In the 2013 Global Peaceful Index (GPI) Report, Indonesia is ranked the 54th most peaceful country out of 162 countries in the world, with a score of 0.1879. Indonesia’s ranking is quite high compared to 4 other countries in the ASEAN region, namely Cambodia (115), the Philippines (129), Thailand (130), and Burma (140). In addition to several indicators such as crime rate, violence with a sectarian background and others, GPI also includes ‘political terror’ as one of the parameters. Political terror is carried out by a regime in power against the community.
In the last five years, peace tends to decline. It should be noted that compared to 2008, Indonesia’s score in 2013 has shifted 1% towards less peaceful. The shift was quite high experienced by Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia. Although in terms of ranking, Malaysia is still relatively far above Indonesia. The endless political conflicts in Thailand in the last 5 years have lowered the level of peace in this Elephant Country.
A decrease in the level of peace (peaceful) has implications for an unplanned increase in defense and security spending. This will narrow the opportunities to resolve other welfare issues. The recent experience of countries in the Middle East region is clear evidence of this. The endless political conflict in Thailand is seen as threatening the welfare of citizens and undermining the fundamentals of national resilience. For that reason, the Thai military chose to carry out a coup.
This situation is reviewed in Policy Memo #2, 2014, which places the perspectives of the Presidential Candidates on the issues that have surfaced. This policy paper reveals the agenda and views of the Presidential Candidates, based on the two vision and mission documents of each Candidate.
