Importance of Cultural Legitimacy to the Local Government in Indonesian Democracy
Abstract: This paper aims to
analyze the importance of legitimacy aspect for a government, related to the
existence of indigenous people, in the context of local election as the
manifestation of democracy. Generally, legitimacy is interpreted in a normative
understanding, particularly in its relation to the legal fulfillment of formal
requirements that produces a legitimate government. Legitimacy is required to
ensure that a government has justifications to implement all of its functions.
Moreover, legitimacy is also necessary to ensure the compliance and support of
people. Nevertheless, in terms of indigenous peoples, though formal legitimacy
is indeed important, it is not the only legitimacy required by the local
government. The legitimacy shall also be related to local values upheld by
people. Based on the research conducted on the Toraja ethnic group in Tana
Toraja, in the perspective of legal pluralism, there are two crucial
intersecting governing norms. This study shows the importance of adat values to
obtain legitimacy, in the context democratization in Indonesia, and the
existence of adat in the implementation of local autonomy. By using several
different principles as the bases, the existence of adat and formal law in the
implementation of local election show that there is a collaboration effort to
make the process of democracy and adat go along well, conferring a legitimacy
for the local government despite the uniqueness of the Toraja people.
Author: Rabin Yunus, Sukri
Tamma
Journal Code: jpadministrasinegaragg140048