Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: 
    Indonesia 
      July 9-29, 2010 
SCOTT MORGENSTERN
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
IN CONJUNCTION WITH  
R. WILLIAM LIDDLE
THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
This study is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of the University of
Pittsburgh and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
Table of Contents 
1 SUMMARY OF RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS........................................................................... 3
2 INTRODUCTION AND SCOPE OF EVALUATION ................................................................................... 5
3 EVALUATION: METHODOLOGY AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ...................................................... 6
4 THE ACTIVITIES ASSESSED IN THE EVALUATION................................................................................. 7
4.1 Program Objectives……………..………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 7
5 ACTIVITY OUTCOMES AND IMPACTS ................................................................................................. 9
5.1 IRI Program Impact ............................…………………………………………………………………………………………..9
5.1.1 Political Party Organizational Development................................................................................. 9
5.1.2 Task Force and Women’s Representation.................................................................................. 11
5.1.3 Issue Oriented Campaigns......................................................................................................... 12
5.1.4 Representation and Outreach ................................................................................................... 13
5.1.5 Political Party Participation in Elections..................................................................................... 17
5.1.4. Summary of IRI Program Impact............................................................................................... 18
5.2 NDI Program Impact…………………………………………………………………………………..……………………………….18
5.2.1 Party Training Departments ...................................................................................................... 19
5.2.2 Training Women Candidates...................................................................................................... 21
5.2.3 Party Training on Voter List ....................................................................................................... 24
5.2.4 Summary of NDI Program Impact .............................................................................................. 24
6 EVALUATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF HIGHER‐ORDER PARTY DEVELOPMENT GOALS ............... 25
6.1 Party Organizational and Technical Capacity ........................ ……………………………………………………...26
6.2 Accountability, Representation, and Participation;…………………………………………………………………….. 28
6.2.1 Accountability, Representation and Participation at the Party System Leve………………………………30
6.2.2 Accountability, Representation, and Participation at the Party Level....................…………………...30
6.2.3 Accountability, Representation and Participation at the Individual Level.....................…………….31
6.3 Governability and Good Governance.........................………………………………………………………………….31
6.4 Stable and Peaceful Patterns of Competition........................ ………………………………………………………32
6.5 Rule of Law and Fair and Honest Elections..........................…………………………………………………………34
7 CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................... 36
8 REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................... 37
9 APPENDIX DETAIL OF IRI AND NDI PROGRAMS................................................................................ 37
9.1.1 IRI Program Plan..........................……………….…………………………………………………………………………...37
Political Party Organizational Development ....................................................................................... 37
9.1.2 NDI Program Plan..........................…………………………………………………………………………………………..41
Party Training Departments............................................................................................................... 41
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 1 
List of Tables 
Table 1: IRI Expected Results and NDI Objectives............................................................................. 8
Table 2: IRI Goal 1: Improved Internal Party Democracy and Reform of Party Membership 
System..............................................................................................................................................10
Table 3 IRI Goal 2: Parties conduct issue-oriented campaigns ........................................................13
Table 4: IRI Goal 3: Candidates (with a special focus on women) improve campaign techniques 
and understanding of political base..............................................................................................14
Table 5: Women in the National Legislature, by Party.....................................................................16
Table 6: Women in Provincial Legislatures ........................................................................................16
Table 7: IRI Goal 4: Mobilizing Voters and Monitoring Polls.........................................................17
Table 8: NDI Goal 1: Party Training Departments are more effective............................................19
Table 9: NDI Goal 2: Improved election strategies implemented by parties..................................21
Table 10: NDI Goal 3: Increased young political leaders’ participation within parties................21
Table 11: Women Gain Skills to Win Elections and Rise in the Party Hierarchy .........................22
Table 12: Election Results and List Rankings.....................................................................................23
Table 13: Women on Party Organizing Committees..........................................................................23
Table 14: Political parties are familiar with voter lists and canvass voters based on those lists..24
Table 15: Party Organization and Technical Capacity.......................................................................27
Table 16: Accountability, Representation and Participation.............................................................29
Table 17: Good Governance ..................................................................................................................32
Table 18: Stable Patterns of Competition ............................................................................................34
Table 19: Rule of Law and Fair and Honest Elections.......................................................................35
 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 1 
1. Summary of Results and Recommendations 
This evaluation covered the USAID Political Party Program authorized under CEPPS for the 2007-9 
periods. The emphasis of our 3-week in-country evaluation was on the activities that were to help the 
parties prepare for the upcoming elections and the role of women as candidates and leaders of the political 
parties. Our evaluation was two pronged: tracing outcomes and impacts from specific program activities 
and from the point of view of higher-level democratic goals, such as representation and good governance. 
As detailed more fully below, NDI and IRI set goals for their programs that emphasize the role of women, 
the parties’ technical capacity and organization, and the parties’ use of policy-oriented campaigns. Our 
evaluation uncovered several broad trends with regard to these issues: 
 Women are advancing in the political parties and as candidates for the national and 
provincial legislatures. 
 At least during the buildup to elections, parties were relatively well organized, with 
complex leadership structures, training organizations, and analytical wings. We 
nonetheless note a continuing tension between organizational development and 
personalistic leadership in several parties. 
 Likewise, while some parties and candidates tout differences among the parties on ideology 
or policy differences, the leader’s image is a continuing electoral focus. The downplaying 
of policy or ideological differences among the parties, however, may contribute to the 
limited inter-party tensions that are evident in the president’s cabinet, legislative coalitions, 
and working groups such as the women’s legislative caucus (KPP-RI). 
Given this context, we collected statistical and interview data to evaluate many specific aspects of the 
programs. Overall, the programs are well received and there have been important advances in the 
directions desired by the programs. In some cases, however, outside factors were very consequential to 
the positive outcomes, thus inhibiting attribution of cause to the USAID-sponsored programs. Still, given 
the small budget (relative to the country’s size), the level of impact was significant. Among the specific 
findings were the following: 
 Many women credited the training received from USAID-sponsored programs (either 
directly from NDI or IRI, or indirectly through the training-of-trainers programs) as 
instrumental in their advancement. 
 The gains for women in terms of candidacies in the provincial legislatures have been 
uneven, and are not clearly related to the regions in which IRI and NDI had focused 
programs. 
 The programs have helped put concerns about internal party democracy onto the agenda. 
This has helped women and young party members gain candidacies and leadership 
positions. 
 The recognition and impact of NDI and IRI roles was impressive, especially given the 
budgets that are very small for a country as large as Indonesia both in terms of population 
and geography. 
 While USAID programs deserve some credit for these changes, domestic groups and 
international trends have been advocating for similar changes. A critical legal change in 
2008 that strengthened the quota for female candidates, for example, was particularly 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 1 
instrumental in pushing the parties to select more female candidates and, by extension, open 
up their candidate selection process. 
 Parties complain about difficulties with fundraising. Most did not find the USAID￾sponsored programs related to fundraising helpful. 
From the perspective of the larger development goals which are enumerated in the “Democracy, Parties, 
and Party Systems: A Conceptual Framework for USAID Assistance Programs,” (CF) the Indonesian 
program that we evaluated was targeted toward improving Party Organization and Technical Capacity, 
different features related to Participation and Representation, and, implicitly, Good Governance: 
 In terms of Technical Capacity, the program sought to build the parties’ training capacity 
and to help them build analytical skills. As noted, most parties seemed well prepared to 
train their candidates. Some had sophisticated analysts who helped plan electoral strategies. 
 For Accountability, Participation, and Representation, we saw important changes for many 
parties, with the number of female candidacies increasing sharply and many young activists 
playing important roles. The systems for candidate choice and member involvement in 
other decisions seem to be evolving toward more participatory processes. Emphasizing 
policy-oriented campaigns may, in the longer run, aid accountability if voters come to 
recognize politicians’ responsibility for the issues on which they campaign. We did not 
attempt to measure, however, the extent to which voters take account of economic 
conditions or the parties’ past policy positions when making their voting decisions. 
 One important aspect of Good Governance is parties’ willingness to join together in 
coalitions in pursuit of important policy advances. The programs did not make coalition 
building an explicit goal, but we found much evidence of cross-party alliances, some of 
which have been fostered (if not caused) by the NDI and IRI programs. Most importantly, 
women work together in a large and significant cross-party legislative caucus. The IRI￾supported task force on electoral reform also brought together diverse parties and other 
political stakeholders. 
Next, our evaluation allowed a broad-scope view of party programs in Indonesia and perhaps beyond. 
We found that there were serious attempts to pursue broad party building, but our research did lead to 
some concern about whether the focus on parties’ election preparation and on the campaign skills of 
individual politicians were necessarily supportive of this larger goal. More precisely: 
 The program we evaluated focused on election preparation. We found that many parties 
were well prepared for the elections, conducting their own polling and running candidate 
training programs. This may suggest that future programs should focus on different 
development needs. 
 Many activities focus on improving campaign skills of individual politicians. We question 
whether these are always tied to broader development goals. Further, there are system level 
concerns, such as the large number of parties and potential electoral volatility that the 2007-
9 program (and others) ignores. This is partly in response to concerns about system-level 
interventions (with the exception of promoting quotas for women). We recommend, in 
short, an assessment of system-level concerns and a reconsideration of how activities that 
relate to development of individual politicians or parties contribute to these larger goals for 
democratic development. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 1 
 While we do question some of the electoral focus, we do not want this concern to 
overshadow the clear attempt of the partners to pursue broader party-building roles. Many 
election functions, such as building training organizations, can have longer-term impacts, 
because they require internal party changes that will endure beyond the electoral season. 
Further, elections focus the attention of the parties, and thus provide opportunities for NDI 
and IRI to gain access and build rapport, offer expertise, and suggest reforms. Still, there 
should be an explicit consideration of which programs are meant to build short-term 
electoral capacity, which help build relationships, and which serve the larger goals. 
A secondary purpose of our work in Indonesia was to reflect on the evaluative process in general. As 
detailed in the document, “Evaluation Approaches for Political Party Assistance: Methodology and 
Tools,” evaluations of political party programs are encumbered with many special challenges in terms of 
attribution of cause. Our experience highlighted several of these problems: 
First, a three-week trip focused on interviewing stakeholders uncovers much useful information, but that 
process is ill-fitted for a scientifically-valid study of cause and effect. A more methodologically sound 
process would require collecting data from multiple regions and across time. Survey research could also 
help to assess program impacts, perhaps by comparing responses in regions where the USAID partners 
worked with those where they did not. These types of analysis cannot be conducted in a short period of 
time. We should note further that our evaluation was based on a limited time and scope.  The program
is complex and interacts with other democracy building programs and aid donors.  These limitations, we
recognize, hinder our ability to fully judge the impact of these programs on broad development goals.
 Second, while our evaluation focused on (some aspects of) one completed 3-year program, 
another approach would be to look at continuing activities over a longer period. Many 
impacts cannot be seen in the short run (e.g. training the youth to become new leaders), so 
an analysis of continuing programs could provide a different and perhaps better perspective 
on impacts. To conduct such an analysis, the evaluation team would need to spend more 
up-front time with program reports to determine continuities. 
 Attribution of cause and effect is very complicated given the multiple forces that contribute 
to different outcomes. Evaluation teams should spend time exploring, for example, the role 
of different NGOs engaged in projects similar to those of NDI and IRI. Doing so, further, 
can help uncover new ideas and best practices that can be useful to future programming. 
2 Introduction and Scope of Evaluation 
This evaluation covered limited aspects of party development programs implemented by NDI and IRI in 
Indonesia in 2007-9 with funding from USAID provided through the CEPPS mechanism. To better 
evaluate longer and larger impacts of the programs, we focused explicitly on the three-year program, 
although NDI and IRI have been working in Indonesia for more than a decade. For some aspects of the 
program this time-bounded evaluation may bias against finding direct impacts. 
Although NDI and IRI programs are multifaceted, covering a range of themes that affect governance, 
campaigning strategies, leadership development, women in politics, and support of inter-party dialogues 
about the institutional framework, this evaluation is limited to four program areas: 
1. Aid to parties’ training of candidates; 
2. Leadership training programs for party trainers and women; 
3. Support for an independent task force that focused on party and electoral reform; 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 1 
4. Increasing women’s participation in the parties and the legislature. 
To conduct the evaluation, we collected data and conducted interviews in Jakarta, Surabaya, and 
Makassar over a three-week period in July, 2010. 
Budget is an important contextual issue for any evaluation. In this case, the CEPPS agreement provided 
$2 million each to NDI and IRI for a three-year program. Although four million dollars over three years is 
a significant assistance program, it is important to keep this funding in perspective. In this case, the 
CEPPS agreement provided approximately $2 million each to NDI and IRI for a three-year program. 
This is equivalent to the cost of running a single campaign for mayor or district head in many parts of 
Indonesia. Further, Indonesia is a country with a population of 240 million, spread across thousands of 
islands. Moreover, there are dozens of political parties, all of which are potential targets for assistance. 
Given this context, even finding a small impact of the programs would be significant. 
This evaluation was a pilot test conducted under the auspices of a grant to the University of Pittsburgh 
intended to develop a conceptual framework for political party assistance and a revised evaluation 
methodology for party assistance. Consequently, in addition to detailing evaluation findings we will 
explicitly tie the findings to the conceptual framework. 
3 Evaluation: Methodology and Conceptual Framework 
Our conceptual framework for democratic parties breaks party and party system development into four 
distinct dimensions: 
a. Accountability, Representation, and Participation; 
b. Governability and Good Governance; 
c. Stable and Peaceful Patterns of Competition; 
d. Rule of Law & Fair and Honest Elections. 
We also evaluate party organizational and technical capacity, an intermediary goal relevant to 
improvement in any of the other four dimensions. 
In evaluating the impacts of the programs, the evaluation methodology uses a two-pronged approach. The 
first approach is to consider each program activity and identify outcomes and impacts. The goal of this 
“by-activity” approach is to move beyond simple “outputs” which measure, for example, the number of 
participants in a seminar. Outcomes and impacts are defined as changes in the attitudes or behavior of the 
people affected by the programs. It may also include concrete changes, such as an increase in the number 
of women elected to office. Through this process we determine whether or not individual projects 
achieved their original stated objectives, whether these objectives were appropriate, and how those 
projects may have contributed to higher-order impacts. 
In order to evaluate the outcomes and impacts, we present a series of tables that indicate the activities 
related to each program goal along with a series of “evaluative questions” that we used in guiding our 
inquiry (e.g.Table, p.4). For some questions we sought statistical data (such as the number of women 
winning seats in provincial legislatures), but most required interview-based evidence. We were also not 
able to answer some questions. It is important to note also that we did not always differentiate between 
levels of goals, such that some questions and goal statements suggest longer-term objectives than others. 
We see this as justifiable for an evaluation, since development requires accumulation of short-term gains 
towards long-term targets. We attempt, however, to take heed of the warning in the Evaluation 
Methodology to avoid criticism for a lack of gains on long term goals due to the multiple forces that drive 
such trends. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 1 
The second prong of the evaluation works in reverse. It begins with the dimensions of democratic parties 
(accountability, good governance, etc.) and asks whether or not the activities and programs address these 
dimensions, and if they have contributed to change in the level of development in any dimension. This 
second “by-goal” prong is meant to move beyond the simple determination if activities achieved program 
objectives, and consider larger questions about where the projects fit into general party development 
goals. In a sense this part of the evaluation blends with forward-looking assessments, since it asks 
whether the overarching program is building towards general development. 
This second task requires a much broader view of the country’s development, which is generally the task 
of an assessment team (and not of an evaluation team). Still, in the process of performing an evaluation, 
teams necessarily gain a useful vantage point from which to assess the role of CEPPS projects on 
development needs. 
Distinguishing the “by activity” and “by goal” prongs helped the team to consider the overall approach to 
development, though of course the results are not fully conclusive. That is, we were, by looking at both 
the micro level programs and the macro outcomes and impacts, we gain some vantage on the relationship 
between program activities that focus on parties and individuals on the one hand with democracy goals on 
the other. As we explain in the text, the relationship is clear for some programs (perhaps helping women 
to build their political skills), but in others we question the strength of that relationship and thus suggest 
that future programs carefully justify how individual activities help to build democracy. 
4 The Activities Assessed in the Evaluation 
The NDI and IRI party program objectives and associated activities that we evaluated in Indonesia are 
summarized in the following text and tables. The descriptive text and tables were constructed using the 
original proposals and Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Plans (PMP). 
4.1 Program Objectives 
Based on their own reports, 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 1 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 1 
Table 1 lists IRI’s “Expected Results” and the NDI “Objectives.” These terms are comparable, and serve 
to organize our inquiry. 
Table 1: IRI Expected Results and NDI Objectives 
IRI Expected Results: 
Political Party Organizational Development Political parties define and clarify 
their organizational structures, including methods by which they actively recruit, 
track and retrain membership. 
Representation and Outreach: Political parties conduct issue oriented campaigns 
that respond effectively to voter concerns, while increasing knowledge of their 
political base. 
Political Party Participation in Elections: Political parties are better able to 
mobilize voters and play an active role in monitoring the polls on election day 
NDI Objectives: 
To strengthen the efforts of political parties to develop the organizational, 
political and communication skills necessary to compete effectively in the 
upcoming elections. 
Enhance the skills and capacities of women to become more effective political 
leaders. 
 Improve the capacity and understanding of political parties to use the 
temporary voter list as an electoral tool that will help them compete in the 
elections and help build broader support for the registration process. 
IRI and NDI also developed detailed work plans to pursue the results and objectives, which we detail in 
Appendix 1. These plans include justifications for the programs based on identified needs and include 
some evaluative indicators. They also list the specific activities that the Institutes will implement. It is 
also important to note that during the 2007-9 period NDI’s programs were based in Jakarta, while IRI 
focused on five separate regions. IRI’s work with the task force, however, had a national reach and was 
therefore based in Jakarta. Some of their other work also took place in Jakarta. As part of our evaluation, 
we spent approximately three days in both Surabaya (East Java) and Makassar (South Sulawesi) two of 
IRI’s regional bases. We spent the other two weeks in Jakarta. 
In our effort to evaluate progress on NDI’s “expected results” and IRI’s “objectives” our team first 
decided which aspects of the programs to evaluate and then considered interview and other data (as we 
detail below) to test for change that could be attributed, at least in part, to the programs. Because we were 
interested in testing “outcomes” and “higher level impacts,” we generally ignored “outputs,” such as the 
number of people trained, because these are clearly noted in the party institutes’ reports and we intended 
to measure impacts of the programs. While the distinctions between “outcomes” and “higher level 
impacts” are tenuous, overall we follow the “Evaluation Methodology” document, defining the first as 
changes that directly result from a program (such as learning) while the second implies a behavioral 
change. Of course many factors influence these changes, so it is possible that even an excellent program 
would not produce behavioral change. We thus also sought to understand the degree to which programs 
supported or opposed other forces in the Indonesian political system. For example, programs that 
supported women as candidates faced opposition from some sectors of society, but were supported by a 
long-standing national and international movement to impose female candidate quotas. IRI’s support of 
the task force that worked on these issues, therefore, merits some credit for helping to pass the new law, 
but we cannot clearly judge what would have happened in the absence of that task force. There are several 
other important limitations to our approach, which we discuss as we move through the substantive issues. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 2 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 3 
5 Activity Outcomes and Impacts 
5.1 IRI Program Impact 
5.1.1 Political Party Organizational Development 
Under this objective IRI’s Expected Result was: Political parties define and clarify their organizational 
structures, including methods by which they actively recruit, track and retrain membership. This 
objective was developed in response to the needs identified through IRI’s assessment process: 
 Parties fail to establish themselves as a legitimate means of expressing political choice. 
 Parties are not effective liaisons between the citizenry and the government. 
 Parties lack internal democracy. 
 Methods of building party membership are unreliable and exclude disenfranchised members of 
society. 
 Parties lack coherent, standardized governing documents.
To address these needs and achieve their objective IRI planned to: 
 Conduct an internal democracy survey, 
 Create a Task Force to facilitate discussion of challenges to political party effectiveness, 
 Work with parties to strengthen party institutions (such as candidate selection and fundraising), 
and 
 Work with parties to address needs within their membership systems in order to increase and 
diversify their ranks. 
We evaluated the first two activities: Internal Democracy Surveys; and the Task Force. 
Our research strategy here and throughout this exercise was to evaluate the broader goals rather than each 
individual activity. As such, here and throughout this paper we provide a series of tables that aggregates 
related activities and displays associated questions we designed to aid our inquiry, dividing those 
questions into outcomes and impacts. These questions are based on the expected results and evaluation 
indicators in IRI and NDI’s reports. 
Table is the first in the series. The left column details IRI’s activities and the right two columns detail the 
questions we pursued in seeking to evaluate the activities. Note that multiple outcomes and impacts are 
tied to each activity (and vice versa). These tables, then, were intended as a guide to the range of themes 
that we investigated with regard to each program goal. In this particular case, we asked questions about 
whether party leaders recognized the importance of reform in internal structures and whether the new 
structures (if any) implied real or just formal changes. 
Table 2: IRI Goal 1: Improved Internal Party Democracy and Reform of Party Membership 
System 
 Evaluation Questions for: 
Activity Outcome Impact 
Individual level 
Are women better able to 
assert their concerns within 
the parties? 
Using task force to lead 
discussions about party law and 
its implications 
 Internal party surveys and Party level 
baseline assessments 
 1-to-1 consultations with parties 
 Promotion of task force goals, 
which included increasing 
number of women as legislative 
candidates and in party 
leadership positions 
 Is there dialogue 
generated among parties 
and civil society 
regarding legislative 
and/or internal 
governance issues 
(internal democracy)? 
Have the parties reformed 
the point system for 
candidate or leadership 
selection? 
Have parties reformed their 
internal governance 
structure and are more 
women involved in those 
structures? 
Do parties recognize the 
importance of reform in 
internal structures in terms 
of democracy? 
Do party reforms imply 
actual (rather than just 
formal) change in ways 
parties operate? 
We first considered changes for individuals. At the “impact” level, we sought evidence that women were 
able to assert themselves within the parties. We therefore asked questions about the role of women in 
party committees. We found a number of instances of women playing important roles, but as we detail 
below in the party-level section few of the parties have significantly increased the number of women on 
their organizing committees. Perhaps the growing role of women is the result of the one-on-one meetings 
with parties where the parties were presented with the results of the surveys, and it may also be related to 
other IRI programs that helped to improve the leadership skills of women. 
At the level of parties, we sought to explore two outcomes: the extent of dialogue generated by the IRI 
programs and whether the parties had moderated the traditional point system they have used to select 
candidates and leaders. While IRI was involved in pushing these goals, they are primarily aimed at 
changing national party practices. Given this Jakarta-orientation and the blending of this goal with a 
similar NDI objective, we evaluate it below in our discussion about NDI. 
For the outcome levels, we were convinced that there was a dialogue among NGOs and parties about 
internal party democracy and that the leaders recognized the importance of internal democracy. A leader 
of PKS, for example, explained the changing procedures for choosing candidates. Under their new but 
evolving system, there is strong competition among potential candidates. More generally, each party has 
an organizing committee with 25 members or more. From the perspective of the people we talked with, 
these committees play important roles in party decisionmaking. Of course people on these committees 
would be unlikely to say that their role was minimal, but none suggested that a small coterie was making 
decisions without input from the larger group. Several party leaders in Jakarta as well as the two 
provinces also discussed how their parties have changed to incorporate new people as candidates. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 4 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 5 
We talked with only a few representatives of NGOs, and some of these had formerly worked with NDI or 
IRI. They, as well as party officials we met, spoke about different aspects of party democracy, implying 
that the issue was on the political agenda. An important part of this agenda concerned the system for 
choosing candidates and leaders. Traditionally the parties have evaluated potential candidates for 
legislative posts or positions in the party hierarchy based on their skills (political or otherwise), 
experience, and electoral potential. These point systems, however, potentially work against women and 
youth, since excluded groups cannot gain the requisite experience to score highly. Several of the parties, 
however, have a very large number of youth in their hierarchies, and the number of women chosen as 
candidates for the national or provincial legislatures has grown significantly. These changes, however, 
may be less the result of pushing from NDI and IRI than from the legal changes that strengthened the 
quota system for female legislators.1
 At the same time, we cannot discount the possibility that the 
discussions with NDI and IRI were important in generating the necessary consensus to approve the new 
quota law. 
Related to this issue, it is important to discuss a note in the IRI final report which states that “100% of the 
38 political parties participating in IRI-sponsored political party strengthening programs adopted some 
form of internal democratic procedures.” We did find evidence that the parties do have some aspects of 
democratic governance, and that more women are included. Many factors other than the IRI programs, 
however, have contributed to this change. Among the most important is the new provision in the law that 
forces parties to include more women in their governance structures. Of course IRI was involved in this 
law, through their support of the task force. 
The final question is whether the reforms to the governance structure have implied actual or just formal 
changes. While there was evidence that some old practices have not changed, the adoption of new 
procedures has played a role in at least some cases. We learned, for example, that while reforms to the 
parties’ rules for candidate choice have helped some candidates, there was plenty of leeway to allow 
influential leaders to determine the outcomes. But, since this sometimes created friction in the party, the 
formal rules may lead to real changes in the future. 
5.1.2 Task Force and Women’s Representation 
Under the broad category of “Political Party Organizational Development,” IRI also created a task force 
through an award to a Jakarta-based NGO (CSIS, Centre for Strategic and International Studies) at a cost 
of about $100,000. In IRI’s final report they justify the task force as follows: 
“In order to aid political parties contesting in the 2009 legislative election understand the 
implications of the evolving political and electoral environment, IRI initiated a Political Party 
Reform Task Force to consider issues of internal democracy, candidate selection, voter 
accountability, financial disclosure and broader party representation of women, youth, the 
disabled and other marginalized voting constituencies.” 
The report continues: 
“IRI’s Task Force proposed 14 amendments to the national political party reform legislation and 
successfully advocated for the adoption of nine through legislative lobbying initiatives and public 
hearing. “ These reforms were bunched into three groups: representation of women and 
marginal groups, political party governance, and internal democratization.” 
                                                           
1 The changes were mandated by a 2008 reform to the electoral law, and then an important court decision.  See
Shair‐Rosenfield, unpub. A, Sukma, 2010, and Bessell, 2010.
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 6 
This project requires several comments. First, it is necessary to note how the 2009 law extended the 2003 
provisions. The 2003 quota law encouraged the parties to increase the number of female candidates, but it 
lacked sanctions for fulfilling the quota. The parties could skirt the spirit of the law by putting women in 
unwinnable positions on the closed electoral lists. The 2009 law (plus court interpretations) strengthened 
the candidate quotas (though there are still no sanctions for failing to meet them), and was very notable 
for requiring that the parties’ organizing or leadership committees include at least 30 percent women. 
Second, the task force was successful in bringing together a diverse group of politicians, political 
observers and civil society. As the IRI report admits, the parties were not consistent participants, but they 
were involved. Further, interviewees from the parties as well as others gave the task force high merit for 
yielding pragmatic (rather than just theoretic) solutions to difficult problems. 
The third issue regards the important change in the party law that requires parties’ governing boards to 
include at least 30% women. This is an important achievement that comports with the IRI goals. Parties 
have not yet fully complied, but it seems that they recognize this provision of the law and are slowly 
moving to comply. Other task force recommendations, such as requiring internal democracy for selection 
of party leaders and in decision-making, also became part of the legislation. We did not hear the parties 
talk about this new law, but this may have been the result of our focus on the impacts of the women’s 
quota. 
Fourth, while the task force yielded important recommendations and the law is likely to have profound 
impacts on women and the internal organization of the parties, it is necessary to qualify the importance of 
the task force itself. Many organizations have been pushing for these changes over a long period of time, 
so the task force cannot be given full credit for these new provisions. In fact, several articles about the 
quota law do not even mention the task force in explaining the new provisions. Further, one of the more 
important revisions to the law, that strengthening the provision for female candidates, was not part of the 
task force recommendations. 
That the task force was not the only group pushing for these reforms does not imply an insignificant role. 
The participants in the task force praised the experience, and it should be commended for bringing a 
diverse group together and for disseminating its positions in several regional fora. Still, it is hard to 
discern which reforms were adopted solely due to IRI’s creation and support of the task force. It is 
notable that while quotas for female legislators have become common throughout the world and have 
been part of the debate in Indonesia for some time, the quota for women in party leadership committees is 
a novel idea and an important accomplishment. 
Fifth, IRI’s support of the task force yields an important question about the institute’s role in promoting 
legal changes. USAID and the CEPPS partners shy away from openly supporting legal changes, arguing 
that this is too intrusive. Legal changes that would modify the electoral threshold, for example that would 
limit the number of small and new parties, are seen as supporting larger parties, and thus they resist open 
support of these provisions, even when analysts (and politicians) recognize the problem of too many small 
parties. Working through a task force allowed IRI to push for these reforms without appearance of 
interference. We may agree that the goals of the task force were laudatory, but it is necessary to 
recognize that IRI did not take a neutral role with regard to the institutional framework. 
5.1.3 Issue Oriented Campaigns 
The second “expected result” is related to parties conducting issue-oriented campaigns that respond to 
voter concerns. The associated goals include having parties and women improve their campaign 
techniques. 
Table 3 IRI Goal 2: Parties conduct issue-oriented campaigns
Evaluation Questions for: 
Activity Outcome Impact 
 Polling 
Training of polling 
 Focus groups 
Do parties hold meetings 
or focus groups among 
members or broader 
constituent groups? 
Do parties develop system 
and designate funds for 
analysis of voter data? 
Do parties adjust campaigns & 
platforms and propose policies 
in response to surveys? 
Has the policy focus resulted in 
more difficulty in compromise 
among the parties? 
Do campaign materials (i.e, 
posters, flyers) reflect voter 
concerns/survey results? 
Do parties train candidates on 
issue-based campaigning? 
Do the party messages reflect 
survey results? 
In terms of the broad result, IRI conducted polling, they trained parties on polling, and they conducted 
focus groups. To show progress, we looked for evidence that the parties were holding their own focus 
groups or running their own polls, and would designate funds for analysis of voter data. At the higher 
level, the expected impacts were whether the parties implemented changes to their campaigns based on 
what they learned in the analysis. 
Before entering into the (positive) evidence regarding this goal, it is necessary to note an important 
potential risk of pursuing it. It is common to define one role of parties as providing voters with choices 
among policy options. Having parties sharpen their policy positions, therefore, serves this goal. Further, 
it is necessary that parties recognize voters’ concerns in order that they work to solve those problems once 
they are elected into government. Parties, however, have a second goal: to broker differences in society 
and generate pragmatic solutions to societal problems. These two goals stand in contrast to one another; 
if parties define their identities based on distinct policy positions, brokering compromise is more difficult. 
In the most extreme cases, parties are so focused on posturing for campaigns that the resulting 
polarization makes future compromise impossible. Thus, while we do provide evidence below for the 
parties’ improved use of policy positions in their campaigns, we find it necessary to warn that too much 
movement in this direction does include some risks. 
One suggestion is that programs might focus on government policies and programs instead of ideology. 
 If parties were encouraged to analyze current or proposed policies, parties could fulfill their democratic 
role by reflecting more concrete desires of constituents (e.g. higher economic growth, more distribution, 
better health care, better education, more personal security, less corruption). If the emphasis were on 
practical solutions to public policy problems, the programs could help fulfill the goal of promoting issue 
orientation with less potential for expanding ideological divisions. 
5.1.4 Representation and Outreach 
The next set of goals for the IRI projects are grouped under the category of “Representation and 
Outreach.” The first of these is to improve candidates’ campaign techniques and understanding of their 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 7 
political bases. IRI sought to address these goals through various training programs, including some that 
were especially designed for women, and the dissemination of polling data. Many of these goals clearly 
overlap with the concerns about issue-oriented campaigns, and trainings could therefore cover both 
issues, as well. IRI was explicit in terms of its “Expected Result” with regard to issue-oriented 
campaigns. Its PMP states its goal as follows: Political parties conduct issue-oriented campaigns that 
respond effectively to voter concerns, while increasing knowledge of their political base. This objective 
was intended to respond to their assessment, which states that: 
 Parties lack reliable, accurate information on their members and base. 
 Parties lack the ability to conduct and analyze research. 
 Parties need to develop issue-based platforms. 
To address these needs and achieve their objective IRI planned the following activities: 
 baseline party assessments, 
 national and provincial polls, 
 focus group discussions, and 
 trainings and consultations with political parties. 
Table summarizes these goals and activities. 
Table 4: IRI Goal 3: Candidates (with a special focus on women) improve campaign techniques and 
understanding of political base 
Evaluation Questions for 
Activity Outcome Impact 
Release polls to help 
candidates identify issues 
for campaigns 
Multi-party campaign 
trainings: Communication 
skills & strategies, 
outreach strategies, 
Regional candidate 
forums 
Targeted campaign 
trainings for women 
focusing on 
communication skills & 
strategies, outreach 
strategies 
Regional candidate 
forums 
Are candidates better able 
to disseminate their 
messages? 
Are candidates better able 
to inform voters? 
Are candidates 
disseminating party 
platforms? 
Have candidates learned 
more effective media and 
grassroots strategies? 
Have more women 
developed skills to 
compete in elections? 
Have candidates 
implemented new 
outreach techniques? 
Are female candidates 
more successful in 
elections? 
Have the parties 
developed voter lists 
and/or membership 
tracking systems? 
Are parties selecting 
more female candidates? 
The candidates with whom we talked clearly had internalized many ideas consistent with IRI programs. 
The open-list electoral system puts a premium on candidates making direct contacts with voters, because 
each candidate must compete both with and against his or her co-partisans for votes. IRI trainings 
emphasized techniques such as door-to-door campaigning, organizing community groups for candidate 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 8 
speeches, and the use of targeted media campaigns. Many of the candidates we talked with had had either 
trainings with IRI or party trainers (who had participated in IRI trainings) and all reported working to 
attract voters. 
In many instances the candidates reported significant efforts in trying to meet and relate to voters, and 
most were very positive about their experiences. Several women, first, talked about the utility of learning 
to become more confident as public speakers. Second, some candidates described spending weeks or 
months away from their families in order to build better ties with their districts. Several gave examples of 
techniques they had used to attract potential voters. One woman paid for a flyer that was distributed in 
local newspapers. Another had an aide who set up community meetings. Most talked about knocking on 
doors. A few also gave examples of dubious techniques. Below (see p. 25) we relate one story of a 
candidate who offered “death insurance” to people he met. Another publicized his attempt to help a 
constituent, even though he had made no serious efforts to help and expected no results. 
One important exception to the candidates’ perceptions about the utility of the trainings regarded 
campaign financing. Most—especially women—claimed that they were unable to raise money for their 
campaigns from sources beyond their own family and friends. They said that the IRI trainings on these 
topics were inapplicable to their situation. 
IRI (and NDI) are not insensitive to this problem, and they therefore have at least two techniques for 
teaching this topic. A first was to put the funding schemes into a comparative context, so that 
Indonesians could borrow other ideas and adjust them to their needs. A second was to develop potential 
funding strategies that were tailored to the Indonesian situation. One of these ideas was to create co-ops 
that raised money for the participants and the parties. This may be related to a strategy employed by one 
of the Islamist parties, which has a micro-credit bank for its supporters. 
A second concern about the trainings on campaign techniques is the degree to which the candidates found 
the polling useful. Here our research turned up mixed results. Most candidates we talked with did not 
remember much about polling data, except perhaps “horse-race” information. One said that the IRI 
surveys were out of date and therefore not useful. They therefore relied more on their own knowledge of 
their districts in designing the campaigns. Perhaps they intuitively knew how to direct different messages 
to different voters within their district. Perhaps the candidates and party representatives did not remember 
much about the polling because IRI was not able to conduct as many surveys as they would have liked. 
Still, their final report notes that they worked with the parties in developing the polls, conducted them in 
each of their target provinces, and discussed the results in both multiparty seminars and meetings with 
individual parties. Another possibility, then, is that participants in the trainings did not retain the 
information about the polling, or did not disseminate it to other party members. 
In addition to the perceptions gained from our interview, two pieces of data were important to our 
evaluation. First, the number of women who gained (electable) a position on party lists and, second, the 
number of these women elected. To reiterate, gaining these positions or winning sufficient votes are not 
fully attributable to the training programs, but they are indications of the compatibility of the programs 
with intended goals. 
In terms of candidacies, it is first important to note the three inter-linked legal changes in Indonesia. First, 
the legislature approved quota laws in 2004 and 2009 to increase the number of women in the legislature. 
Second, an important part of the law forced the parties to adopt a “zipper” system, whereby every third 
candidate on the party list was female. Finally, also in 2009 as explained above, a Supreme Court ruling 
replaced the country’s closed lists with an open list system. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 9 
As a result of the quota, parties were encouraged (but not forced in 2004 or penalized for incompletion in 
2009) to fill their candidate lists with at least 30% women. In 2004 few parties approached this quota, but 
more did so in 2009, and as a result the 2009 legislature is composed of about 18% women ( 
Table ). Importantly, perhaps as a result of the zipper system, parties put many women at the top of their 
lists. In an open list system this may not be crucial, since voters can choose whomever they like. But at 
least in Indonesia, voters (and party leaders) consider the head of the list as the party’s first choice. 
Therefore, although there are some important exceptions that we detail below in our section about NDI, 
the top positions win most of the votes. Further, the court ruling that imposed the open list came after the 
parties had created their (supposedly closed) lists, so the actual lists are a good signal of party intentions. 
Since IRI was particularly focused on training in five of the provinces, we focus here on women’s 
advancement in the provincial legislatures (Table 6). There has been significant improvement, although 
much of this must be credited to the change in quota laws. Here IRI can claim some indirect 
responsibility, through its support of the task force, which worked to clarify and strengthened some 
aspects of that quota. 
Table 5: Women in the National Legislature, by Party 
Party Name 1999 2004 2009 Party Name 1999 2004 
Seats Proportion Seats Proportion Seats Proportion 
Golkar 16 13.3 18 14.2 17 15.9 
PDIP 15 9.7 12 11 19 20 
PPP 4 6.9 3 5.2 5 13.5 
PKB 4 7.8 7 13.5 7 25 
PAN 1 2.9 7 13.2 6 14 
PKS 1 16.7 3 6.7 3 3.6 
Demokrat - - 6 10.7 37 24.7 
Hanura - - - - 3 16.7 
Gerindra - - - - 4 15.4 
Others 2 4 5 10 - - 
Total 43 9.3% 61 11.1% 101 18% 
Source: Shair-Rosenfeld (citing the KPU 2009). 
Table 6: Women in Provincial Legislatures 
Province Women/Total Provincial Legislators Percent Women 
South Sumatra 10/75 13 
*Maluku 14/45 31 
*Bali 4/55 07 
*East Java 10/100 10 
West Java 25/100 25 
West Nusatenggara 5/55 09 
Central Java 21/100 21 
Yogyakarta 12/55 22 
North Sulawesi 11/45 24 
12/751 *South Sulawesi 16 
* IRI program focus 
1
 The statistic for S. Sulawesi is unverified 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 10 
These data yield two important conclusions. First, some provinces have done very well in generating 
more female provincial legislators. There is wide variance however, with some provinces failing to fill 
even 10 percent of their seats with women, and others giving women well over 20 percent of the seats. 
The second conclusion, however, is that the IRI role in these provinces seems unrelated to these trends. 
We do not have data on all provinces, but IRI worked during 2007-9 in both the province with the highest 
percentage of women (Maluku) as well as the province with the lowest (Bali). Of course the fact that 
there is not a trend does not imply a lack of value in IRI’s work, since we cannot know what the number 
of women in these provinces would have been in the absence of IRI. Over time we may be able to make 
this evaluation, but since the system was in flux due to the party and electoral law changes, baseline 
comparisons are less valid. 
Beyond the quota, IRI sought to help individual women run more successful campaigns. This is also 
related to NDI programs, and we discuss it further in Section 5.2.2. 
5.1.5 Political Party Participation in Elections 
Under this objective IRI’s Expected Result was: Political parties are better able to mobilize voters and 
play an active role in monitoring the polls on Election Day. Their assessment justified this goal as the 
result of the following: 
 Parties fail to effectively motivate and mobilize their members to register to vote. 
 Parties are unable to target voters due to a lack of information. 
 Party agents failed to pay attention to the complaint reporting process. 
In response, they planned three activities: 
 Work with political parties to help them develop campaign strategies, 
 Assess party capabilities and according adjust Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) efforts and other 
training assistance, 
 Conduct party agent training, integrating complaint forms, and will develop party training 
manuals. 
We found little evidence, perhaps because we failed to ask the right questions, about the existence or 
results of get-out-the vote campaigns. In our questioning, we focused more on the party agent training. 
Here we found our interview subjects expressing a need. In general the parties were unable to recruit 
enough agents to cover all polling places. A more specific need, however, arose from the candidate￾centered focus on the new electoral system. Party representatives told us that while they were confident 
about the vote tallies for the parties (in spite of too few party agents), they disbelieved the intra-party 
results. One candidate was particularly forceful in his discussion of how his rival stole the election. 
Table 7: IRI Goal 4: Mobilizing Voters and Monitoring Polls 
Evaluation Questions for: 
Activity Outcome Impact 
 Single and multiparty 
trainings 
Have parties assessed 
their GOTV capabilities? 
Have parties developed 
systems for recruiting and 
tracking party agents? 
Have parties adjusted their GOTV 
efforts? 
Do party agents understand their 
roles and responsibilities? 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 11 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 12 
5.1.4. Summary of IRI Program Impact 
Indonesia’s parties have made progress consistent with the goals of IRI’s multifaceted program. The 
parties are interested in the issues of internal democracy, and many party members suggest that they are 
included in party decision-making processes. Although strong or recognized leaders still dominate some 
campaigns, candidates and party leaders frequently discuss policy positions as part of their campaigns. 
The parties also use or desire more and better polling in order to target their campaigns and messages. 
Women made notable gains in terms of winning elections in both national and regional legislatures, the 
legislature approved a stronger quota law for the parties and the legislature, and the women who took part 
in the IRI programs appreciated the lessons they learned. That said, we did not find a strong correlation 
between the areas where IRI worked and the degree of advancement. 
We have, overall, two conclusions. First, there have been advances toward the program’s desired goals, 
and IRI deserves credit for some of these changes. The inconsistency in women’s advancement and the 
many other forces pushing for their advancement, however, suggest that we should not overstate the role 
of IRI in bringing about the changes. The IRI task force, for example, was important in promoting 
changes to the legislative and party quotas, but this was one among many voices. Second, we question 
the merit of continuing support for electoral processes. The parties clearly recognize the need to attract 
voters via direct contacts and creative campaigning. In response, some of the parties even run their own 
polls. We question, therefore, whether IRI should continue to support explicit campaign activities or 
strategies. Not only do these activities seem unnecessary, they perhaps risk criticism about outside (US) 
influence. The parties are motivated to win elections, and they have sophisticated political watchers. 
They need little help, therefore, in plotting campaign strategies.2
We do, however, see important benefits in continuing support for female political leaders. There is now a 
core of females in the legislature and in other important political positions, and they are good role models 
for others. Further, the quota law to which the IRI was a contributor should assure continued 
advancement. Still, due to historical exclusion, fewer women have the requisite political skills to 
successfully use their political opportunities. Teaching women leadership skills and about how the 
political system works, therefore, could have important benefits. Further, given that there are domestic 
groups also pushing for more women’s advancement, the USG-supported programs should be able to 
deflect charges of outsider imposition. 
5.2 NDI Program Impact 
As noted, NDI’s final report differs from the IRI in that they list “objectives” rather than “expected 
results.” Importantly, a first step in their process was to implement a survey of the parties via a 
questionnaire that was designed to assess party training department capacity. We compliment this effort, 
since it suggests a self-conscious attempt to work with the parties in designing programs, rather than 
bringing a “canned” approach from abroad. At the same time, however, some parts of the report still 
suggest a pre-conceived notion of party strength. In particular, the report finds that “The parties lack an 
overall strategy and ideology tying together their policies, internal operations, and DPR activities.” In 
response, the report argues that NDI should aid the parties in “developing greater ideological and strategic 
coherence to guide their operations.” The report lists valid reasons for this goal (and others), but it does 
not list the risks associated with working in this direction. For example, limited policy differentiation 
                                                           
2
 We note that not all parties have the same level of sophistication, but we would still presume that they could 
learn campaign strategies from their competitors. If they were able to develop organizational capacity and 
funding sources—other emphases of USAID programs—they would develop their own campaign strategies. 
may be “boring,” but it may also help prevent polarizing the political environment. This is not to suggest 
that we necessarily disagree with the NDI final decision; we do want to suggest, however, that there are 
important assumptions inherent in the report that merit further criticism. 
5.2.1 Party Training Departments 
NDI’s final report for the 2007-09 period describes its first objective as follows: “To strengthen the 
efforts of political parties to develop the organizational, political and communication skills necessary to 
compete effectively in the upcoming elections.” As indicators, they suggested the following: 
 Political party training departments improved and their training and curricula updated; 
 Election strategies based on NDI training materials for the 2009 elections developed and 
implemented by political parties; 
 Increased young political leaders’ participation within parties 
To address their objective NDI planned a number of activities: 
 strengthen the internal capacity of parties to train members and activists in the skills necessary to 
compete in the 2009 elections. 
 review party training departments. 
To evaluate, we evaluated two separate goals, first focusing on the parties’ candidate training 
“departments” ( 
Table ). Around election time each party forms a committee that focuses on selecting candidates, 
formulating a campaign strategy, and training candidates. In most parties this is termed the “bapilu.” We 
therefore targeted a number of bapilu members at both the regional and national levels for our interviews. 
Table 8: NDI Goal 1: Party Training Departments are more effective 
Evaluation Questions for: 
Activity Outcome Impact 
 “Training department” 
(bapilu) assessment 
 Party assessments 
 Publish and disseminate 
training materials (manual 
for winning 2009 
election) 
 Single and multiparty 
trainings, meetings, and 
consultations 
Do parties develop 
training programs for 
candidates (focus is 
training institute)? 
Do parties understand 
electoral changes and 
adapt strategies to new 
circumstances? 
 Is sustainable, high quality 
training available to candidates by 
political parties? 
Are more women recruited as 
candidates?* 
Are more women recruited into 
party leadership positions?* 
Do candidates/parties who receive 
training win more votes?* 
*See discussion under Objective 2 
There research found that: 
 The parties have serious and organized committees running candidate training programs both 
in Jakarta and the regions. 
 Most bapilu operate only around election time; an open question, then, is whether 
supporting election-oriented committees has a long-term impact on the party’s stable 
organization. 
 The bapilu analyze electoral prospects through surveys (many of which they 
commission) and develop strategies. Further, they organize extensive candidate 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 13 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 14 
training programs, often using NDI or IRI materials. There is thus a clear influence 
of IRI and NDI in the training programs, but it unclear that the support aids the 
development of a stable party organization. 
The most important impact indicator of the success of a training program is in the success of the trainees. 
Our discussion of rising female candidates under Objective 2 gives some evidence of this success. 
The second impact indicator queries whether candidates who received training were more successful. We 
could not evaluate this conjecture, since all candidates we talked with had some access to training. A 
future evaluation could try to survey candidates, asking about their knowledge and success and comparing 
this with their participation in training programs. Of course finding a high percentage of candidates 
acknowledging their participation in training programs is also an indicator of program success. 
We did try to gather some evidence about the use of the NDI training materials. The institute published 
the “NDI Candidate Handbook and Campaign Manual for Winning the 2009 Elections, “ and according to 
its final report, copies were distributed to the parties and their training units. We found that some party 
officials acknowledged the NDI documents when discussing their electoral strategies. 
The second goal in this category was to improve election and communication strategies implemented by 
parties and their candidates (Table ). NDI’s final report details multiple trainings on many aspects of 
campaign tactics and strategies. Many of the trainings do not lend themselves to evaluation, since the 
topics are about general campaign management.3
 Like IRI, however, some of the trainings also focus on 
campaign techniques. Interviews did suggest that candidates and party leaders were implementing ideas 
consistent with the training lessons. We also found some evidence that the parties were using the NDI 
training materials. One woman we interviewed had received training from NDI in an earlier program and 
had become a party trainer. She discussed using NDI materials and discussed campaign communication 
strategies, some of which were listed in a book she created for the party, in ways that were consistent with 
that ideology. In another interview, we asked a leader of the bapilu in one of the major parties about the 
best and least useful parts of the NDI training. She answered that due to the open list system, the most 
useful part of the training was the candidate strategies, or discussions about how to win an election. She 
said that the discussions about electronic methods for reaching voting were inapplicable. 
In our effort to evaluate this goal, we sought evidence that the parties had changed their electoral 
strategies to focus more on issues and less on personalist candidates or clientelism. Most journalistic and 
academic articles on the issue suggested that there was little progress in this area during the 2009 
campaign. As we reported in the section on IRI, our interviews suggested some mixed results. Some 
candidates noted that they did focus on poverty or women’s issues in their campaigns. One important 
indicator was the system that the candidates reported that they were using to divide districts according to 
the candidates knowledge bases, affinities, and contacts. For IRI this suggested that the parties were 
encouraging candidates at the provincial level to professionalize their campaigns. For NDI, this same 
datum might suggest a strategy encouraged from the national leadership. 
                                                           
3
 While our model did not devise a method for evaluating this aspect of the programs, we do not intend to preclude 
the possibility of creating such a measure. 
Table 9: NDI Goal 2: Improved election strategies implemented by parties 
Evaluation Questions for: 
Activity Outcome Impact 
 Single and multiparty 
trainings & meetings
 Support of IRI polls & 
independent focus 
groups; 
o Meetings & 
trainings to 
discuss results
Do parties discuss and 
understand strategies that 
reflect training content, 
i.e., are they citizen 
centered, do they improve 
outreach, are they issue 
focused, etc? 
Are new campaigning strategies 
implemented by candidates? 
Do candidates develop 
professional and creative 
campaign strategies that reflect 
training content? 
The next NDI goal was to encourage the parties to incorporate more youth involvement (Table). Note that 
this goal dovetails closely with the IRI goal of reforming the point system which has traditionally 
governed the way that members of the party hierarchy and candidates are chosen. We found evidence of 
young leaders in both the provinces and in the national Jakarta-based organization. That said, some 
parties did not seem to have a serious problem with a gentrified leadership, partly because the parties 
themselves were new. A 40ish leader of PKS, for example, explained how he and his colleagues had 
formed the party while in college. They do have a divide, however, with some of the older leaders who 
are more closely tied to the religious establishment. We also met with leaders and candidates from many 
other parties in Jakarta. Most suggested a relatively open leadership structure, where younger members 
participate in debates and are given important roles. 
Table10: NDI Goal 3: Increased young political leaders’ participation within parties 
Evaluation Questions for: 
Activity Outcome Impact 
 Single and multiparty 
Trainings & meetings
Do parties change the 
attitudes about 
recruitment of youth? 
Do parties change the candidate 
recruitment strategies? 
Has the participation by youth changed? 
Have the campaigns and party leadership 
changed? 
While the above discussion about Objective 1 points to party advancement along the lines promoted by 
NDI, our evaluation of this objective also raised a few cautionary flags. Some of the topics discussed in 
their “trainings,” such as the “US 50-State Strategy,” may be more useful for building a dialogue among 
the parties and the US political party, than for training parties or building their internal capacity. This 
may be valuable, but it is distant from the stated objective. 
5.2.2 Training Women Candidates 
NDI’s second objective was to: Enhance the skills and capacities of women to become more effective 
political leaders; and the corresponding Expected Result of activities aimed at achieving the objective 
was increased ability of women to effectively compete in elections and political processes. 
There NDI’s Indicators to test for success were as follows: 
 Strategies developed by the Women’s Political Caucus (KPPI) and adopted by others to increase 
women’s political participation; 
 Increased number of women candidates in the 2009 elections over previous election cycles; and 
 Increased integration of women into political party activities and leadership. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 15 
To address its objective NDI planned to design and produce training modules for aspiring women 
candidates in partnership with KPPI. 
Specific activities conducted under this project included training of trainers, women’s networking events, 
and support of the KPPI. 
Table details the activities and our evaluation questions. 
Table 11: Women Gain Skills to Win Elections and Rise in the Party Hierarchy 
Evaluation Questions for: 
Activity Outcome Impact 
 Support of KPPI and 
its activities that 
promote women as 
leaders and candidates 
Training of trainers 
Multi-party 
workshops 
 Single party work￾shops 
Net-working events 
Do parties design 
strategy documents 
for increasing 
women’s participation 
for elective positions, 
appointed positions 
and in community 
organizations related 
to parties? 
Do parties have 
trainers cascade-train?
Do parties dedicate 
funds and personnel 
to training female 
leaders? 
How many women candidates are 
recruited? 
How many votes are won by women on 
the open lists? 
Have more women won legislative seats? 
How many women hold party leadership 
positions? 
What types of positions do women hold 
in party organization? 
Do women participate in other forms of 
political participation such as committees, 
forums and community organization? 
Do women gain leadership positions in 
party? 
How did the women fare? We can first evaluate the statistical evidence to show change in the number of 
women recruited as candidates, the number of those who were successful, and the number of women 
recruited into party leadership positions. 
Table , displayed in our section about IRI, showed important advancement for women in the national 
legislature, rising from about 10 to 18 percent of the legislature in ten years. 
Other statistics also suggest improvement. A Ph.D. candidate in political science working in Indonesia 
with whom we met and talked, Sarah Shair-Rosenfield (unpub B), provides the useful data about 
women’s electoral success. For the 9 parties with legislative representation, women made up 32% of the 
candidates. Even more impressive, on 91% of the lists, women were included among the top three 
candidates, and they held the first place on about 12% of the lists. As we noted, these lists were created 
before the court ruling that imposed an open list system, and thus these high positions for the women are 
clear evidence of the parties’ compliance with the quota law (in spite of a lack of formal sanctions for 
non-compliance). 
Given the open list, it was possible that the voters would avoid voting for women. NDI and IRI worked 
against this, hoping to improve the women’s campaign skills. The result was that voters chose about 100 
women to enter the legislature, about 18% of the total. Shair-Rosenfield’s data shows that in many cases 
voters deviated from the parties’ list order, sometimes choosing women over men. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 16 
Table shows that 25 women won enough votes to win a seat over at least one man who was placed at a 
higher position on the list. By contrast, only 20 men jumped over higher placed women. 
 Table 12: Election Results and List Rankings 
# Female seat￾winners chosen in 
place of higher￾ranked men 
# Male seat-winners 
chosen in place of 
higher-ranked women 
PD 7 6 
Gerindra 0 0 
Golkar 3 6 
Hanura 0 0 
PAN 3 3 
PDIP 9 2 
PKB 3 1 
PKS 0 0 
PPP 0 2 
Total 25 20 
 Source: Shair-Rosenfield, unpub A. 
Some women have also gained positions in the parties’ leadership hierarchy, but many fewer than the 
quota laws require (Table). We collected data on four of the major parties and found that the percentage 
of women ranged from 5.2 percent in PKS (a Muslim Brotherhood-influenced Islamist party) to 13.8 
percent in the president’s PD. Note too that the PD has a much larger organizing committee than any of 
the other parties. We lack, however, cross-time data, to show how the small number of women on these 
committees compares to the previous time period. It is also possible that this number will change soon, 
since the parties are currently preparing for their internal elections. 
While the statistics suggest only limited improvement for women, many women we talked with did have 
important roles. One female MP from the Islamist PKS, for example, is the chair of a women’s advisory 
board for the party, which is a part of the party’s larger advisory board. She felt that she and her 
committee had influence in the party. Another woman from PPP (a more traditional Islamic party) was 
the vice-chair of the woman’s wing of the party. Notice that these two women (like others we met), while 
influential, were heads of committees that focused on women’s issues, not themes that ignored gender. 
There were exceptions to this rule. A partial exception was a woman who was on PKS’s regional 
advisory council in Surabaya. She too, however, focused on women’s issues within the party. Another 
woman from Surabaya, however, was the vice chair for finance in the party (at the regional level). 
Table 13: Women on Party Organizing Committees 
Women/Number of people on organizing 
committee 
Percent Women 
PKS 2/38 5.2 
PDIP 3/27 11.1 
Golkar 6/57 10.5 
PD 18/130 13.8 
Because many factors influence these outcomes, it was also important to assess the impact of the 
programs on the women’s campaign skills. Most notably, we found many women who appreciated the 
trainings, and we also found a coterie of highly sophisticated female politicians (see discussion in Section 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 17 
0 about the KPP-RI). Candidates and trainers that we interviewed were serious about politics and had
worked hard to earn votes or positions in their parties. They also noted, however, that women in their 
society face important cultural hindrances. 
Finally, it is important to note NDI’s general support of KPPI. This small NGO (just a few staff 
members) is intended to support females in their political goals, through training and networking 
activities. We did not investigate the NGO in any detail, but we did learn about their relatively high 
visibility, at least among female politicians. 
5.2.3 Party Training on Voter List 
NDI’s third objective was to: improve the capacity and understanding of political parties to use the 
temporary voter list as an electoral tool that will help them compete in the elections and help build 
broader support for the registration process. The related indicator was whether: Political parties [were] 
familiar with voter lists and canvass[ed] voters based on those lists
To address their objective NDI planned a training program about how: “political parties could use the 
voter registration lists to their political advantage as well as to communicate party messages to voters.” 
Table translates these activities and details our associated evaluation questions. 
Table 14: Political parties are familiar with voter lists and canvass voters based on those lists 
Evaluation Questions for: 
Activity Outcome Impact 
Multiparty training Do parties understand the 
importance of having 
their members registered 
to vote? 
Do party members register to 
vote? 
Do parties hold cascade training? 
We made only limited efforts to evaluate this goal. We did ask a few interview subjects about their 
impressions of the voter list, and they suggested some problems with updating the system. It was clear 
that the parties did make efforts to assure that their members were registered, and were therefore 
concerned about the processes. 
5.2.4 Summary of NDI Program Impact 
NDI had three objectives: supporting the parties’ bapilu, helping to build the political skills of women, 
and helping the parties to understand and maintain the voter lists. Our research suggested that NDI was 
very active in the first two of these goals, and its efforts were recognized and appreciated by those 
targeted in the programs. The bapilu were active—at least during this electoral mobilization—and used 
NDI materials and ideas. The parties all had active training programs for their candidates, and the trainers 
were aided by the NDI programs. In terms of impacts, there have been clear advances towards the 
primary goal of improving the role of women in the political system. More women are on party candidate 
lists and many more are winning election than in the past. Some—but a relatively limited number—are 
also gaining important roles in the party hierarchies, and some are in very senior positions. Further, the 
legislature has a visible and active women’s caucus. 
To what degree are these advances owed to the NDI programs? The training programs have clearly 
internalized ideas about campaigning that are consistent with those promoted by NDI. On the other hand, 
many of these ideas are also consistent with those diffused by other groups and the parties’ (domestic or 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 18 
international) consultants. It is not possible, therefore, to discern the specific impact of NDI. In terms of 
women’s advancement, we must evaluate by considering the combined role of NDI and IRI, since the 
programs are complementary. As noted, women have gained in the provincial and national legislatures, 
and more women are advancing in their party hierarchies. The evidence, however, is unclear since these 
gains are not consistent in all regions or among all parties. The challenges are different too, so 
inconsistent results are not unexpected. Further, there are other domestic and international groups that 
promote these goals, so credit for advances must be shared. 
Overall, the high degree of organization of the parties for elections suggests that future work in this area 
should not be a high priority. The elections, however, do give NDI an opportunity to work with women, 
and these programs are part of a rising wave in the country of more female involvement in politics. The 
work with women, however, should continue as a priority. Stronger quotas have put more women into 
the legislature, and the new law requires that the parties also include more women in their hierarchies. 
The NDI programs that help train women to improve their campaigning and leadership skills, therefore, 
can aid women to successfully use their opportunities and positions. 
6 Evaluation from the Perspective of Higher-order Party 
Development Goals 
The NDI and IRI programs are intended to strengthen political parties in the hopes of creating stronger or 
higher-quality democracy. Translating this broad goal into programming first requires a determination of 
which aspects of development merit aid. It then requires decisions about programming that assume 
particular relationships among candidates, parties, party systems and democracy, because working at one 
level affects the others. The Conceptual Framework sets out four basic development goals for political 
parties: 1) accountability, representation and participation, 2) governability and good governance, 3) 
stable party competition, and 4) free and fair elections. These are all tied to a fifth intermediary goal, 
organizational and technical capacity. By and large the three expected results for IRI and three NDI 
objectives (Table 1) suggest that the institutes have focused on party organization, representation and 
outreach, and participation. These desired results address some aspects of the party development goals of 
participation and representation, as well the intermediary party organization goal. In what follows we 
provide a series of tables that show which aspects of the larger development goals were explicit parts of 
the program and which were ignored. Of course, ignoring some aspects of development is not intended as 
a criticism; the tables are only meant to put the programs’ goals into the larger framework of 
development. Further, it is more the role of an assessment rather than an evaluation to make these 
determinations. 
Another overarching question is how the programs’ efforts to build toward these broad goals affect the 
level at which the programs are directed. The NDI and IRI programs are mostly focused at the level of 
individual politicians and political parties, with only a limited direct involvement in programs that seek 
changes in the party system or the political environment. The overall goal, however, is to reinforce 
democracy, and thus there are embedded assumptions about the impacts of the programs on larger 
development goals: 
 First, many programs focus on improving individual politicians’ skills. Does improving 
an individual’s skills shore up that person’s party? (Note that the NDI party assessment 
report recognizes the need to build institutional rather than individual capacity.) 
 Second, some party building goals are ends in themselves, such as installation of 
internal democratic practices. Others, such as improving a party’s technical capacity or 
its training methodology, are means to an end. In general, do programs that seek to 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 19 
strengthen a party’s structures improve the quality, stability, or sustainability of 
democracy? 
Third, due to their desire and need to avoid even the appearance of high-handed 
interference, USAID and their CEPPS partners shy away from taking a clear stand on 
potential changes to the party or electoral system, such as changes to the electoral 
threshold. (Note however, that support of quotas or other laws that increase women’s 
representation seem to be an exception to this rule.) They do support, however, NGOs 
or Task Forces that promote such changes. How does this indirect support affect the 
USG development or diplomatic goals? 
In sum, programs are aimed at individual politicians, parties, and the party system. As raised in the NDI 
assessment report (Oct. 2007), there is a concern about the sustainability of programs that focus at this 
level. Another way to state this problem is that there is a non-necessary relation between building the 
capacity of individuals and building a sustainable high-quality democracy. The NDI report suggests, 
therefore, that programs should aim to support party organizations. 
To be more concrete, this section asks whether the Indonesian programs address the most important 
challenges to democratic consolidation related to parties and the party system, which include an 
increasingly fragmented party system (with nine parties now represented in Parliament), high volatility in 
party strength from election to election, a general lack of internal party democracy (in the form of highly 
centralized control in most party organizations), widely-reported corruption in both executive and 
legislative nominating processes, and the lack of a culture of responsiveness by members of Parliament 
and regional legislatures between election periods. Some of these issues are translated in to program 
goals, but some are system-level problems that are not directly addressed by the programs that focus on 
focus on individual candidates and campaign training. The by-goals approach, therefore, suggests that 
even if there is progress on the specific goals that activities address, program designers should carefully 
consider how those activities map into larger democracy building goals. 
The second set of questions regards the fit of the programs into the development goals noted above. 
Table 1 listed three expected results for IRI and objectives for NDI that focus on party organization, 
representation and outreach, and participation. These desired results address some aspects of the party 
development goals of participation and representation, as well the intermediary party organization goal. 
In what follows we provide a series of tables that shows which aspects of the larger development goals 
were explicit parts of the program, and which were ignored. Of course ignoring some aspects of 
development is not intended as a criticism; the tables are only meant to put the programs goals into the 
larger framework of development. 
6.1 Party Organizational and Technical Capacity 
The Conceptual Framework explains that building parties’ organizational structures and technical 
capacity can be a goal, but is more generally a means towards building the parties’ ability to deal with 
broader goals such as representing the populace, overseeing the bureaucracy, and analyzing and dealing 
with complex social problems. The framework also advances some concerns about a focus on this 
intermediary goal. In particular, there is the concern that focusing too much on the intermediary goal may 
threaten achievement of the larger development goals, perhaps because the goals conflict. The CF also 
raises two other issues related to this goal. First, it may be very difficult to encourage changes to party 
structures since change will affect entrenched interests. Second, there is a danger that some capacity 
building activities may encroach on the non-partisan philosophy of USAID support. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 20 
In this section we use our experience in Indonesia to reflect on these concerns. In order to organize this 
review, it is first necessary to review how the NDI and IRI addressed this broad goal. Table 15 lists the 
program goals from the CF associated with party organization and technical capacity and denote which of 
these goals were explicit parts of NDI and IRI programs in Indonesia. The right column offers a brief 
discussion about how the broad goal was translated into the Indonesian context. Overall, the programs 
focused on structures and processes for outreach, fundraising, and campaigning. They also sought to 
“bureaucratize” or professionalize the parties. At least this particular problem was not focused on policy 
analysis, oversight of the bureaucracy, internal communication, or policymaking. 
The first concern raised in the CF is whether any of these goals might stand in the way of achieving larger 
goals. The general concern is that campaigning, governing, and representing require different skills, and 
therefore the campaign focus can detract from the governance or representation. As we have noted, 
encouraging parties to create more targeted or policy oriented campaigns could lead them to disagree with 
one another, rather than build the cross-party consensus necessary for policy change. Professionalizing 
the parties, then, could lead to more detailed policy analysis, but there is some potential that the parties 
would use their analysis in ways that would not necessarily improve policy or democracy. 
Table 15: Party Organization and Technical Capacity 
Potential Program Goal Indonesia 
Program?* 
Explanation/Discussion 
Parties develop structures and 
processes for outreach to voters 
Y Teaching campaign techniques, such as use of 
polling and knocking on doors 
Parties develop structures and 
processes for outreach to attract new 
members (including women and 
youth) as candidates and leaders 
Y Task force recommendation was to increase 
number of women, youth, and handicapped in 
party structures; also concern with existing 
systems for recruitment 
Y Programs support parties’ “bapilu” and 
systems for training candidates 
Parties have structure and capacity 
(such as training programs and 
constituency service organizations) to 
represent and mobilize voters 
Parties have capacity to analyze and 
propose policy 
N 
Parties raise sufficient funds for 
campaign and general activities from 
transparent sources 
Y Training programs suggested fund raising 
strategies 
Parties have capacity to oversee the 
bureaucracy 
N 
Parties run effective election 
campaigns 
Y Training programs focused on the effect of the 
electoral system on party strategy, the use of 
polls, and other campaign techniques. This is 
sometimes party-focused, sometimes 
candidate- focused 
Parties develop bureaucratic 
organizational structures 
Y One focus was supporting parties’ training 
and strategy wings 
Internal communication N 
Internal policymaking processes N 
The second concern is more pragmatic: will parties accept advice if it contradicts the interest of existing 
leaders? The specific concern is whether party leaders will accept limitations on their own authority in 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 21 
order to incorporate progressive ideas about party democracy. Powers over candidate choice are key to 
leaders’ power, and leaders will be wont to reduce their authority over policy making. NDI and IRI 
clearly recognize this conflict, and perhaps it is a tribute to them that we did learn of important changes in 
the party hierarchical system. As noted, women and youth did not report a lack of influence, and the 
parties had multiple new candidates. The notorious point system for choosing candidates, further, did not 
seem as important an impediment to new candidates as it was in the past (which is also partly owed to the 
new open-list electoral system). Of course well-known leaders have a predominant role in the parties, but 
there were important signs that mid-level party members were influential in the party decisionmaking. 
The final concern, that perhaps pervades all support for political parties, is that support of party 
organizations jeopardizes the non-partisan philosophy of USAID support. NDI and IRI are clearly 
concerned with this philosophy, and work hard to avoid links with partisan activities. Some of the 
interview subjects did note that they had a preference for working with one or the other of the 
implementers, but partisanship seemed to play only a limited role in those perspectives. (The more 
important determinant was whether the group had Indonesian nationals and political experts.) Perhaps 
because discussions about party strategies are more private than are discussions about topics such as 
candidate training, we learned very little about how NDI and IRI advise the parties about campaign 
strategies. This, plus the general high regard that most interview subjects held of NDI and IRI, perhaps 
suggests that these institutions have successfully avoided politicization. 
6.2 Accountability, Representation, and Participation; 
 
Given that the programs focus on participation and representation, it is important to look at the definitions 
of these terms that the IRI and NDI employ. Their programs suggest that these terms mean that parties 
should incorporate more women into their leadership positions, and that parties should use polling to 
understand their electorate and target their campaign messages towards constituent concerns. Programs 
that work to improve campaign skills (either directly or through the training of trainers) could benefit 
representation, since women (and others) who lack experience in similar roles learn how to approach 
voters and articulate interests. If the candidates do listen to voter concerns and take those ideas back to 
their parties, then representation is enhanced. Further, these programs can bring new people into the realm 
of politics. Polling also potentially fosters representation by teaching parties about voter concerns, and 
encouraging parties to focus on the issues during their campaigns. 
Programs such as these are not risk-free, however. Parties could use polls to target disingenuous 
messages, for example. Further, encouraging parties to develop issue-based campaigns could heighten 
societal and/or inter-party divisions. One positive aspect of Indonesia’s current political system is the 
willingness of most parties to join coalitions in support of particular policies and the executive cabinet. If 
parties are split by sharp policy differences, this broad coalition might be challenged. Further, by 
choosing to emphasize policy-based campaigns, there is an implicit rejection of other perhaps valid 
factors that also define representation, including the party’s competence, region, ethnicity, gender, or 
ideology. Thus, while it may be valid to focus on issues, that choice is not without potentially negative 
consequences. 
Table 16 outlines the many aspects of accountability, representation, and participation that different 
programs might address, and notes where the Indonesian programs fit. It starts with programs that work 
at the party level, and then addresses programs that seek to enhance these qualities by working at the level 
of party systems. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 22 
Table 16: Accountability, Representation and Participation 
Potential Program Goal Indonesia 
Program? 
Explanation/Discussion 
 Party Level
Parties communicate with voters (e.g. 
through regional offices, constituent 
service committees) 
N The programs we reviewed focused on 
candidates’ meeting with voters only during 
election time. Perhaps this is relevant to the post￾election (governance) program. 
Y NDI & IRI programs explicitly trained women 
and encouraged youth to participate in leadership 
training. But limited focus on organizing women 
or youth in society. 
Ensuring inclusive political 
participation wherein a greater range 
of groups, including women and other 
historically excluded populations, 
influence and participate in political 
processes 
Parties mobilize voters to pursue N 
policy concerns (but do so in manners 
that do not threaten democratic and 
social stability) 
Parties respond to local-level concerns 
(constituency service) 
N The 2007-9 programs focused on contacts with 
constituents more than resolving concerns. 
Parties respond to voter concerns for 
national level policy reform 
Y Polling was intended to teach parties about 
concerns. 
Parties win votes based on policy 
positions and effects, not (only) 
identity 
Y Parties were urged to consider policy concerns in 
creating an electoral strategy 
Voters identify with parties due to 
ideological positions and/or support of 
community issues 
N Improving voter knowledge of party ideology 
was not an explicit goal of these programs; still 
polling was meant to move parties towards 
adoption of ideological (or at least policy) 
positions 
Citizens and groups contact, request, 
or demand services from parties 
N Campaign trainings encouraged parties to meet 
with citizens, but this was based on candidates 
rather than elected officials 
 Parties develop national constituency 
without ignoring local representation 
duties (nationalization) 
N The new open-list electoral system (generated in 
a court decision) encourages development of 
national and local constituencies. This was not a 
goal of the programs, however. 
 Parties hold leaders (not just rank￾and-file) accountable for internal and 
policy decisions 
N Open list system allows voters to hold 
individuals accountable within a party. No 
programs, however, explicitly suggested that 
parties open their leaders to democratic 
challenge. 
 Parties develop transparent 
(democratic) methods for selection of 
candidates 
Y Both multiparty and single party meetings 
seemed to support more transparent candidate 
selection systems. 
Parties choose qualified candidates N Training aimed at increasing leadership and 
communications skills of women and youth, 
increasing their attractiveness (which is not 
necessarily qualifications) as candidates. 
Parties link national and regional N 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 23 
constituencies 
Informing and empowering all 
members of society to become active 
participants in the political process 
N 
 Parties develop issue-oriented 
campaigns 
Y Explicit goal of polling was to encourage parties 
to use issues in their campaign strategies 
Parties are unified (but leaders’ 
powers are limited) 
N 
 Party System Level 
Number of parties balances 
representation and governability 
N Current proposal in the country to adjust the 
threshold for representation and coalition 
dynamics; at this time the party institutes are 
uninvolved in the discussions 
High levels of voter knowledge N 
High voting participation (but limited 
polarization) 
N 
Transparency in government activities 
(horizontal accountability) 
N 
Opposition participation in 
government and policy 
N While not an explicit goal of programs, multi￾party trainings bring different parties together 
and can aid coalition building (see discussion 
under “Good Governance”) 
Improved trust in government 
decisions 
N 
Limited electoral volatility N 
*Y/N refers to explicit inclusion in the Indonesian party programs of 2007-9 
6.2.1 Accountability, Representation and Participation at the Party System 
Level 
At the system level, both NDI and IRI have goals of increasing the number of women and 
underrepresented groups in the political system. As noted, NDI and IRI are reticent, however, to 
outwardly support changes to the political or legal framework. The prime vehicle, therefore, for 
supporting change was IRI’s support of a task force that, among other goals, sought to increase the role of 
women in political parties by mandating a quota for women in the parties’ leadership committees. 
One important system-level concern that the program that we evaluated does not touch is the number of 
parties and electoral volatility. The large number of parties has the potential of complicating or 
bottlenecking the political process (though a small number of parties do not guarantee a smooth process!). 
It is also commonly associated with large swings in voter support, which can encourage the rise of 
outsiders who have little interest or need to build stable or institutionalized parties. 
6.2.2 Accountability, Representation, and Participation at the Party Level 
At the party level, there are multiple potential areas in which programs could work to address concerns 
about accountability, representation, and participation. As we have detailed, the main emphasis of 
programs in Indonesia has been to encourage the parties to incorporate more women and youth into their 
structures. We have shown data indicating more female legislators at the national and provincial levels. 
We have also documented the positive role that the IRI-supported Task Force played in helping to 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 24 
strengthen the law imposing a minimum quota for women as legislative candidates and on party executive 
boards. The programs do not touch, however, many other areas where programs could potentially 
encourage better accountability, representation, and participation. First, parties could help to educate the 
public about political issues, and mobilize them to participate in the political process. As part of this 
process, parties could try to build stronger voter attachments or partisan identification. From the point of 
view of representation and accountability, programs might support constituency service systems that 
would help parties to receive input or complaints from voters and respond to it. Pursuing these goals may 
not be the highest priority for Indonesia; a detailed assessment would have to make that determination. 
We only mention them here to indicate that there are important aspects of accountability, representation, 
and participation at the party level that could be extant programs ignore. 
6.2.3 Accountability, Representation and Participation at the Individual 
Level 
At the individual level, NDI and IRI programs in Indonesia in the 2007-09 period sought to further these 
goals by focusing on leadership and campaign skills of individual women, youth, and other potential 
leaders. As foreshadowed above, there is an important concern that any program which focuses on 
individuals will not necessarily support party growth. Specifically, will teaching women to be more 
effective public speakers, to understand the intricacies of the electoral system, and how to raise money 
create a more profound democracy? It may. If the women learn to listen to voters and then push their 
party to help translate concerns into actions, parties are more representative and democracy is enhanced. 
If the women take their new skills to form a new party or use their knowledge of polling to sell a 
disingenuous image, then neither the party system nor democracy is advanced. The NDI and IRI 
programs presume that the attendees at their seminars will use their skills to advance democratic roles. 
Many undoubtedly do. Numerous women we met were very thankful for their training, and had risen into 
positions in their parties, or the provincial or national legislatures. The head of the women’s caucus in the 
national legislature, a former trainee of IRI, led an articulate discussion about the role of women in 
committees that are related to “traditional” or family issues, as well as other policy areas. Others, 
however, seem to have used lessons about campaigning but ignored the lessons about using those 
strategies to engage voters in discussions about policy concerns. One legislator from one of the larger 
parties related his campaign strategy as follows: 
“Mr. X knocks on voters’ doors and offers them a professionally laminated card which has his 
picture on one side and a “death insurance policy” on the other. If the voter will allow Mr. X to 
photocopy his ID card as proof of his having made contact with the voter or perhaps a sign of the 
voter’s electoral intentions, Mr. X offers the insurance policy which pays the holder’s family 
about $100 when the person dies. He claimed to have paid out about 150 of these policies from 
his own resources.” 
6.3 Governability and Good Governance 
With the party building programs, we conceive of “good governance” as support of cross-party 
cooperation on policy initiatives, oversight, or reforms that contribute to a stronger democratic society. 
The NDI and IRI programs of 2007-9 did not generally focus on improving these issues directly, though 
they were of concern during the post-election programs (2010-12). There are two areas, however, where 
the programs did have a potential impact on governance (Table ). First, at the party level, NDI began to 
develop a new program with the women’s legislative caucus (KPP-RI). Part of this effort is to build 
capacity of the women for conducting their legislative duties. An important by-product of this work, 
however, is to bring women together from across party lines in their effort to build legislative support for 
policy initiatives. In a similar manner, IRI’s support of the task force on electoral or party reform had the 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 25 
potential to build cross party support. We label this a party-level impact, however, because the task force 
asked for party participation, while the KPP-RI was a legislative (and hence system-level) project. 
We have some evidence of the positive impact of the programs on this goal, based on a meeting we had 
with members of the task force and the KPP-RI leadership. The six KPP-RI leaders we met were an 
impressive group, many of whom had taken advantage of NDI or IRI trainings historically. We asked 
specifically about issues on which they work together, and how partisanship affected their working 
relationship. They focused their answers on the positive aspects of working together, downplayed areas 
where they might disagree on partisan lines. It is notable that the collection of women included some 
from more conservative Islamist parties as well as the large secular parties. This seemingly strong 
working foundation, however, cannot be the result of NDI involvement, since the most important work 
during the 2007-9 period was a planning session for future trainings of new legislators. The KPP-RI did 
participate in several other networking events (according to NDI’s final report), one about the electoral 
quota for women in the electoral lists, one about “challenges” for the election, and another about the 
court-imposed open list system. The KPP-RI also participated in an NDI-led discussion about the 
implications for women candidates that were generated from focus group discussions. 
The IRI-supported task force had a more direct impact on the goal of “good governance.” Here the task 
force was instrumental in bringing together parties, activists, academics, and other stake-holders to 
discuss revisions to the law. Some interviewees (and the IRI report) said that the parties did not fully 
participate, but others suggested that the party participation was important to the process. Some 
interviewees said that the dialogue among people from different parties of the political world and civil 
society was instrumental in building pragmatic solutions to complex problems. The task force 
disseminated information through several conferences in the provinces, and this too helped build cross￾party (and cross-regional) support. 
Table 17: Good Governance 
Potential Program Goal Indonesia 
Program?* 
Explanation/Discussion 
PARTY LEVEL
Parties develop, analyze, and 
oversee legislation
N 
Parties negotiate compromises to 
yield policy accords 
Y IRI’s support of electoral reform task force was 
intended to yield multi-party compromise 
PARTY SYSTEM LEVEL
Multiparty caucuses foster 
coalition building for policy 
advancement 
Y NDI Working with KPP-RI supports women’s 
agenda; little direct relations to this point, but 
some future projects planned 
While our table only discusses one system-level goal, party programs could potentially work to strengthen 
legislative structures that facilitate parties in their efforts to analyze bills or oversee the executive. These 
were not discussed within the Indonesian program, and are perhaps more the purview of legislative 
strengthening programs. 
6.4 Stable and Peaceful Patterns of Competition 
This aspect of party or party system development is concerned with the stability of partisan support. 
When support is too fragile, parties are unable to establish roots in society and populist leaders with few 
ties to political parties can rise. Further, electoral instability is frequently a sign or forerunner of political 
instability. Given their recent transition to democracy and the rise of many new parties, stable partisan 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 26 
competition is a concern in Indonesia. Current NDI or IRI programs, however, are not focused on these 
issues. 
The potential for instability is evident in the change in partisan support in the legislature in the last two 
elections. In 2009 nine parties won representation in the national legislature, and no party won more than 
21% of the popular vote. Further, about 20% of the electorate chose parties that did not win seats. In 
2004, before the imposition of an electoral threshold, sixteen parties won seats. The largest won only 
22% of the popular vote. The biggest change during this period was the strengthening of the Democrat 
Party, which rose from 7.5% to 20.9%. There is a concern, however, that once their current and popular 
president ends his second term, the party will fail to maintain this level of support. 
At the provincial level, there are different concerns about patterns of competition. District and municipal 
elections are held on a staggered basis every five years, not in tandem with national elections. Contestants 
are known to buy nominations from parties, because parties—singly or collectively—have to win 15 
percent of the vote in legislative election to maintain nominating rights. These factors, plus the non￾ideological nature of most parties, sometimes results in odd combinations of parties ”backing” particular 
candidates. It also then allows candidates to campaign in a very independent or personalistic manner. 
Among the parties, there is some concern about which groups are rising or falling. Indeed, for the nine 
parties represented in the 2009-2014 DPR, the basic pattern across the three elections since 1999 has been 
instability. PDIP’s vote percentage in 2009 was less than half that of 1999. According to most observers, 
PDIP’s future is closely tied to the fortunes of Megawati. Should she retire, the party will probably 
decline even more precipitously and may break up altogether. PKB, the party that best expresses the 
views of Nahdlatul Ulama, and PPP, the Suharto era Islamist party, have also lost half or more of their 
votes between 1999 and 2009. 
Of the post-Suharto era parties, only PAN has held its vote percentage constant from 1999-2009. The 
most important new Islamist party, PKS, surged from less than 2% in 1999 to more than 7% in 2004, 
maintaining that level in 2009. Its future is difficult to predict. Gerindra and Hanura only burst upon the 
scene in 2009. Like President Yudhoyono’s Democrat Party, they are personal vehicles of their leaders, 
retired army generals Prabowo and Wiranto respectively, and are likely to grow or maintain their strength 
only if those leaders remain at the helm. 
Provincial and district/municipality legislative elections since 1999 have been subject to the same 
volatility. These elections are held simultaneously with the election for the national DPR, and most 
voters appear to vote consistently, that is, they choose the same party at all three legislative levels. Thus, 
volatility at the national level is echoed at the two levels below. Two patterns in the regional vote further 
complicate this picture. One is the tendency for a wave of change to sweep the nation uniformly, seen 
most clearly in 2009 with the phenomenal jump in support for the Democrat Party. The second is the 
counter-tendency for differential patterns across regions. This was seen most clearly in 2009 with the 
much sharper decline of Golkar in the outer islands compared to Java. 
While most of the issues related to building stable patterns of competition imply system-level programs, 
the institutes’ work with the parties on developing issue-oriented campaigns does directly feed into this 
broad goal. We discussed this issue above as an aspect of representation and accountability, but here it is 
important to note how issue-oriented campaigns build democracy by encouraging vigorous—but 
limited—competition. An important goal of a party system is to provide voters a choice, but when the 
choice includes anti-system options, stability is endangered. In Indonesia we did not evaluate the NDI 
program in Aceh, but in the capital or the cities we evaluated we found no evidence of parties pursuing 
anti-democratic campaigns. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 27 
Of course the goal of building stable or “vibrant” party competition is very broad, and it is unreasonable 
to expect short-term programs to have measurable impacts. Still, some of the programs that NDI and IRI 
conduct do have the potential for influencing electoral volatility, and may deal with this issue indirectly. 
Most importantly, by training candidates and legislators about communicating with voters, the parties 
could learn to disseminate more information about their roles in the legislature. Presumably if voters 
know about (positive) legislative activities, they would be less inclined to vote for new or outsider 
politicians. The program we evaluated, however, focused more on teaching candidates to meet and attract 
different segments of society, not helping them create a plan to maintain or build those relationships. 
Table 18: Stable Patterns of Competition 
Potential Program Goal Indonesia 
Program?* 
Explanation/Discussion 
PARTY LEVEL 
Parties run aggressive but 
“responsible” campaigns
Y Programs encourage issue oriented campaigns to 
lessen personal attacks. We did not hear concerns 
about campaigns that discredited or threatened 
democracy (although we did not evaluate the Aceh 
program.)
Parties develop roots in society N By focusing on elections, candidates did learn to 
meet with societal groups, but there was not a 
focus on parties’ maintaining or building those 
relationships.
Parties build support based on 
long track record of policy
N Polling focused on future concerns rather than past 
performance
PARTY SYSTEM LEVEL 
Vibrant multiparty competition, 
but with limited electoral 
volatility 
N Indonesia has many small parties and volatility is 
of some concern. It is not an explicit concern of 
NDI or IRI. Vibrancy, however, could be defined 
by support of issue-oriented campaigns. On the 
other hand, the limited polarization among the 
parties is a benefit of the current arrangement. 
Increasing information to voters 
to counteract effects of 
volatility 
N Training parties or candidates to engage with 
voters does increase voter information, and the 
parties could help disseminate information about 
government policies or successes. To this point 
trainings seem to focus on parties using polling 
information to target voters rather than providing 
voters with information. 
6.5 Rule of Law and Fair and Honest Elections 
There have not been serious complaints about fraud in recent elections, but there are serious concerns 
about corruption and campaign finance. We discussed campaign finance above as a part of party 
organization and technical capacity. Corruption, as we indicate in Table , was not a specific goal of the 
programs that we evaluated. Beyond general issues of corruption, the main concerns we heard about with 
respect to rule of law regarded the updating of voter lists and the fair counting of intra-party votes. Under 
the open-list system, votes are first allocated to the parties, and then individual legislators are determined 
based on voters’ choice among a slate of candidates. Several candidates complained that they lacked 
confidence in the result of this intra-party counting. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 28 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 29 
A related issue has to do with the competence of the KPU. Several observers, both Indonesian and 
foreign (especially at IFES) believe that the KPU in 2009 performed less competently than its two 
predecessors in 2004 and 1999.4
 Fortunately, the 2009 results, especially in the presidential context, were 
clear as to who the winners were, so that the losing candidates were not strongly motivated to challenge 
the results. Should the results be closer in 2014, the motivation will be stronger, especially if the KPU is 
once again widely perceived as incompetent or corrupt. This is a clear threat to democratic consolidation. 
Probably the best remedy is strengthening the KPU, which is outside the framework of our evaluation or, 
perhaps, PPA programs. With regard to a role for the parties, in the run-up to the 2014 election, perhaps 
USAID should be focus on aiding the party in attracting and training party poll watchers. 
NDI and IRI did have, however, one area each where they intended to support the goal of fair and honest 
elections. First the IRI report suggests an attempt to support partisan poll watchers. Their final report 
states that they “conducted ten party agent trainings at the national level and in select provinces for 636 
participants, of which 240 were women.” As discussed earlier, we found limited evidence that this was a 
significant program—party officials we asked all noted how difficult it was to recruit sufficient poll 
watchers, and none could remember IRI or NDI support in terms of training or recruiting. 
NDI”s efforts in this area were focused on voter lists and partisan oversight of this process. Their report 
states a goal of: “Improv[ing] the capacity and understanding of political parties to use the temporary 
voter list as an electoral tool that will help them compete in the elections and help build broader support 
for the registration process. We found limited evidence of success in this area. One former KPU member 
explained to us the problems involved in organizing and purifying the voter lists, but he did not know 
about USAID supported programs in this area. A leader in PAN about these issues told us that it was 
difficult to get updated information from the KPU. That person then turned to a discussion about IRI 
survey data that could have helped them to identify voters to target. The person, however, complained 
that the IRI data were out of date and unusable. The respondent also said that the IRI data were not 
detailed enough in terms of demography to be of much use. 
Table 19: Rule of Law and Fair and Honest Elections 
Potential Program Goal Indonesia 
Program?* 
Explanation/Discussion 
PARTY LEVEL 
Internal party elections are run fairly 
and constituents accept outcomes 
N 
Parties deploy trained poll watchers to 
all polling places 
Y Focus on training poll watchers; unsure if 
there was training about recruiting sufficient 
numbers 
Parties participate in national debates 
about electoral processes 
Y IRI support of task force 
Parties use exit polls to validate results N 
Parties adhere to rules and voters 
perceive limited corruption 
N 
Voter lists are updated and parties 
express confidence in process 
Y NDI intended to help parties use and 
understand temporary voter list; also hoped to 
build broader support for the registration 
process
Party System Level 
                                                           
4
 This is an example where our evaluation may miss important implications of the programs, since they seem to 
work in conjunction with IFES programs 
Parties encourage voters accept 
national electoral outcomes 
Y Support of parties’ poll agents helps lend 
legitimacy to outcomes 
Parties work together to develop an 
impartial legal framework for elections 
and political parties 
N 
Parties support administration of 
electoral process 
N Other parts of program do support the 
electoral administration 
Parties support and utilize mechanisms 
for electoral dispute resolution 
N 
Parties help to validate and then accept 
electoral results 
Y Support of parties’ poll agents helps lend 
legitimacy to outcomes 
Parties foster peaceful transition of 
power 
N 
N Some trainings focus on party or candidate 
strategies for raising money; there is not a 
specific proposal in which NDI or IRI is 
involved for changing the financing system 
Parties work together towards building 
a campaign finance system that 
provides them a legal, fair, and 
transparent way to raise funds 
7 Conclusion 
This evaluation uncovered many gains for parties, and by extension, democracy in Indonesia. Most 
clearly, women have advanced in their parties and the national and provincial legislatures. Parties which 
have been known as closed shops show some signs of opening their decisionmaking and candidate 
selection processes. Campaigns still focus greatly on leader personalities, but some candidates also talk 
about local and national issues. Further, the parties have professionalized and bureaucratized some 
processes, such as their candidate training systems. 
While multiple forces all deserve credit for these advances, IRI and NDI have been integrally involved in 
pursuing these changes. Women clearly appreciate the training they received either directly from NDI or 
IRI or indirectly via the trainers who were trained by the institutes’ programs. The IRI-sponsored task 
force was not the only organization supporting stronger quotas for women in the parties or the legislature, 
but it did help foster the necessary consensus that brought about that crucial change. Overall, NDI and 
IRI are very active, visible, and successful in terms of their stated goals, in spite of a budget that is quite 
small for such a large and complex country. The only important criticism we heard from the party 
representatives was that the programs covering campaign financing were not useful. We also were unable 
to find evidence that the attempts to recruit and train poll watchers had had much impact. 
We uncovered the notable advances in Indonesian democracy and the role NDI and IRI in aiding that 
process through our “by-activity” approach to the evaluation. Our complementary “by-goal” approach to 
the evaluation raised questions about directions for future programs. It suggested, most importantly, that 
the focus on elections perhaps detracted from work on larger democratic goals. We recognize that 
elections help to focus the attention of parties (and donors), but they may also lead to more focus on 
politics rather than governance. That section of the report also highlights some important democracy￾building issues (such as corruption and responsiveness to constituent concerns) that future programs 
might address. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 30 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 31 
8 References 
Aspinall, Edward and Marcus Mietzner, eds. 2010. Problems of Democratisation in Indonesia: Elections,
Institutions, and Society.  Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore.  
Bessell, Sharon. “Increasing the Proportioin of Women in the naaitonal Parliament: Opportunities,
Barriers and Challenges,” 2010. In Aspinall and Mietzner.
Sarah Shair-Rosenfield, Unpub. A. “Parties and Women: Gender Quotas and the Changing Landscape of 
Indonesian Politics” 
Sarah Shair-Rosenfield, Unpub. B: “The Alter-Incumbent Advantage: The Effects of Female 
Incumbency on Political Learning and Socialization in Indonesia” 
Schmidt, Adam, 2010. “Indonesia’s 2009 Elections: Performance Challenges and Negative Precedents.”
In in Aspinall and Mietzner.
Sukma, Riza. 2010. “Indonesia’s 2009 Elections: Defective System, Resilient Democracy. In Aspinall and
Mietzner.
Tomsa, Dirk. 2010. “The Indonesian Party System after the 2009 Elections,” in Aspinall and Mietzner.
9 Appendix Detail of IRI and NDI Programs 
9.1.1 IRI Program Plan 
The following project descriptions are summarized from IRI’s proposal5
Political Party Organizational Development 
Reforming Political Party Structures 
Preparations for the 2009 elections will begin in 2007 with expected amendments to the election law and 
political party law. To help parties understand the implications of the evolving political and electoral 
environment, IRI will help to create a Political Party Reform Task Force (Task Force) to consider the 
issues of internal democracy, candidate selection, voter accountability, financial disclosure and broader 
party representation of women, youth, the disabled and other marginalized voting constituencies. 
At the conclusion of the Task Force public forums, IRI will work with the Task Force to identify the 
priority issues of political party reform that can most effectively be addressed through legislative or 
internal party initiatives to achieve increased levels of participation and representation of women and 
other marginalized groups, greater transparency, accountability to voters and financial disclosure. The 
Task Force will be expected to make recommendations for both legislative and/or internal party 
governance initiatives that can be implemented to address the issues identified. 
                                                           
5
 The CEPPS proposal “Democratic Political Parties”. 
Encouraging Internal Party Democracy 
Complementing IRI’s Task Force initiative, IRI will work with national political parties to conduct 
internal baseline assessments, including an internal democracy survey. IRI will confidentially share the 
results of the respective political party surveys so that leadership in each party can be better informed 
about the levels of understanding and awareness among their membership. The survey results will also 
identify issues of concern for political leaders regarding the party’s internal governance structure from the 
view point of their member party base. 
Enhancing Political Party Structures 
IRI will also assess and analyze internal party documents, including bylaws, policies and procedures of 
each national political party; focusing on internal party governance related to leadership selection; fair 
and open candidate selection mechanisms; member accountability; financial disclosure; increased 
membership and accessibility for women, youth, other minorities and the disabled. After conducting 
assessments, IRI will create recommendations drawing upon the deliberation and recommendations of the 
Task Force to provide guidance to political parties on whether their party documents need to be amended, 
updated, consolidated and/or enforced. 
Fostering Active Party Membership 
Currently, parties use a tier system in which members need to earn “points” to be considered for certain 
leadership roles or to be a candidate. Such a system makes it difficult for women and youth to move up 
the ranks. At both the national and provincial level, IRI will use the assessment and survey information to 
help parties to re-evaluate their membership systems in order to increase participation. As a follow-up, 
IRI will hold consultations with political parties to address the needs within their membership systems to 
increase their ranks. 
Building the Road to Elections 
IRI will work with parties to develop candidate selection tools to help them hold conventions for 
candidate selection. IRI will further compare each political party’s candidate selection process at the 
national and provincial level to determine if each political party’s internal governance operates in a 
consistent manner at the national, provincial and local levels. Upon completion of the assessments, IRI 
will work with party officials at all levels to resolve substantive procedural or policy-based 
inconsistencies that unduly hinder or impede open and inclusive participation by grassroots party 
members in the internal governance of the party. 
Political Party Fundraising Training 
To best prepare political parties to comply with campaign financial disclosure laws, IRI will hold 
trainings for campaign managers, treasurers and fundraisers. 
Representation and Outreach 
Public confidence in political parties is intrinsically tied to parties’ ability to identify and respond to the 
issues about which voters are most concerned. Party identity equally depends on voters being able to 
associate key ideas and programmatic themes with specific political parties. Anecdotal evidence in 
Indonesia suggests that for the most part, voters do not yet connect political parties with specific values or 
platform ideas. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 32 
Indonesian political parties have a limited window of opportunity to try to strengthen their image and 
clarify party identity with voters before the 2009 electoral cycle begins in earnest. To support political 
party efforts to achieve this goal, IRI will conduct the following program activities: 
 Baseline party assessments to explore why parties have conducted limited outreach to voters 
between elections. The assessments will try to clarify the obstacles (both internal and 
external) to this type of activity, and to identify mechanisms that might prove successful in 
future. 
 A series of national and provincial polls and focus group discussions (FGD). 
 Training and consultations with political parties to strengthen areas for public outreach, 
including media training, working with interest groups and use of multiple forms of outreach. 
Political Party Participation in Elections 
IRI will initiate election-specific training for political parties in 2008. This training will focus on helping 
national and provincial leadership to consider their planning and strategies for the elections; it is expected 
that the parties themselves will conduct the bulk of internal training. 
 Following the release of the IRI polls, IRI staff will conduct training with political parties in the 
eight program provinces on the use of polls for campaign message development, voter mapping 
and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts. 
 With amendments expected to the Election Law in 2007, IRI expects revisions to the way in 
which elections are conducted. To effectively disseminate the new law, IRI will produce an 
election law handbook for parties, similar to what was done in 2004. 
 IRI’s experience in Indonesia has shown that party agent training is the most effective method for 
gaining political party ‘buy-in’ for election results and reducing the potential for conflict. To 
implement party agent training to address party needs across the country, IRI plans to develop a 
party agent training program that can compiled onto a DVD to allow for wide distribution to 
parties across the country. 
 IRI will develop a party agent training manual that covers the essential information about the 
election law and procedures in a simple, graphic format. IRI plans to print 5000 copies of the 
manuals for use in its training seminars, to build demand and interest in the manuals, and to 
service remote and poorer provinces that are unlikely to get manuals from their parties. 
 IRI’s agent training will educate agents on how to effectively report complaints, focusing on how 
party agents can help to deliver a tangible means of understanding voters’ experiences on 
Election Day. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 33 
Table 20 Summary of IRI Program Plans 
Identified Needs Expected Results Expected Activities Indicators Results 
Political Party Organizational Development
Parties fail to establish 
themselves as a legitimate 
means of expressing political 
choice. 
Parties are not effective 
liaisons between the citizenry 
and the government. 
Parties lack internal 
democracy. 
Methods of building party 
membership are unreliable 
and exclude disenfranchised 
members of society. 
Parties lack coherent, 
standardized governing 
documents.
Political parties 
define and clarify 
their 
organizational 
structures, 
including 
methods by which 
they actively 
recruit track and 
retrain 
membership. 
IRI will conduct an 
internal democracy 
survey, create a Task 
Force to facilitate 
discussion of challenges to 
political party 
effectiveness, work with 
parties to strengthen party 
institutions (such as 
candidate selection and 
fundraising), and work 
with parties to address 
needs within their 
membership systems in 
order to increase and 
diversify their ranks.
• # of political party members 
participating in USG 
sponsored political party 
strengthening programs who 
were elected to office 
disaggregated by male/female 
• % of political parties or 
political entities participating 
in USG sponsored political 
party strengthening programs 
who adopted internal 
democratic procedures as a 
result of USG assistance 
Political parties 
define and 
clarify their 
organizational 
structures, 
including the 
methods by 
which actively 
recruit, track and 
retrain 
membership. 
Representation and Outreach
Parties lack reliable, accurate 
information on their members 
and base. 
Parties lack the ability to 
conduct and analyze research. 
Parties need to develop issue￾based platforms. 
Political parties 
conduct issue 
oriented 
campaigns that 
respond 
effectively to 
voter concerns, 
while increasing 
knowledge of 
their political 
base. 
IRI will conduct baseline 
party assessments, 
national and provincial 
polls, focus group 
discussions, and trainings 
and consultations with 
political parties. 
• # of political parties or 
political entities receiving 
USG assistance that are able 
to articulate platform and 
policy agendas effectively. 
Political parties 
conduct issue￾oriented 
campaigns that 
respond 
effectively to 
voter concerns, 
while increasing 
knowledge of 
their political 
base. 
Political Party Participation in Elections
Parties fail to effectively 
motivate and mobilize their 
members to register to vote. 
Parties are unable to target 
voters due to a lack of 
information. 
Party agents failed to pay 
attention to the complaint 
reporting process. 
Political parties 
are better able to 
mobilize voters 
and play an active 
role in monitoring 
the polls on 
election day 
IRI will work with 
political parties to help 
them develop campaign 
strategies, will assess party 
capabilities and according 
adjust GOTV efforts and 
other training assistance, 
will conduct party agent 
training, integrating 
complaint forms, and will 
develop party training 
manuals. 
• # of domestic monitors 
and/or poll watchers 
participating in USG￾sponsored training 
disaggregated by male/female 
• # of political party members 
participating in USG 
sponsored political party 
strengthening programs who 
were elected to office 
disaggregated by male/female 
• # of Competitive and 
Representative Political 
Parties, Political Entities and 
Marginalized groups 
Participating in USG-Assisted 
Elections and Political 
Processes (objective 4.2 
activities) disaggregated by 
male/female 
Political parties 
are better able to 
mobilize voters 
and play an 
active role in 
monitoring the 
polls on Election 
Day. 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 34 
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 35 
9.1.2 NDI Program Plan 
Three of NDI’s activities were assessed during this evaluation. The following descriptions were 
summarized from the original proposal6
 or subsequent modifications7
. 
Party Training Departments 
Utilizing relationships that the Institute has developed over the past eight years with Indonesia’s largest 
political parties, NDI would work with parties’ internal training departments to design programs that the 
parties themselves could implement nationwide. The program would begin with an informal review of 
Indonesia’s national political parties training departments. The purpose of the review would be to 
determine the training departments’ state of development and to acquire information that would assist the 
Institute, and the parties themselves, to design training programs needed in the lead up to the 2009 
legislative elections. 
Programs would be conducted mostly in a single party format, using the parties own facilities. NDI would 
conduct one to two trainings for each of the seven parties listed above (the seven most popular parties) for 
an anticipated 14 training programs and total of 420 political party participants. In addition to the focus on 
the most relevant parties, the Institute would provide two additional national multi-party training sessions 
for smaller parties, 30 participants each for a total of 60 participants. NDI anticipates that some of the 
following topics would be part of most programs: 
 Pre-election Organizing. These sessions would focus on the preparations that regional and 
local party organizations need to undertake in advance of the 2009 elections; 
 Developing Citizen-centered Platforms; 
 Campaign Management; 
 Candidate Training; and 
 Voter Contact and Outreach. 
 Negotiation and dispute resolution skills 
Training Women Candidates 
The Institute will assist KPPI with the design and production of materials and training modules for 
aspiring women candidates. Using these materials created specifically for KPPI on women’s political 
participation, the Institute would assist KPPI in conducting a Training of Trainers (ToT) session for the 
organization’s internal trainers on preparing women candidates running for election. ToT participants 
could in turn use these materials to provide training to women candidates throughout the country. The 
Ministry of Women’s Empowerment has provided support for training sessions in the past and is likely to 
in the coming years. NDI anticipates one ToT with 30 trainers. Each trainer will then train approximately 
20 women at the regional level for a total of 600 women trained. 
Party Training on Voter List 
Conduct two multi-party workshops for 65 participants on how political parties could use the voter 
registration lists to their political advantage as well as to communicate party messages to voters 
                                                           
6
 NDI proposal “Indonesia: Targeted Political Competition Assistance in Advance of the 2009 Elections” 
7
 The third activity was added in a modification to the original grant in the May-August 2008 additional funding from 
USAID for a national Voter Registration Audit.
Evaluation of USAID Political Party Programs: Indonesia 36 
Table 21 Summary of NDI Program Plans 
Objectives Activities Indicators Expected 
Results 
Strengthen the efforts of 
political parties to develop 
the organizational, 
political and 
communication skills 
necessary to compete 
effectively in the 
upcoming elections; 
Party Training Departments - 
strengthen the internal capacity of 
parties to train members and 
activists in the skills necessary to 
compete in the 2009 elections. 
- review party training 
departments 
Political party training departments improved 
and their training and curricula updated; 
Election strategies based on NDI training 
materials for the 2009 elections developed and 
implemented by political parties; 
Increased young political leaders’ participation 
within parties 
Increased 
ability of 
political parties 
to effectively 
compete in 
elections and 
political 
processes. 
Enhance the skills and 
capacities of women to 
become more effective 
political leaders; 
Training for Women Candidates - 
in partnership with KPPI design 
and produce training modules for 
aspiring women candidates. 
Strategies developed by KPPI and adopted by 
others to increase women’s political 
participation; 
Increased number of women candidates 2009 
elections over previous election cycles; and 
Increased integration of women into political 
party activities and leadership. 
Increased 
ability of 
women to 
effectively 
compete in 
elections and 
political 
processes. 
Improve the capacity and 
understanding of political 
parties to use the 
temporary voter list as an 
electoral tool that will help 
them compete in the 
elections and help build 
broader support for the 
registration process8
Party Training on Voter List - two 
multi-party workshops on how 
political parties could use the 
voter registration lists to their 
political advantage as well as to 
communicate party messages to 
voters. 
Political parties are familiar with voter lists 
and canvass voters based on those lists 
                                                           
8
 This objective was added in the May-August 2008 additional funding from USAID for a national Voter 
Registration Audit.