Another beautiful example is how Soekarno and Buya Hamka, even though they had different political choices, Buya Hamka’s attitude was still polite towards Soekarno. #aminkanIndonesia
GROWING old is inevitable, but maturing is not a certainty. This saying seems apt when observing the character of the presidential candidates in last night’s debate, Tuesday, December 12, 2023.
To unravel this, we need to dissect with the knife of Transactional Analysis. In Transactional Analysis, Eric Berne delineates human communication characters into three.
Eric Berne, a Canadian-born psychiatrist, created the theory of transactional analysis to explain human behavior.
First, the child character, which represents childlike traits, such as always wanting attention, self-righteousness, getting angry when disturbed, selfishness, and other traits representing a child’s character.
Second, the parent character, where in this character, the person tends to advise, blame, resist criticism, and feel self-righteous, sometimes nurturing and wise, but easily offended when someone disagrees with them.
Then the third is the adult character, more rational, willing to listen, wise, understanding, solution-focused, and of course, calm, able to control oneself and emotions.
It seems that of the three analytical knives above, Presidential candidate Prabowo showed more of the parent and child characters, explosive, easily offended, and self-righteous. For example, in the session on how to handle the Papua issue, Prabowo’s answer showed more of a warrior’s character whose options are defeat or victory, with no middle ground for a win-win solution dialogue. Only after Anies and Ganjar promoted the concept of dialogue did Prabowo quickly agree. Anies was more solution-focused, offering a middle way of bringing justice to the Papuan people.
In the session on how to maintain democracy, Anies offered a solution to safeguard it. Anies mentioned that public trust is very low. To rectify this, Anies pointed out three things that cause democracy to function well: freedom of speech, an opposition free to criticize the government as a balance, and a neutral, honest, and fair election and presidential process.
Unfortunately, in responding to Anies’s explanation, Prabowo responded with high emotional intensity, as if holding back anger. “Mas Anies… Mas Anies, Mas Anies, you were elected in a democratic process that you complain about. Facing a ruling government, if democracy didn’t work, you couldn’t be governor, if Jokowi was a dictator you couldn’t be governor,” Prabowo said in a high tone and angry face. Prabowo was visibly disturbed by Anies’s presentation. It’s actually understandable, given Prabowo is part of Jokowi’s government. However, the excessive response shows Prabowo’s immaturity. He was obviously anti-criticism.
Ganjar was more relaxed in responding to Anies’s statement because Ganjar also experienced the same as Anies, suspicions of unfair, non-neutral, and dishonest election implementations.
At least from the entire flow of the first day’s debate, the public could see the character of the existing presidential candidates.
Indonesia needs a leader with a mature character, rational, calm, wise, not anti-criticism, willing to listen, and very open to input. We can’t imagine what Indonesia would become if the character of future leaders is like that of children and parents, self-righteous, feeling correct, selfish, demanding service, and often anti-different opinions.
This nation has the experience of having Presidents with mature characters, like BJ Habibie, Gus Dur, and SBY, who are not anti-criticism and respect differences. Another beautiful example is how Soekarno and Buya Hamka, despite their different political choices, maintained a respectful demeanor towards each other.
* Isa Ansori, Columnist and Academician, Living in Surabaya