The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0021/00218.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 31KB | 477 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00218}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Indonesia
Chapter 4B.   Regional Government}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Riga Adiwoso-Suprapto}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{political
government
soeharto
military
officers
abri
abri's
economic
golkar
group}
$Date{1982}
$Log{}
Title:       Indonesia
Book:        Indonesia, A Country Study
Author:      Riga Adiwoso-Suprapto
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1982

Chapter 4B.   Regional Government

     In 1982 the territorial administration had four tiers. The first level
had 24 provinces, or propinsi (also known as regions), and three
provincial-level special territories-Jakarta, Yogyakarta, and Aceh. Some 250
districts, or regencies (kabupaten), constituted the second level. The third
and fourth tiers consisted of 3,350 subdistricts, or kecamatan, and 62,900
villages, respectively.

     Indonesia inherited a diverse administrative pattern, which had been
developed to accommodate the widely divergent regional circumstances. The
question of centralization and uniformity, as opposed to decentralization, was
therefore a major political issue through the 1950s. Some argued that
centralization was essential to the creation of an effective, stable political
order, whereas others insisted that the same objective could be achieved
through a decentralized political structure, citing the tradition of local
self-rule in many of the country's far-flung island territories. Proponents of
federalism generally favored the initiation of measures for local
self-government. The first step in such a direction was a 1957 law providing
the provincial, district, and municipal authorities with popularly elected
assemblies, which in turn were to elect executive officers at the
corresponding levels.

     The incipient step was reversed in 1959 when Sukarno reinstated the 1945
Constitution and set in motion the process of Guided Democracy. The elected
local assemblies became appointive, as were the positions of locally elected
chief executives. The governor of the province became a presidential
appointee, and district chiefs, or regents, and municipal mayors were
appointed by the minister of home affairs.

     Since 1966, as part of efforts to encourage more local involvement in
developmental activities, local elections have been revived. In 1971 regional
representative assemblies (DPRD) were elected at the provincial and district
levels, but the governors, district chiefs, and mayors continued to be
appointed by the government. These officials are assisted by the
provincial-level advisory organ called the Regional Leadership Council
(Muspida), which is chaired by the provincial army commander. Other council
members include the provincial governor (vice chairman), the chief of police,
the chief prosecutor, and the district judge. In 1974 a regional autonomy act
was passed so that the governor would henceforth be elected by the
provincial-level DPRD from a list of three to five candidates prepared by the
minister of home affairs. Under the law, however, the election would become
official only when the governor-elect was formally appointed by the president.

     In the early 1980s all local authorities continued to function as
extensions of the central government, serving as they did to ensure Jakarta's
tight political and administrative grip on local affairs. There was an
unmistakable trend whereby the profile of the central government was getting
larger, if a new law on village administration enacted in 1979 was any
indication. Under this bill villages were divided into two types: villages
outside urban areas and villages within urban areas. This law makes the
villages the lowest administrative tier and seeks among other things to bring
uniformity to village administration but, more importantly, to make the
headmen accountable to the district chiefs, who are empowered under that
law to remove incompetent or corrupt headmen. Headmen of villages outside
urban areas are still elected by secret ballot, and headmen of those within
urban areas are now civil servants, appointed by the district chiefs acting in
behalf of the provincial governors. In theory, all headmen are supposed to run
their villages, as they have done in the past, but how much autonomy they are
allowed was difficult to ascertain in the early 1980s. On balance, it appears
that the real purpose of the 1979 law is to bring more government authority to
bear on the grass-roots level, so that the village administration can provide
the improved infrastructure needed for accelerating rural development.

The Government and Mass Media Communication

     The government has continued to underscore the role of communication as a
vital link in its strategy of national development. Its search for unity,
consensus, stability, and economic growth is seen as being substantially aided
by "free and responsible" mass media. In the government's view, the press can
play a constructive role by strictly adhering to the rules governing
objectivity, balance, and accuracy. The basic principle behind the
government's information policy was restated by Soeharto in February 1981
while addressing a national conference of the Indonesian Journalists
Association. He stated that, like other sectors, the Indonesian press should
develop in keeping with the nation's identity and needs and should not
"imitate the freedom of the press in other countries."

     The authorities have been concerned about the potential-positive and
negative-of the mass media. Friendly and supportive media have been seen as
essential to the government effort to convey its intentions and policies to
every segment of the population, to minimize the consequences of ethnic and
religious diversity, and to improve the country's international image. As a
result the government has remained sensitive to the problems of freedom and
restraint in public communication and has felt justified in guiding closely
the operation of the mass media. Such an effort has had the predictable
constraining effect on the mass media.

     Control of information has been ensured partly by the government
operation of television and almost all radio stations and partly by the
imposition of sanctions (such as a jail term of up to 20 days and revocation
of publication permit) on the offending journalists or media. Information
policy is under the central direction of the Department of Information, which
has at its disposal the Indonesian National News Service (Antara) and
government-subsidized newspapers, weeklies, and other periodicals. Moreover,
the department is responsible for coordination of all official public
relations activities at the provincial and district levels. The expanding
government role in the field of mass communication has also narrowed the scope
of the opposition's access to neutralize domestic and foreign news perceived
to be favorable to the Soeharto leadership.

     As of 1979 (the latest year for which information was available) 52
percent of all daily newspaper circulation was attributable to the capital
city of Jakarta. The official intention, however, was to increase the
availability of newspapers to the provinces, especially the rural areas where
roughly 80 percent of the people lived. Generally, there was more emphasis on
increasing the radio and television audiences because the electronic
media-some 20 million radio receivers and 1.6 million television sets as of
August 1980-could reach a much larger proportion of the population than could
the printed media. Many villager's illiteracy was another reason for the
official emphasis on the electronic media.

     Officially, Indonesia does not have press censorship, except for foreign
films and publications. Many printed media are private, and journalists and
publishers have generally followed what is known as "self-censorship"-a
function of their prudent sensitivity to limits of free expression and
dissent. A notable tendency in the early 1980s was the government's growing
displeasure with what it reg