The Legislature in Indonesia

The Legislature in Indonesia

Unlike in many other new democracies the legislature is a firmly established institution in Indonesian politics, the origins of which can be traced back to the immediate post-independence period. In the years of revolutionary struggle against the returning Dutch colonizers (1945–1949) and in the initial years of parliamentary democracy in the 1950s, the Indonesian legislature operated under a provisional status. But the 1955 elections, the first and, for more than four decades, only fair and free polls, elevated the Indonesian parliament to a democratically fully legitimated body, albeit only for the short period of 2 years (Feith, 1955 , 1962 ). In 1957, responding to political instability and separatist challenges, President Sukarno imposed emergency rule on the country which paved the way for the authoritarian transformation of Indonesia’s political system (Ricklefs, 1993 :255). Yet despite the early collapse of parliamentary democracy, studies published in the 1950s painted a more favorable picture of the legislature than official historiography during the Suharto era (Budiardjo, 1956 ).

While in many autocracies the rulers suspended or dissolved legislatures for long periods, in Indonesia President Sukarno as well as his successor, President Suharto, re-established the legislature a few years after assuming power. Sukarno suspended the legislature in 1957, but re-instated it in 1960 (Ricklefs, 1993 , p. 268). There was also no legislature in the initial years of Suharto’s New Order regime. However, starting in 1971, parliamentary elections were held every 5 years with the exception of the first legislative term of 6 years.

It was during the Suharto era that the Indonesian legislature (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, DPR) contracted its reputation of a rubber stamp. Until the end of the Suharto regime, elections were carefully managed by the regime. All candidates were thor- oughly screened by military intelligence and rejected when their loyalty to the Pancasila state doctrine and the Indonesian unitary state (NKRI) were in doubt or when they were suspected of leftist leanings. Recalcitrant legislators not toeing the regime’s policy line could be recalled. In 1974, the political party system was restructured and reduced from the ten parties contesting the 1971 elections to only one dominant (Golkar) and two minor quasi-opposition parties (Partai Demokrasi Indonesia, PDI, and Partai Persatuan Pembangunan, PPP). Based on the floating mass doctrine, which was based on the assumption that the majority of Indonesians lacked

6 The Legislature and Military Reform in Indonesia 125

the period between elections. By contrast, Golkar, officially not a political party, but rather a movement, received the full support of the military, state bureaucracy and the state-controlled media before and during the brief election campaigns.

This uneven electoral playing field found its equivalent in the provisions of the 1945 Constitution. The latter attached only two short articles to the legislature and explicitly ruled out the division of powers. The 1945 Constitution, temporarily replaced by the democratic 1950 Provisional Constitution, was reinstated by President Sukarno in 1959 and remained in force without amendment until the end of President Suharto’s New Order regime in 1998. It rested on an integration- alist, organicist, corporatist and, hence, anti-liberal and anti-pluralist concept of statehood which laid strong emphasis on leadership and vested much power in the presidency, leaving little political autonomy to the legislature (Bourchier, 1999 ; Reeve, 1985 ; Simantunjak, 1989).

The result was a docile legislature that between 1971 and 1997 did not initiate one single bill (Ziegenhain, 2008 , p. 73). All bills were drafted by the executive and passed with only minor amendments by the DPR. However, by the 1990s, under the impact of a gradual opening policy of the Suharto regime (keterbukaan), and factional rivalries in the military, the legislature began to emancipate itself from the tight control of the regime. Despite state repression, outspoken opposition legislators and a few maverick Golkar lawmakers openly defied regime policies. Towards the end of the Suharto era, the DPR for the first time returned draft bills to the government for major revisions. Even more importantly, in the absence of an independent and corruption-free judiciary, the DPR increasingly became the focus of petitions and complaints of the population about government abuses, thus adopting de facto ombudsman functions. The PDI especially courted the image of a small man’s party (orang kecil) to the extent that in July 1996 the regime engineered the disposal of party leader Megawati Sukarnoputri. In the final days of the Suharto regime, the DPR leadership defected to the protesting students, thereby expediting the resignation of President Suharto. The subsequent occupation of the parliament’s premises by some 2,000 students was a symbolic act as it conveyed the message that in a future system of government only a division of powers can curb the dominant position of the presidency and that a legislature with strong supervisory powers is a key requisite for avoiding a relapse into autocratic rule (R€uland, J€urgenmeyer, Nelson, & Ziegenhain, 2005 , pp. 47–48; Ziegenhain, 2008 ).

While most legislators of the ancien re´gime remained in office until the June 1999 parliamentary elections, there was nevertheless a legislature which had established rules of procedure, a functioning committee system and a modest research infrastructure. In other words, after regime change the legislature did not start from point zero. The legislature was further strengthened by a temporary de facto shift to parliamentarianism culminating in the impeachment of President Abdurrahman Wahid in July 2001 (Crouch, 2010 , p. 54) and constitutional amendments which explicitly vested it with legislative, budgetary and oversight functions (1945 Constitution, Art. 20 A) (Ufen, 2003 , p. 217).

When in 2004 the four constitutional amendments passed between 1999 and 2002 eventually took effect and returned Indonesia to a fully-fledged presidential

126 J. R€uland and M.-G. Manea system of government, the DPR had become a formidable player in Indonesia’s

political system. The DPR meets regularly in the plenary and even more frequently in the powerful 11 commissions (Sherlock, 2007 , p. 8). The latter organize public hearings, use their interpellation rights (Ufen, 2003 , p. 217; Widjajanto, Kurniawan, & Tirtawinata, 2008 , p. 12) and have a strong influence on decisions of the plenary (Sherlock, 2010 , p. 166). In fact, the plenary usually only ratifies decisions made in the commissions in a consensual way without voting (Sherlock, 2003 , pp. 11–16, 2010 , p. 166), a remnant of the organicist ideational roots of the Indonesian state. The new DPR also increasingly sharpened its oversight functions, even though critics charge that lawmakers often abuse their oversight functions as

a leverage to extract bribes or other favors from the executive (Sherlock, 2003 , p. 169; Ziegenhain, 2008 ). The new parliamentary assertiveness also extended to the field of defense policy. The latter is scrutinized and deliberated in the DPR’s Commission I (Komisi I) on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Information. Over time Commission I generated considerable media attention and frequent coverage of its activities. At the time of field work, it was composed of 49 members nominated by their party factions proportionately to faction size. It was supported by 20 staffers and had a budget of US$100,000. The Commission held three meetings a week, all open to the public, except for hearings on the intelligence budget (Born, 2006 , p. 60). It was well linked to think tanks, university institutes, civil society organizations and the media. Due to the fact that the membership of the Commission fluctuated only moderately during the legislature’s 5-year term, it acquired substantial specialist knowledge as

a collective body on defense matters.