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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies

ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20

VILLAGE GOVERNMENT AND RURAL
DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA: THE NEW
DEMOCRATIC FRAMEWORK
Hans Antlöv
To cite this article: Hans Antlöv (2003) VILLAGE GOVERNMENT AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN
INDONESIA: THE NEW DEMOCRATIC FRAMEWORK, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies,
39:2, 193-214, DOI: 10.1080/00074910302013
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074910302013

Published online: 17 Jun 2010.

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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Vol. 39, No. 2, 2003: 193–214

VILLAGE GOVERNMENT AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN
INDONESIA: THE NEW DEMOCRATIC FRAMEWORK
Hans Antlöv

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Ford Foundation, Jakarta
The political reforms that began in Indonesia in 1998 have created new opportunities for a revised relationship between state and community, replacing the New Order’s centralistic and uniform framework with local-level institutions that are strong
and responsive. This paper presents the new legal framework for the democratisation of local-level politics and village institutions. Representative councils have been
elected in all Indonesian villages, and the village head is no longer the sole authority

in the community. Village governments are provided with far-reaching autonomy
and do not need the approval of higher authorities to take decisions and implement
policies. However, decentralisation and democratisation are necessary but not sufficient preconditions for developing the countryside and alleviating poverty. An active government and civil society engagement must ensure that regulations are not
distorted during implementation, and that ordinary people are included in public
policy making and local governance.

One need not underestimate the real economic progress of Soeharto’s rural development programs to recognise the
negative social, political and cultural
impact his New Order regime had on
village communities. Hand in hand with
the emphasis on development went a
political imperative, the need to maintain order and political control in the
countryside. Thus village elites were
cultivated by economic and political
means, and recruited as loyal clients of
the New Order regime. A thumbnail
description of development strategy
under the New Order would include an
‘opening up’ of the economy to foreign
investment and capitalist development,

a ‘reaching out’ of the state into almost
all aspects of village life, and a ‘closing
down’ of politics, allowing no ideology
other than that sponsored by the state.
It was a fine example of top-down development (Schulte Nordholt 1981;

Hardjono 1983; MacAndrews 1986; Hart
1986; Maurer 1986; Quarles van Ufford
1987; Booth 1988; Hüsken 1988; Hart
1989; Hüsken and White 1989; Schweizer 1989; Antlöv 1995; and Cederroth
1995).
The price of state intervention in people’s lives and of this managerial approach to economic development was
high. Uniformity and standardisation,
destruction and twisting of the social
fabric, distortion of local leadership,
abuse of power, and widespread rent
seeking and corruption were but some
of the more acute and obvious costs
(Antlöv 2003a). The political scene
became tightly monopolised and controlled by state-backed leaders. Community-based institutions were coopted

and corrupted, and lost their credibility. The New Order’s seemingly well integrated system of ideology, legal
formalism, administration and develop-

ISSN 0007-4918 print/ISSN 1472-7234 online/03/020193-22

© 2003 Indonesia Project ANU

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194

mentalism provided little room for public shows of dissatisfaction.
Given the negative social consequences of past policies—and the ultimate failure of the New Order regime
to hold on to power—it would seem safe
to conclude that Indonesia will not engage in centralised and interventionist
programs of rural development in the
foreseeable future. Nor is this the time
to do so; the country’s main aid donors—the World Bank and the Asian
Development Bank—have left these
large-scale state-sponsored projects behind. There will probably not be any

grand schemes at all to develop the Indonesian countryside. Instead, the
present government is promoting a
far-reaching and radical process of decentralisation and regional autonomy—
codified in Law 22 of 1999 on Regional
Governance and Law 25 of 1999 on the
Fiscal Balance between the Centre and
the Regions—which is pushing poverty
alleviation and rural development
schemes down to provinces and districts
(Hidayat and Antlöv forthcoming; Daly
and Fane 2002).
The reforms that began in 1998 have
created new opportunities for a revised
relationship between state and community. There is today a momentum to replace the New Order’s centralistic and
uniform framework with local-level institutions that are strong, responsive and
effective. People across Indonesia are
promoting a new paradigm, based on
local knowledge, autonomy, and sustainable and equitable development.
This article investigates the emerging
new democratic framework for local

governance and autonomy in Indonesia’s 62,500-odd villages, and considers the consequences this will have for
future rural development programs. It
argues that decentralisation and democratisation are necessary but not suffi-

Hans Antlöv

cient preconditions for developing the
countryside and alleviating poverty.
There must also be active government
and civil society engagement to ensure
that regulations are not distorted during implementation, and there must be
regulations and practices that ensure
that ordinary people, and not only the
elite, are included in public policy making and local governance at community
level.
THE NEW ORDER LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR VILLAGE
GOVERNANCE
The late colonial and early independence period was characterised by what
John Legge (1961: 21) called ‘a rather
confusing body of legislation’. Colonial

legislation recognised village governments but did not actually regulate
them—it encouraged self-rule and thus
reinforced the diversity of existing
forms.1 Its aim was to incorporate villages into the state administration,
preserving their right to organise in traditional ways but making them the lowest administrative unit and allowing
them to be taxed (Breman 1980).
This diversity of government forms
was later incorporated into the young
Republic through the 1945 Constitution,
in which the government recognised
‘the approximately 250 self administering units and communities … such as
the desa in Java and Bali, the nagari in
Minangkabau [West Sumatra], the
dusun and marga in Palembang [South
Sumatra] …’. The Constitution went on
to say: ‘The Republic of Indonesia respects the status of said special regions
and all State regulations regarding them
shall pay heed to [mengingati] their historical rights [hak asal-usul].’2 This view
became the official position of subsequent legislation during the Soekarno
period. Law 22 of 1948 on Regional Gov-

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Village Government and Rural Development: The New Democratic Framework

ernment, Law 1 of 1957 on Basic Regional Government, and finally Law 19 of
1965 on Village Government [Desapraja] reinforced the right of villages to organise themselves within a unitary
Republic of Indonesia.
Coming into the New Order, there
was thus a confusing mixture of more
or less autonomous government structures often coexisting with strong regional sentiment (as exemplified by the
regional rebellions of the 1950s). Furthermore, the village was to a large extent beyond the reach of the central
government (as illustrated in the East
Java study of Jay 1969). This was not
conducive to the control and access
needed by Soeharto: he wished to design a uniform structure and a clear hierarchy giving the central government
power over local communities. The existing legislation was therefore insufficient. The new framework was outlined
in Law 5 of 1979 on Village Governance
and its subsequent implementing decrees, regulations and technical guidelines.
According to the logic of Law 5/1979,

the two pillars of the New Order—
economic development and national
stability—could be achieved only if the
centre was in full control of the countryside, supervising village government.
To ‘sustain development in all sections
across Indonesia and to achieve the national aspirations of Pancasila—a just
and prosperous society, material as well
as spiritual, for the people of Indonesia—there is a need to strengthen
village government’ (Law 5/1979, Elucidation, section 1.3). The architects of
the New Order used local communities
as vehicles to achieve development and
stability and, indirectly (by delivering
these ‘goods’), legitimacy. Local communities had to be made ‘legible’ and
simplified so that the New Order gov-

195

ernment could achieve its aims of control and manipulation.3
With the passage of the 1979 law, village affairs were brought firmly under
the supervision and control of higher

authorities, and village structures were
recast within a single homogeneous
mould, designed by the Department of
Home Affairs in Jakarta and tightly preserved by an army of loyal extension
officers and village branches of state
organisations. Communities were standardised (penyeragaman bentuk—
Elucidation, section 4), effectively disallowing—and in the process virtually
destroying—traditional governance
structures. It was a regimentation of
village life that would deeply and negatively affect communities for decades—
it destroyed community institutions and
traditional social security mechanisms.
The first paragraph of Law 5/1979
clearly defined the subordinate nature
of the village: it was ‘the lowest level of
the government structure directly under
the subdistrict head’ (organisasi pemerintah terendah langsung di bawah Camat,
paragraph 1). While the law stated that
the village had ‘the right to manage its
own affairs’, it immediately noted that

this ‘does not mean autonomy’ (Elucidation, section 7). The village head was
‘positioned as the instrument of the central government, of the regional government and of the village government’
(Law 5/1979, paragraph 3.1). Village
heads owed their power to higher authorities, and could do little without the
approval of subdistrict and district governments. Village decisions and the village budget required approval (pengesahan)
by the district chair (Elucidation, paragraph 19). This meant the total submission of the village heads and, through
them, the village population, in which
there was no room for innovation from
below or for aspirations (political or oth-

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196

erwise) that did not accord with those
of higher authorities (Schulte Nordholt
1981; Hüsken 1988; Antlöv 1995; Holland 1999). Village administrations
became for all practical purposes miniature replicas of the central government, enforcing decrees and policies
determined from above. A myriad of
government agencies were present in
the countryside and various ministries
set up programs and institutions in every village. ‘Electricity Comes to the Village’ (Listrik Masuk Desa), ‘The Military
Comes to the Village’ (ABRI Masuk
Desa), ‘Television Comes to the Village’
(TV Masuk Desa), ‘Student Community
Service’ (Kuliah Kerja Nyata) and a variety of other government programs firmly incorporated the village into the
Indonesian state. Although this was part
of a modernisation process that took
place simultaneously in other Asian
countries, rural development in Indonesia was intricately connected with the
New Order state. In a variety of ways,
citizens learnt that economic progress
was the product of the New Order and,
ultimately, of President Soeharto, on
whom the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) in 1983 bestowed the official
title of ‘Bapak Pembangunan Indonesia’
or ‘Father of Indonesian Development’.4
The authority and power of village
leaders came from their contacts with
higher authorities, and they became
what I have described elsewhere as
‘clients of the state’ (Antlöv 1995: ch.
7–8). Whether lured by privileged access
to funds or forced by intimidation, virtually all leaders, local notables and
people with prestige and authority inevitably became state clients. Significantly, these state clients were not
foreign officials arriving in government
jeeps: they were community leaders,
people’s neighbours. Their presence in
everyday life—praying next to you at
the mosque, sharing a meal at the local

Hans Antlöv

food stall, cheering the same team at a
soccer match—was an important factor
in explaining the stability and legitimacy of the New Order. Since these leaders represented multiple forms of power
(as religious teachers, as local notables,
as landlords, as village officials), if one
source of authority dried up they could
always rely on other sources. The structure of local politics built by the New
Order government was thus based on
intimate personal relations and on patronage.
Two government decrees codified
this system of state monopoly and patronage. An MPR decision in 1971 outlined the principle of the ‘floating mass’
(massa mengambang). This decision (later codified in Law 3 of 1975 on Political
Organisations) banned political activities below the district level, signalling
the end of political pluralism and the last
hope of democracy under the New Order—only the state party, Golkar (Soeharto’s electoral machine), was allowed
to organise in the countryside. A second
piece of legislation, a 1970 Presidential
Instruction (Inpres No. 6/1970), introduced the principle of ‘singular loyalty’
(mono-loyalitas), forcing all civil servants—and this in practice also included village officials—to support Golkar
(Reeve 1985: 288). Members of the village elite were thus forced to focus on
maintaining good relations with higher
authorities, at the expense of relations
with the local population who were their
neighbours.
Village leaders, the loyal state clients,
became the axis around which governance, politics and funds circulated. So
while heads were powerless in relation
to higher authorities, they were, in exchange for their subordination and loyalty, endowed with almost unlimited
powers within their community. Each
became the ‘sole authority’ (kuasa tunggal) and the most powerful figure in the

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Village Government and Rural Development: The New Democratic Framework

village. Paragraph 3 of Law 5/1979 defined the village government as consisting of two parts: the head (and his staff)
and the Village Consultative Assembly
(Lembaga Musyawarah Desa, LMD).
However, there was no separation of
powers between the head and the LMD.
The head was ex officio the chair of the
LMD, and the village secretary was ex
officio LMD secretary (as was the case
with the Village Community Resilience
Board, the Lembaga Ketahanan Masyarakat Desa, LKMD).5 Other members
were appointed directly by the head, in
consultation with the subdistrict government and, typically, the Babinsa (Bintara Pembina Desa, the Village Guidance
Army Officer). The LMD had no importance in the village, beyond ‘rubberstamping’ the head’s decisions. The
village government was responsible
only to higher authorities, represented
by the subdistrict chair (Law 5/1979,
paragraph 10.2). There were no mechanisms for the village population to hold
the village head accountable. The head
was in a very paradoxical situation: extremely powerful in the village but virtually powerless in relation to higher
authorities.6 The result was a village
leadership that was both weak and
coopted (seen from above) and strong
and authoritarian (seen from below),
and one that certainly was not responsive to the village population.
THE POST-1999 LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR VILLAGE
GOVERNANCE
This was the situation during the two
decades between 1979 and 1999. There
have been a number of far-reaching
changes since—not only democratisation but, equally importantly, a process
of decentralisation, providing autonomous decision making to districts and
villages through Law 22 of 1999. Elsewhere I have discussed in more detail

197

the decentralisation aspects of Law 22/
1999 (Hidayat and Antlöv forthcoming);
I here note only some of its more prominent features. The first is the autonomy
given to district governments. In the
past, services were deconcentrated to
local governments, but decision making
was retained in Jakarta. With Law 22
and its sister Law 25 on financial devolution, districts and municipalities have
the leverage to raise their own revenues,
deliver services and decide upon local
policies without interference from higher authorities (this includes policies on
villages). The other new feature of Law
22/1999 is the separation of powers between the executive and legislative
branches of government, and the empowerment of local people’s representative councils (DPR-D), which are no
longer merely ‘rubber-stamping’ decisions taken by the executive.
However, Law 22/1999 not only outlines district-level decentralisation; importantly it also replaces Law 5/1979 on
Village Governance. The sections of Law
22/1999 outlining village governance
are in paragraphs 93 to 111. Table 1 summarises the important differences between Laws 5/1979 and 22/1999.
This comparison between the two
laws conveys their different character
and intent. Law 22/1999 clearly states
(Elucidation, section 9.1) that the basis
for the new regulations on village government is ‘diversity, participation, genuine autonomy, democratisation and
people’s empowerment’. Even though
these concepts reflect high moral principles whose practice may be fairly shallow, there is a sense of real change in
the law. The preamble (point ‘e’) says
that ‘Law 5 of 1979 … was not in accordance with the spirit of the 1945 Constitution, and it is necessary to recognise
and respect the right to uphold specific
regional origins’. The law was passed in
May 1999, one month before the demo-

198

Hans Antlöv
TABLE 1 Village Governance in the 1979 and 1999 Laws

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Law 5/1979

Law 22/1999

Definition of village A territorial entity

A legal community

Terms for village
and village head

Mandatory use of desa and kepala
desa throughout Indonesia

Districts can legislate for the use
of traditional terms

Establishment of
new village

Initiated by subdistrict, approved Initiated by villagers, approved
by district head and district
by district
People’s Representative Council

Village institutions

Appointed Village Consultative
Assembly (LMD) and Village
Community Resilience Board
(LKMD) under the authority of
the village head; no other institutions permitted

Elected Village Representative
Boards (BPD, Badan Perwakilan
Desa) with far-reaching rights
and autonomy, plus other
institutions that the village or
district sees fit to establish

Village
government

Head and LMD, inseparably

Head and BPD as separate
entities, but ‘partners’

Village head

Appointed by and accountable
to the district; maximum term of
office 16 years

Appointed by and accountable
to BPD, after approval from
district; maximum term of office
10 years

Village officials

Appointed by village head,
approved by district

Elected or appointed, approved
by BPD

Dismissal of head

Proposed by subdistrict,
approved by district

Proposed by BPD, approved by
district

Village legislation

Drafted by village head and
LMD, approved by subdistrict

Drafted and approved by BPD
together with village head

Village budget

Drafted by village head and
LMD, approved by district

Drafted and approved by BPD
together with village head

Village funding

Block grant from district

Block grant and local sources

Village-owned
enterprises

Not allowed

Allowed

Indices of
autonomy

None: villages strictly under the
authority of the subdistrict

Villagers have the right to reject
governmental programs not
accompanied by funds, personnel or infrastructure, and to
draft regulations

Implementation
and oversight

Ministry of Home Affairs

District government and
People’s Representative Council

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Village Government and Rural Development: The New Democratic Framework

cratic national elections, and hence the
People’s Representative Council (DPR)
that passed it was still that elected in
1997; this New Order-era DPR thus publicly acknowledged that Law 5/1979 violated the spirit of the Constitution. (The
same criticism is raised against Law 5/
1974 in point ‘d’ of the preamble). It had
become clear that Law 5/1974 and Law
5/1979 provided a framework that was
too narrow, rigid and authoritarian.
Aspirations
from
below, diversity and local conditions
were not accommodated. Law 5/1979
had become part of the problem it was
originally intended to solve: how to regulate villages and structure their government in the most efficient way. So
although there was very little public
pressure to revise Law 5/1979, the Ministry of Home Affairs decided to abandon it and replace it with the new Law
on Regional Governance.
The section of Law 22/1999 on village
government appears fairly favourable to
local democracy—more so than most
people expected of the Ministry of Home
Affairs and the Soeharto-era DPR. The
law has four major democratic features.
First it ‘liberates’ the village from the
authority of higher levels of government. The village is no longer under the
authority of the subdistrict, but is an
autonomous level of government. 7
Importantly, a village is a legal community (kesatuan masyarakat hukum, paragraph 1.o), rather than a territorial entity
(suatu wilayah yang ditempati oleh sejumlah penduduk sebagai kesatuan masyarakat,
Law 5/1979, paragraph 1.o). It has the
right to raise funds, and does not need
to consult with or have approval from
higher authorities to pass village regulations or budgets. Villages even have
the right to reject projects from other
levels of government if they are not accompanied by funds, personnel and infrastructure (Elucidation, paragraph

199

100), and to act as entities in legal matters (Elucidation, general section 9.3).
Second, Law 22/1999 provides space
for diversity and responsiveness to local aspirations. According to paragraph
1.o, a village can be called by any traditional name (desa atau yang disebut dengan nama lain): in West Sumatra nagari,
in Central Sulawesi lembang, in South
Sumatra marga, and so on (paragraph
1.o).8 The village is to be ‘based on local
origins and customs’ (berdasarkan asalusul dan adat-istiadat setempat) (paragraph 1.o). The same is true for the
position of village head: whatever traditional concept was in use before the
old law came into effect can again be
used. (The right to change the name is
devolved to local DPR-Ds.)9
The third democratic feature is the
introduction of village councils (Badan
Perwakilan Desa, BPD), replacing the illreputed LMD. The BPD is a democratic
village organisation, consisting of 5–13
members, depending on village size,
elected ‘by and from villagers’ (paragraphs 104–5). The BPD has the power
to draft village legislation, to approve
the village budget, and to monitor village government. It even has the right
to propose to the district chair that the
village head be removed (though the
decision is taken by the district government). This is a clear departure from the
past, when higher authorities, through
the village head, decided what the village needed and wanted. Local regulations and budgets are now to be decided
jointly by the BPD and the village head,
and higher authorities need only to be
informed of their decisions.
Fourth, and related to the above, is
the accountability of the village government (Bennett 2002). While Law 5/1979
stated that the village government
consisted jointly of the village head and
the LMD, and that they were accountable only to the subdistrict office, Law

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200

22/1999 provides for a separation of
powers. The reformed village government consists of the head and his staff,
and the BPD (paragraph 94). The village
head is responsible to the village population through the BPD; he must submit
an annual accountability report, which
the BPD can contest. He must also provide a report each year to the district
chair, but this report is only an administrative matter and cannot be contested (paragraph 94). The village head is
thus not primarily oriented upwards;
rather he is accountable to the village
population and must answer questions
at BPD meetings.
These regulations constitute nothing
less than a quiet revolution in the countryside, not only providing a mechanism
for checks and balances in village
government, but also revising the old
paradigm of villagers as objects of
development to one in which villagers
have the right to exercise their democratic authority over public matters. The
authority and autonomy of the BPD is
far greater than that of the former LMD.
The BPD is nothing short of a village parliament, the community-level legislative
body, with all the democratic expectations that come with such a function.
There is to be no political screening of
candidates to the village headship or the
BPD, although candidates must fulfil
certain criteria, including a minimum
education level and a maximum age
(and they must adhere to the 1945 Constitution and the state ideology, Pancasila). The previously mandatory (and
controversial) LKMD (note 5) has an uncertain future. Law 22/1999 states that
the village has the right to establish independent organisations as it sees fit.
The LKMD is not referred to in the law,
although, as we shall see, an implementing regulation mentions it and the equally discredited women’s organisation

Hans Antlöv

PKK (Pembinaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga, the Family Welfare Association) as
examples of such organisations (Kepmen 64/1999, paragraph 45).
There are two further regulations
that carry significant consequences for
village democracy and autonomy. Presidential Decree 5/1999, signed by then
President B.J. Habibie on 26 January
1999, is a little known regulation that
soberly states that civil servants may not
be active members of political parties.
This was part of the revision of the electoral system ahead of the 1999 elections,
but it has had consequences far beyond
that. In effect, it means that the principle of mono-loyalitas is abolished. At
around the same time, the ‘floating
mass’ principle was also abandoned,
through Law 2 of 1999 on Political Parties, which states (paragraph 11) that political parties may have branches at
subdistrict and village levels. Together,
these provisions mean that the control
that Golkar and the government once
held over civil servants and village leaders has been dismantled. Golkar is no
longer the sole political authority in the
village, and village officials are no longer ‘clients of the state’. A plurality of
voices, leaders and parties has emerged.
THE IMPLEMENTING
REGULATIONS
A law provides the framework for what
is legally possible, but it is only in its
implementation that we can know
whether the possibilities are realised. I
now move beyond the national-level
legislation to the implementing regulations—the ministerial decrees, technical
instructions and district regulations. I
then discuss how these have been executed in practice in a village in West
Java.
As one of the first implementing regulations of Law 22/1999, Ministerial

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Village Government and Rural Development: The New Democratic Framework

Decision (Kepmen) 64/1999 on General
Guidelines for Village Regulations, issued by the Minister of Home Affairs,
was adopted by the Habibie cabinet in
September 1999. Unfortunately, this regulation introduced some quite serious
distortions of the spirit of the law. For
instance, while Law 22 (paragraph 104)
states that village regulations are produced by the BPD, Kepmen 64 (paragraph 48) mentions ‘village regulations
produced by the village head and/or the
BPD’. Nor is the regulation internally
consistent: paragraph 16.1.g states that
village regulations are created jointly by
the head and the BPD. The democratic
distortion continues in the references to
the annual budget. According to Law
22/1999 (paragraph 107.3), ‘the village
headman together with [bersama] the BPD
determines the village budget’ (my emphasis). In Kepmen 64 (paragraph 60)
this right is given to the village head,
without mention of the BPD; the only
right given to the BPD in relation to the
budget is one of supervision (paragraph
36.c). Given the strong powers of the
village government under the New Order, such weak formulations could in
practice allow the village head effectively to bypass the BPD. Furthermore, the
separation of powers between the village head and the BPD is muddled in
Kepmen 64. While Law 22 clearly states
that the village head is responsible to the
BPD through an annual accountability
report, the interpretation given in Kepmen 64 is that the BPD ‘sits on the same
level [as] and as a partner to the Village
Government’ [BPD berkedudukan sejajar
dan menjadi mitra dari Pemerintah Desa]
(paragraph 35). Kepmen 64 also states
that the ‘other institutions’ [Lembaga
Lain] that are allowed under Law 22 , to
develop community life in the countryside (paragraph 106), must have a
development planning focus, and

201

mentions the (discredited) New Order
LKMD and PKK as examples of such
institutions (Kepmen 64, paragraph
45–47). I could continue, but the general point about distortion of the intent of
Law 22/1999 has been made.
Critics have argued that the implementing regulations, and particularly
Kepmen 64, depart from the spirit of
Law 22/1999 by elaborating too much
on the structure of village government
(FPPM 2001; Zacharia 2000; Juliantara
2002). Rather than allowing for local
variation, Kepmen 64/1999 details what
the village government should look like,
stipulating, for example, the 13 requirements of a candidate for village head.10
What the regulation should have done,
commentators have argued, is provide
the general regulations for the establishment of various village institutions and
leave the details of the institutions themselves for local governments to determine (see, for example, FPPM 2001, the
Academic White Paper produced by the
Forum for Popular Participation [Forum
Pengembangan Partisipasi Masyarakat],
a non-governmental network of community activists and village governance
researchers).
These distortions become even starker in the 13 implementing regulations
that each of Indonesia’s 288 districts (the
2003 figure) is required by Kepmen
64/1999 to draft, on subjects ranging
from BPD elections to village enterprises. Even by late 2002, more than three
years after Law 22/1999 and Kepmen
64 were passed and two years after the
legislation came into effect, many districts, according to Home Affairs officials, had yet to complete all the decrees.
We cannot look systematically at even a
fraction of what might eventually be
close to 3,000 district decrees, but it may
be interesting to investigate one particular case.

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The 13 district decrees (Peraturan
Daerah—Perda) in the West Java highland district of Sumedang were signed
by the district chair on 4 March 2000,
after having been drafted by the district
secretariat and approved by the local
DPR-D. The decrees begin by repeating
the basic text of Kepmen 64 word by
word, including the inconsistencies with
Law 22/1999, such as that the BPD is a
partner to the local government and that
village regulations are formulated jointly by consensus between these two parties. In their elaboration, many decrees
introduce further potential conflicts
with Law 22/1999. For instance, Perda
30/2000, on the establishment, election
and duties of the BPD, introduces a requirement for ‘administrative selection’
of candidates. This might sound like a
harmless formula, but because elections
for village head during the New Order
were tightly controlled, in part through
political screening of candidates, mention of ‘selection’ in Indonesia evokes
memories of a not too distant past in
which higher authorities could control
who was to be elected.
The Decree on Community Organisations (38/2000) distorts even further
the intent of Law 22/1999. After repeating the misinterpretation that other
village-level institutions can be active
only in development planning, and detailing their internal structure, paragraph 8 states that existing community
organisations (and LKMD and PKK are
again specifically mentioned) should ‘be
made to conform [disesuaikan] with these
regulations’. In practice, this means that
the ‘community organisations’ in Sumedang are the unpopular LKMD and
PKK, and little more than this. A further
example is Perda 39/1999 on the
‘Empowerment, Preservation and Development of Tradition, Customs and
Traditional Institutions’. Paragraph 4.4

Hans Antlöv

of this decree states that the ‘objective
of developing traditions and customs is
to raise their roles to support the process
of economic development and national stability’ (my emphasis). This carries more
than a hint of the New Order spirit of
cultural engineering—social institutions
are instrumental in character and they
must be developed with certain political aims in mind. Nothing of the kind is
found in Law 22/1999.
One weakness in Law 22/1999 is that
a number of paragraphs are very loosely worded and thus open to more than
one interpretation. For example, in the
section on BPD elections, Law 22/1999
states simply that ‘members of the BPD
should be elected from and by villagers’
(paragraph 105). This is a great improvement on Law 5/1979 in which the village head, who chaired the LMD, also
appointed its members. But since Law
22/1999 does not specify how the elections should be organised, local government has at times interpreted this (in
particular, the word ‘elected’) in ways
that are less than democratic (Antlöv
forthcoming). Some districts are using
what they call formatur or electoral colleges (in the US sense), appointed by
hamlets, to elect village heads. Other
districts allow only household heads to
vote in the BPD election, thus disenfranchising the majority of women. Most
districts use direct elections (similar to
the kind used to elect the village head),
but the vagueness of Law 22/1999 has
nonetheless allowed a degree of variance in practice.
We now go one step further down the
legal hierarchy, to the Technical Instructions (Petunjuk Pelaksanaan, or Juklak)
that are distributed by a district government to villages to provide technical
assistance in executing a district decree.
In Petunjuk Pelaksanaan 2/2000 on BPD
Elections in Sumedang, the inconsisten-

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cies with Law 22/1999 continue: the
Sumedang decree on BPD elections
states that ‘a BPD Electoral Commission
shall be established’ (a commission not
mentioned in Law 22 or Kepmen 64); the
technical instruction takes this one step
further, stating that the electoral commission ‘shall be established by the Village Government’. The Juklak repeats
that the commission has the right to ‘select administratively’ who can be a BPD
candidate. It also states that the various
‘village powers’ must ‘consult’ with the
village government to identify potential
candidates. This provides the legal
framework for the village head to reject
electoral commission candidates on administrative grounds, and to appoint
loyal followers to the commission,
which then decides who may stand for
election to the BPD.
We have in this section noted the
gradual deterioration of the democratic
character of village government regulation as it moves down the administrative ladder. While Law 22 outlined the
legal framework for a more democratic
and responsive village government, the
end result, as the law has been implemented, is an overregulated and, in important respects, pseudo-democratic
body of regulations, decrees and instructions that outline in detail what village
government must look like, and do not
acknowledge local variation and self-determination. Since we can expect that
village governments will implement
whatever technical instructions they receive from higher authorities (whether
district or central government), rather
than the ‘spirit’ of the law itself, which
few village heads will read, this is a serious distortion.
There is a technical legal issue here.
Since Law 22/1999 is the higher-level
law, implementing regulations may not
contradict it. There are at the Depart-

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ment of Home Affairs today hundreds
of Perda that appear to contradict Law
22. Reviewing these is a time consuming and messy process and, to this
author’s knowledge, none of the regulations on village governance has yet
been challenged.
These distortions and the practices
they allow have to a certain extent been
recognised by the Ministry of Home Affairs, and Kepmen 64/1999 has been revised. It was replaced in November 2001
by Government Regulation (PP) 76 of
2001, ‘General Guidelines for Village
Regulations’.11 Unfortunately, only minor details have been changed; the basic distortions remain. Meanwhile, the
thousands of District Regulations introduced under Kepmen 64/1999 are still
in force.
Many civil society groups, community activists and researchers are urging
that mechanisms of public participation
and transparency should be put at the
forefront of a possible revision of Law
22/1999. At a meeting on 23 August
2001 organised by the Ministry of Home
Affairs and FPPM, the above mentioned
draft White Paper presented by FPPM
described the ideal village community
(FPPM 2001). The term used by this civil
society consortium is ‘village community autonomy’ (otonomi masyarakat
desa), not ‘village autonomy’ (otonomi
desa) as the government proposes. This
is a crucial distinction, since it locates
governance issues at the lowest level, in
communities, empowering people and
not government. It is the people of the
village that should be given the right to
decide their own future, not the village
government. In order to achieve this,
FPPM has suggested quite radical
changes to Law 22/1999. Rather than
introducing forms, such as the BPD and
village head, the draft White Paper
proposes that the revised law should in-

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troduce the functions of a village government and a legislative body, and allow
regions, or perhaps even villages, to decide the forms for themselves. The central government should only make sure
that the functions mentioned in the law,
which include mechanisms of transparency, power sharing and accountability, are properly carried out by villages.
In arguing this, FPPM is placing the
emphasis on the method by which the
institutions of village governance are
put in place, rather than the form that
those institutions take.
THE REGULATIONS IN PRACTICE:
A CASE STUDY FROM WEST JAVA
Law 22/1999 came into effect on 1 January 2001. Elections to BPDs have been
held across the country from mid 2000,
and new governance and leadership
structures are slowly emerging, replacing the institutions of the New Order.
This section discusses the workings of
the BPD and post-reformasi rural leadership as I have observed them in the
village of ‘Sariendah’ (not its real name),
just outside the town of Majalaya in the
West Java district of Bandung. This is a
community that I have followed for the
past 15 years (see Antlöv 1995 for a full
monograph on the village).
Sariendah is a modern, semi-urban
village some 20 minutes by frequent
minibus from Majalaya, the former textile centre of Indonesia, with hundreds
of small factories still producing woven
cloth for domestic consumption. More
than half the population of Sariendah
works in textile factories, some in Majalaya, others in Sariendah. During the
past two decades, impressive economic
growth has created an incipient middle
class in the village (Antlöv 1999). Some
15 years ago, Sariendah had no electricity. Today, there is a video rental shop
and a computer software stall. Government programs in agriculture, credit

Hans Antlöv

schemes, family planning and education
have been implemented fairly successfully. Sariendah has more than once won
the ‘Best Village’ competition held each
year in the subdistrict.
Until 1998 Sariendah was a Golkar
stronghold. Almost all local notables
were recruited—encouraged, persuaded, coopted or coerced—into the village
bureaucracy. In the mid 1980s, the village administration consisted of some
178 official positions in 18 organisations,
including the LMD, the LKMD, the Islamic Teachers Council (Majelis Ulama),
the Association of Active Youth (Karang
Taruna), and the neighbourhood administrative units, Rukun Warga and Rukun
Tetangga (Antlöv 1995: 51–5). But there
was not a fair distribution of public offices in Sariendah. With few exceptions,
leaders were from the village elite, and
important political offices were distributed among a restricted number of families: the 178 offices were occupied by
95 persons; of these, 49 persons held one
position, 30 held two positions and 12
held three or four positions. At the centre there were four individuals, led by
the village head, who between them
held a total of 29 offices. In spite of their
power, however, they had little autonomy, and the head strictly enforced decrees and policies determined from
above, visiting Majalaya almost daily to
meet with government agencies on this
or that policy or decision. It was a typical New Order village (for other good
village studies, see Hart 1986; Hardjono
1987; Hüsken 1988; Schweizer 1989;
Warren 1993; Cederroth 1995; and Suwondo 1997).
How much of this has changed today,
with the implementation of Law 22/
1999 and the introduction of the BPD?
The Bandung district government
passed the implementing regulations on
village governance quite early, in May–
June 2000. The two decrees on the BPD

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(relating to elections and functions) are
fairly straightforward and in line with
Law 22 and Kepmen 64. Candidates for
the BPD can be proposed by individuals or organisations, and all residents 18
years and older have the right to vote
through universal and secret balloting.
Sariendah is a large village (approximately 10,000 people), so there are 13
members in the BPD. There were 25 candidates who passed the eligibility
screening and two who did not: criteria
include completion of secondary education, that candidates have lived in the
village for five years, and that they are
‘loyal and faithful to Pancasila and the
1945 Constitution’. Village head elections have always been very competitive events, and so was the BPD election
in 2000. Candidates campaigned in their
home hamlets for votes, and posters
were seen all around the village with
photos of candidates. Some of the more
energetic candidates provided meals
and cigarettes to potential voters.
Voting took place on a Sunday in September 2000, when people were off
work, and most people voted—some
75%, according to official statistics. The
voting process for the BPD was similar
to that for national and village head elections. The ballot paper had photos of the
25 candidates, and voters had to punch
a hole for the candidate of their choice.
The same polling stations were used as
during the 1999 national general elections, in 12 places around the village.
No-one complained that voting was
anything but free and fair. As is usually
the case in local politics in Java,
residence and family relations were important determinants of voting behaviour—when people talked about which
candidate they supported, it was someone whom they knew or who lived in
their hamlet.
Of the 13 elected candidates, four
were new to the village government,

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while nine had some kind of previous
experience. They had a variety of backgrounds: school teacher, religious
leader, factory worker, entrepreneur,
pensioner. Only one was a woman, and
only two were younger than 30 years.
The candidate with the most votes automatically became chair. He is a primary school teacher and son of a former
popular village head, and also shares
great-grandparents with the present
head. The runner-up automatically became secretary. She too is a primary
school teacher, but her popularity comes
from the fact that she is the most respected female Islamic teacher in Sariendah,
holding several classes per week for
women in different hamlets.
The BPD members were sworn in
immediately, and have met twice per
month during the initial two years. Kepmen 64/1999 requires BPDs to meet at
least once a year, but the Sariendah
members have taken their new task seriously. The relationship of the BPD with
the village government—the head and
his staff—is fairly good. The Sariendah
village head was elected after reformasi,
in December 1999, and has proved his
worth. He is energetic, sympathetic and
popular, and consults regularly with the
BPD.
In February 2001, the BPD approved
the village budget for 2001, drafted and
submitted by the village head. The total
budget was Rp 80 million ($8,000), compared with the Rp 8 million Sariendah
received in the past. Rp 50 million comes
from a block grant from the Bandung
government, and the remainder from
local revenues. The most important
sources of local revenue are house-tax,
charges for minibuses passing through
the village and income from a new
marketplace built in 2000 with Social
Safety Net funds.12 Budget funds have
been used for regular infrastructure development projects such as road and ir-

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rigation improvements, for the village
office, and to build an office for the BPD,
the first in the subdistrict. There has also
been discussion about building a swimming pool, to attract students through
compulsory swimming classes! This
might seem extravagant, but the pool
would be owned by the village, and revenues would go to the village budget.
Not everyone is in favour of this proposal, however.
The BPD is now the main institution
in the village. The LMD has disappeared, and the LKDM exists in a revised form, as the LPMD, the Lembaga
Pemberdayaan Masyarakat Desa, Village Community Empowerment Board
(my emphasis). It is still incorporated
into the state bureaucracy, but much
more loosely: no longer can the Department of Home Affairs impose its programs through its loyal clients. But the
village government and BPD in Sariendah still consult with the LPMD in
carrying out development programs.
The women’s equivalent, the PKK, is in
a similar position: it exists as a quasiindependent organisation but, without
the power to enforce policies from
above, it does not play an important
political role. The same is true of the
Babinsa. Sariendah still has a soldier
placed in the village, but his (informal
and formal) authority is much less pronounced than in the past. Finally, Golkar
has all but disappeared from Sariendah.
It ran second in the 1999 elections, to
everyone’s surprise (Antlöv 2003b), but
the village government has respected
the Habibie regulation that civil servants
may not join political parties, and has
not privileged Golkar. Parties per se are
not very important actors in local politics in Indonesia today, and Sariendah
is no exception. This will possibly
change during 2003–04, as the country
moves towards the new national elec-

Hans Antlöv

tion. There are no other political organisations in Sariendah, even though they
are permitted by Law 22/1999. With the
presence of the LPMD, there is some
minimal degree of organisational diversity, and people in Sariendah seem to
be satisfied by this.
In the past it was quite a comfortable
task to be a village official, with privileged access to funds and power, and
no checks and balances. It is different
today. On the one hand, the officials
are allocated an increased workload
through decentralisation. On the other,
they are being scrutinised by the BPD,
and are therefore less able to profit from
their positions. Candidates for the village headship can no longer be motivated primarily by the economic benefits
of office. There must be other rewards
for village officials, such as esteem and
popularity. The new head in Sariendah
thus talks about his jasa (‘service-mindedness’) and says that he is proud to represent the village. In this way, a new
type of village leader is being created,
with greater popular support than in the
past. But this is obviously something
that will not change overnight, especially in a society so c