center for Pancasila Studies, Thursday afternoon (11/8).
Arie added that people should not vote for a party or a leader based on the image, but ideology. However, building an ideological politics is not as easy as turning the palm of the hand due to lack of regeneration process in the party. "As long as ideological politics is not raised, then pragmatism will continue," he said.
Lack of the regeneration of party, Arie Sudjito admitted, is never addressed by the parties. Lack of cadres has just been felt by the party when selecting politician candidates toward elections. "The parties have just realized that they do not have cadres toward the election," he said.
Not only that, the lack of militant cadres makes former party members move to other party more easily or take counter-productive action against the party. "The future challenge is how ideological politics is formed, not politics of kufuran or image," he said.
Arie also mentioned the habit of gossiping done by political elites on television. According to Arie, the behavior leads to public ignorance, not enlightenment. He also regretted that the controversy discourse raised by the political elites does not give a useful message for the nation, but a misleading one. "Now the political elites often create controversy, unlike Gus Dur and Nurcholis Madjid, who always gave a message of reconciliation," he said.