The Legislature and Military Reform in Indonesia The Legislature and Military Representation

The Legislature and Military Reform in Indonesia The Legislature and Military Representation

In the Suharto era the military was represented in all of the country’s legislative bodies. In the DPR military representation varied slightly. From 1971 to 1977 75 out of the DPR’s 360 seats were reserved for the armed forces. In 1977 military seats increased to 100 in a 500-seat assembly, before in 1995, under increasing democratization pressures and tensions between the President and military factions, the number of military seats was again lowered to 75.

The military enjoyed even stronger representation in the People’s Consultative Assembly (Majlis Permusyawaratan Rakyat, MPR), which until 2004, as the country’s formally supreme political body, elected the president, heard the president’s accountability report and passed the Broad State Policy Guidelines (Garis-Garis Besar Haluan Negara, GBHN). In the New Order period the MPR was composed of all the members of the DPR, including the military faction, as well

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as so-called functional representatives and representatives of the regions, many of whom were retired or active military officers.

The rationale for military representation was the dwi fungsi (dual function) doctrine which vested the Indonesian armed forces with an external defense function and a domestic sociopolitical function. In the view of the Indonesian armed forces, dwi fungsi reflected the country’s historical experiences. The army’s vanguard role in defending the nation’s independence against the Dutch and the unity of the Indonesian state against communist, separatist and Islamist uprisings distinguish it from its counterparts in Western countries and justify its claim for an elevated political role.

Dwi fungsi found its expression in the armed forces’ territorial command structure paralleling the civilian administration from the center down to the village level. The territorial command structure not only gave the armed forces strong influence on civilian politics but also enabled it to conduct its commercial and intelligence activities (Honna, 2003 ; Human Rights Watch, 2006 ; Mietzner, 2008 ; Rabasa & Haseman, 2002 ; Sebastian, 2006 ; Schneier, 2008 , p. 307). Further reinforcing the military’s quest for political representation is the argument that Indonesian soldiers have no voting right, but that as guardians of the nation they must have a voice in policymaking. The reason why soldiers are denied voting rights is the fear that campaigning and party politics would have a divisive effect on the military institution and compromise the country’s security.

In the post-Suharto era, the military came under strong public pressure. The reform movement, which attributed the political repression and many of the human rights abuses of the New Order regime to the armed forces, sought to curb military influence and place it under civilian supremacy and democratic oversight. By embarking on internal reforms, the military tried to pre-empt these pressures. Its tactical retreat crystallized in a document discussed in September 1998 and published soon thereafter, the Paradigma Baru (New Paradigm). Its key points were the withdrawal of the armed forces from active politics by transforming the military’s sociopolitical staff into territorial staff, the resignation from the armed forces of military officers holding positions in the civilian bureaucracy, the separa- tion of police and military, the severance of the military’s ties with Golkar in order to ensure neutrality in elections and the name change from Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia (ABRI) to Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI) (Chrisnandi, 2006 ,

pp. 100–101; Hafidz, 2006 , pp. 118–119; Rinakit, 2005 , p. 106; Sukma, 2003 , 2006a , b ) (see also the contribution of Sebastian & Iisginarsah in this volume). However, for the reform movement the military’s internal reforms were far from sufficient. As the main beneficiary of the democratic reforms initiated by Suharto’s successor Habibie, an increasingly vocal and militant reform movement lobbied for much more sweeping reforms. The ensuing debate over the military seats in the legislature reached a first climax during the Special MPR session in November 1998.

The military itself was divided over the issue of representation in the country’s legislative bodies. On the one hand, there were reform-minded officers such as Maj. Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah, Maj. Gen. Agus Widjojo and Maj. Gen. Saurip Kadi who supported a full retreat from any form of political engagement while, on the

128 J. R€uland and M.-G. Manea stubbornly defended the right of the military to hold on to legislative power (Said,

2006 , p. 178). 1 Hari Sabarno, then Deputy House Speaker of the military faction, aptly summarized the armed forces’ rationale for retaining political representation by arguing that the “military was still needed in the House to act as mediator between political parties controlling influence among power holders.” 2

In the weeks prior to the Special MPR session, the debate over the future role of the military increasingly took the form of a power struggle between forces of the

ancien re´gime and the reform movement in which both sides mobilized in the streets. Rogue military elements were believed to be behind violence in East Java, the Moluccas, Aceh and Central Kalimantan (O’Rourke, 2002 , p. 166ff.), in an ostensible attempt to destabilize the struggling new democracy. The objective of these covert operations of military elements was driving home the message that only the military can guarantee public peace and order, with the implicit conclusion that it must retain its elevated role in the state. Unperturbed, the reform movement staged massive and unruly street demonstrations.

Tensions further heightened in the days prior to the Special MPR session. Afraid that massive demonstrations organized by the reform movement would jeopardize an orderly conduct of the session, the Habibie government and the military mobilized security forces including the hasty recruitment of paramilitary auxiliary units (Pamswakarsa) (Rinakit, 2005 , p. 96). The tensions eventually erupted in violent clashes between student demonstrators and the military near the Semanggi overpass in Jakarta, henceforth known as the Semanggi I incident, in which security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing 18 and wounding hundreds of people. 3

Under pressure from two sides by contending forces, on 28 January 1999, the DPR finally passed a package of laws paving the way to parliamentary elections. Given the fact that the military had the means of coercion, the intimidating postures it took during the public debate of the draft laws, and a DPR/MPR that was still composed of the legislators elected in the pre-reform 1997 polls, it was at least a partial success for the reform movement that after heavy wheeling and dealing behind the scenes, an initial, albeit uneasy compromise was eventually reached. Law No. 3/1999 on the composition of the MPR, DPR and regional representative bodies reduced military seats in the DPR from 75 to 38 and from 20% to 10% in the local legislatures (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah, DPRD) (International Crisis group, 2000 , p. 4; Honna, 2003 , p. 165). At the same time, the MPR’s seats were reduced from 1,000 to 700. It was henceforth composed of the 500 legislators of the DPR, 135 functional and 65 regional representatives (Ufen, 2002 , p. 514).

However, the compromise satisfied nobody. Thus, unsurprisingly, the tug-of-war over military representation went on and became a major issue in the debates on the constitutional amendments on which the Special MPR of 1998 had agreed.

1 See also, The Jakarta Post, 19 June 1998. 2 The Jakarta Post, 6 June 1998. 3 Asian Human Rights Commission ( http://www.humanrights.asia/news/forwarded-news/

FP-014-2007 ) (accessed 16 February 2012).

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Particularly for the more radical reformasi elements: the students, civil society organizations and also parts of the media, the compromise reached with the military in Laws No. 2, 3 and 4/1999 was unacceptable. 4

Accompanied by renewed violence (henceforth known as the Semanggi II incident) (Hafidz, 2006 , p. 138), the MPR ruled in its October 1999 session that the TNI must withdraw its representatives from the DPR by the end of the legisla-

tive term in 2004. 5 Yet the TNI insisted on retaining its seats in the MPR until 2009. When the MPR re-convened in August 2000, the issue about the TNI’s continued representation in the MPR had become a bargaining chip in the intensifying conflict between Habibie’s successor, President Abdurrahman Wahid, and the DPR. With erratic cabinet reshuffles and controversial interventions into the military promo- tion process favoring reformist officers led by Maj. Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah, Wahid had not only antagonized the main factions in the legislature such as Golkar, PDI-P and the Middle Axis of Islamic parties, but also the military leadership (Chrisnandi, 2007 , pp. 37–39). Wahid’s heavy-handed policies eventually forged an alliance between a majority of legislators and the military faction in the DPR with the objective of impeaching the president (The Editors, 2003 , p. 14). Wahid sought to ease the pressure by making concessions to the military leadership and shifting Agus and other reformist officers to less significant posts. But all these moves had only one effect: they markedly strengthened the military’s bargaining position. Thus, unsurprisingly, the leadership of the armed forces rejected a quid pro quo which would have ended military presence in the MPR in exchange for

voting rights for soldiers. 6 The TNI justified its refusal to leave the MPR early with the instability of the country, instability though, to which it had contributed by covert actions instigating communal violence in several parts of the country (O’Rourke, 2002 ).

The securitization of Indonesia’s constitutional debate resonated well among nationalist parties such as PDI-P and Golkar. 7 It enabled them to vent their

frustration over Wahid’s Cabinet reshuffles which cut them off from political patronage. In the process, some House leaders openly shared the military’s position, motivated also by the attempt to secure the armed forces’ support for their own presidential ambitions (Said, 2006 , p. 231). House Speaker and Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung, for instance, echoed TNI rhetoric by arguing “that the MPR still needed the contribution of the military and police during the transitional period.” 8

4 According to a survey on the perception of the military involving 2,000 respondents in Jakarta, Makassar, Medan and Surabaya conducted by the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the Jayabaya

University and Academy in Jakarta, nearly 60% of the respondents no longer wanted the military to have seats at the House of Representatives. See The Jakarta Post, 28 June 2000 http://www. thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID¼20000628.E01 (accessed 23 May 2008).

5 The Jakarta Post, 26 February 2000. 6 The Jakarta Post, 17 June 2002. 7 The Jakarta Post, 19 August 2000. 8 The Jakarta Post, 14 August 2000.

130 J. R€uland and M.-G. Manea Political parties, increasingly entangled in the conflict with the president, thus

sacrificed an early exit of the TNI from the MPR for the prospect of an alliance with the conservative mainstream in the armed forces. MPR Decree VII/2000 thus not only retained military presence in the MPR until 2009, but also stipulated that the TNI is responsible to the president and not to the minister of defense, thereby

granting a special role to the military untypical for consolidated democracies. 9 This maneuvering did not go down well with the reform movement. In the

August 2002 MPR session the issue of TNI representation surfaced once more dramatically. TNI chief Endriartono Sutarto’s demand to return to the 1945 Consti- tution (Ziegenhain, 2008 , p. 157) was a thinly veiled threat to derail the ongoing

constitutional amendment process at the very last minute. 10 In the end, however, amid coup rumors (Schuck, 2003 , p. 166), the TNI’s blackmailing strategy did not pay dividends. Reform pressures inside and outside the legislature prevailed and the MPR eventually decided in one of its rare majority (instead of consensual) votes to end TNI representation in the MPR by 2004. 11