Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0172/01727.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 26KB | 422 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01727}
$Pretitle{239}
$Title{Indonesia
Chapter 4A.   Government and Politics}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Riga Adiwoso-Suprapto}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{government
president
courts
state
political
court
law
constitution
general
armed}
$Date{1982}
$Log{Figure 6.*0172702.scf
}
Country:     Indonesia
Book:        Indonesia, A Country Study
Author:      Riga Adiwoso-Suprapto
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1982

Chapter 4A.   Government and Politics

     In 1982 President Soeharto, a retired four-star general, was completing
his sixteenth year as national leader, presiding over a political system
functioning under the 1945 Constitution. The governmental structure was
unitary in form, providing a limited separation of executive, legislative,
and judicial powers. The presidency was the central focus of government
and politics as well as the most powerful state institution, and barring
unforeseen circumstances its current incumbent appeared almost certain to
be reelected in March 1983, unopposed, to a fourth five-year term under a
mandate ending in 1988.

     The government continued to emphasize, as it had since 1966, the
compelling need for political stability, which it said was absolutely
essential to national economic development and to external and internal
security as well. Stability could be fostered in part, according to the
government, by forging a national consensus and unity under the secularist
state ideology of pancasila, a broadly phrased formulation of five principles,
accentuating belief in one God, humanitarianism, national unity, democracy,
and social justice. Pancasila has in fact been extolled as the nation's
unique ideology, which allows a place for neither communism nor capitalism
and which has inner soul and content sufficient to replace all other "isms."
In the early 1980s efforts were under way in earnest to popularize the
ideology as the only comprehensive political creed applicable to all
political groups. Any attempt to question or repudiate the validity of
pancasila was officially viewed as treasonous. The principal responsibility
for defending the integrity of the ideology, as well as the Constitution,
has been entrusted to the armed forces.

     For years the armed forces have been politically dominant, proven as
the most important and reliable institutional support for Soeharto. Their
political involvement has been extensive, buttressed by the self-imposed
mission of discharging dual functions, combining both military and
sociopolitical roles. In these two capacities armed forces personnel,
mostly from the army, have acted as bureaucrats, politicians, or
businessmen, often while in uniform. Despite the occasional discreet,
though critical, comments-usually from the opposition-about the desirability
of lowering the armed forces profile, there was little indication to
suggest any curtailment in the leverage of political power.

     The Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia (ABRI) as the central
reality of political life was beyond question, and barring a drastic political
reform by the Soeharto leadership or a coup by a disgruntled army faction,
their preeminence seemed irreversible for the foreseeable future at least.
The ruling political party, Golkar-a federation of groups representing
youth, labor, farmers, women, and others-was actually dominated by active
and retired officers, as were nearly all sensitive positions of public trust.
The methodical policy of depoliticization since the late 1960s has weakened
the political parties through strict controls on both dissidents and
organizational outlets. Opposition has become costly and hazardous at best,
if only because open criticism of government policy is forbidden by law.
Political participation or activity has been confined to Golkar and the two
opposition parties-the Development Unity Party (PPP), composed of various
Muslim groups, and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), organized by
nationalist and Christian elements. The politics of opposition has become
more nominal than real because of the susceptibility of some opposition
members to government tactics of persuasion and co-optation.

     Foreign policy has been interlocked with domestic priority for
economic growth. Soeharto's Indonesia has followed a pragmatic and
responsive policy of amity and cooperation with most countries, in a sharp
turnabout from Sukarno's flamboyant style of diplomacy marked by
anti-imperialist, anticolonial, and anti-Western hyperbole. Soeharto's
special concern has been to improve ties with his Southeast Asian
neighbors who are grouped under the regional rubric of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Equally significant has been his sustained
effort to cultivate economic links with the industrially advanced Western
nations.

     Indonesia has supported the notion that Southeast Asia should be a
"zone of peace," unencumbered by the strains of major power rivalry involving
the United States, the Soviet Union, and China. In its assessment, regional
tension, whether from within or from external sources, would adversely
affect the developmental activities of Indonesia and other countries in the
region. Thus the government has usually maintained a low profile, seeking
to befriend many and antagonize none.

Constitutional Evolution

     The Constitution of 1945, still the legal basis for the state in 1982,
was initially drawn up on a temporary basis for a republican and unitary
form of government. It was framed at a time when the political situation
was highly unstable and the country was emerging as an independent nation.
The presidency was established as the central focus of power in that
Constitution. The document could not be implemented, however, because of the
four-year Indonesian struggle for full freedom and independence from the
Dutch in the 1945-49 period. After the Dutch finally agreed in November 1949
to relinquish full sovereignty to what was then called the Republic of the
United States of Indonesia (RIS), a different provisional constitution was
adopted in February 1950. That document provided for a federation of 16
equal states, RIS-made up of Java and Sumatra-being one of them (see The
Decision to Grant Independence, ch. 1). The concept of federalism was not
welcomed by the unity-conscious, militant nationalists, who denounced it
as not only a Dutch scheme to retain its influence but also an obstacle to the
development of national integration.

     Amid mounting indications of separatist sentiments in various regions in
August 1950, still another interim constitution was proclaimed, abolishing
federalism in favor of a centralized, unitary state. This was done without
strengthening the presidency, then held by Sukarno. Power was centered in a
cabinet that was answerable to a legislature, not the president. Sukarno
criticized the cabinet-centered structure as a Western invention, hardly
compatible with Indonesia's political heritage. During the 1950s, as the
country became plagued by armed rebellions and by partisan strife among
political parties and parochially oriented influence groups, Sukarno gradually
assumed an authoritarian role that went far beyond the limits of his
constitutionally sanctioned powers. His ascendancy was paralleled by the
growing role of senior army officers in the political process.

     In the mid-1950s the Sukarno regime began drafting a permanent
constitution, but the effort was stymied by disagreements among the 402
members of the constituent assembly. The assembly was unable to resolve
whether Indonesia should be secular or Islamic and whether the state should be
federal or unitary. In July 1959, under mounting pressure from the army,
Sukarno dismissed the constituent assembly and by decree reinstated the 1945
Constitution, of which he had been among the nine signers. He immediately
promised the nation that the 1945 document would make it possible for the
establishment of a constitutional order, which suited "the soul