Seeking Democratic Stabiliy in Divided Society: Institutional Design and Democratization in Indonesia

THE UNIVERSITY OF POTSDAM

FACULTY OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL SCIENCE

SEEKING DEMOCRATIC STABILITY

IN DIVIDED SOCIETY:

INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN AND DEMOCRATIZATION

IN INDONESIA

1st Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Steffen Ganghof

2nd Supervisor: Dr. Markus Lederer

Berlin, 4th January 2010

A Thesis Submitted

In conformity with the requirements for

The Degree of Diplom of Political Science

By:

Janty Jie

Matriculation Number: 70995

Torfstraße 25, 13353 Berlin

Germany

+49 179 457 33 43

Email: [email protected]

“The astronomer tracing the orbit of a star, the biologist raising a culture of bacteria,

the chemist testing the composition of a molecule – indeed any outside observer –

may meaningfully search for laws of inevitability.

But still social scientist is an observer from inside society,

and within those confines his task becomes more modest and more difficult.

In presuming to predict mankind’s inevitable bliss or doom,

he is forsaking his vacation.

The social scientist’s proper function is to ascertain the margin of choice

offered by man’s social condition

and to clarify the choices in that margin.”1

1 Dankwart Rustow in Liddle 2001, p. 1.

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Acknowledgements

This thesis is written as one of the requirements for the degree of Diplom1 of Political science

at the University of Potsdam. The violent internal conflicts which happened in Indonesia in

the late 1990s have motivated me to write something which related to it. I am thankful to

Professor Dr. Steffen Ganghof who helped me in finding this theme with his valuable and

supportive advices.

I am deeply indebted to my dear friend Alessa Berkenkamp for her willingness to

spend her precious time on correcting this thesis, lingual as well as contextual. My special

thanks here go to her.

Warm thanks I would like to extent to Dipl. Ing Alex Flor at the human rights

organization Watch Indonesia for the first discussion on this topic and for borrowing me

some books.

Furthermore, Dr. Markus Lederer, I appreciate his attendance to be my second

supervisor, although the theme of this thesis is not related to his research’s area.

I thank my parents and sisters for their faith on me. Their faith able me to fight until

the end. Very grateful I am also to my beloved partner Chi Seng Phung for all his support

during the writing’s process.

Many thanks to numerous people who supported me in various ways, in providing me

with documents or encouraging me along the way. I am blessed because I have them all as

friends.

Above all, I want to thank the Almighty God Jesus Christ. He blessed me with all

things I need to finish this thesis. He gave me the strength, physically as well as mentally.

thank you

vielen Dank

terima kasih

1 Diplom is an academic degree in some European countries including Germany. This degree can be ompared to Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in other countries.

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Table of Contents

Foreword....................................................................................................................................iii

Table of Contents.......................................................................................................................iv

List of Figures and Tables.........................................................................................................vi

List of Acronyms......................................................................................................................vii

Maps of Indonesia

Chapter 1 Democratization and Institutional Design in Deeply Divided Places........................1

1.1. Theme...........................................................................................................................1

1.2. Case Selection, Reasearch Question and Research Method.........................................3

1.3. Structure........................................................................................................................5

Chapter 2 The Problem of Social Cleavages in Indonesia..........................................................8

2.1. Ethnic Divisions............................................................................................................9

2.2. Religion Divisions......................................................................................................11

2.3. Racial Divisions..........................................................................................................12

2.4. Regional Divisions......................................................................................................13

Chapter 3 Lesson From The Past..............................................................................................16

3.1. Parliamentary Democracy (1950-1957)......................................................................17

3.2. „Guided Democracy“ (1959-1965).............................................................................20

3.3. „Pancasila Democracy“ (1966-1998).........................................................................22

3.4. Repression and ‘Indonization’………………………………………………………27

Chapter 4 Democratic Institutions……………………………………………………………30

4.1. Electoral Systems……………………………………………………………………31

4.1.1. District Systems……………………………………...…………..……………32

4.1.2. Proportional Representation Systems………………………….……..………33

4.1.3. Semi-Proportional Systems………...……………………….………………...35

4.2. Political Parties and Party Systems………………………………………………….39

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4.3. Power-Sharing Institutions…………………………………………………………..42

Chapter 5 Institutional Design..................................................................................................45

5.1. Consociationalism.......................................................................................................46

5.2. Centripetalism.............................................................................................................52

5.3. On the Record.............................................................................................................57

Chapter 6 Indonesian’s Reform Packages................................................................................58

6.1. Constitutional Reform.................................................................................................59

6.1.1. Constitutional Amendments Reformed the Parliament.....................................62

6.1.2. The Regional Representative Assembly (DPD)................................................66

6.2. Electoral Law Reform.................................................................................................67

6.2.1. The 1999 Electoral Law....................................................................................68



6.3. The Reform of the Party System.................................................................................75

6.4. The Greatest Devolution of Power.............................................................................77

6.5. Indonesian’s Democracy – Evaluating the diverse Reform........................................80

Conclusion................................................................................................................................84

References.................................................................................................................................88

Institutionelles Design und Demokratisierung in Indonesia.....................................................98

Eidesstattliche Erklärung........................................................................................................102

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List of Figures

Figure 1.1. Lines of Cleavage in Indonesian Society...............................................................14

Figure 4.1. The World of electoral system...............................................................................36

Figure 4.2. Electoral System Families......................................................................................37

Figure 4.3. Functions of Parties................................................................................................41

Figure 5.1. Consociationalism vs. Centripetalism....................................................................56

List of Tables

Table 2.1. Ethnic Groups, Percentage, Location and Major Religions in Indonesia................10

Table 2.1. Religious affiliations in Indonesia...........................................................................11

Table 3.1. Election results in the New Order Regime..............................................................23

Table 3.2. List of participating parties until 1987 election.......................................................25

Table 4.1. The Distribution of Electoral System across National Legislature..........................38

Table 6.1. 1999 Legislative (DPR) Elections Results...............................................................69

Table 6.2. 2004 Legislative (DPR) Elections Results...............................................................73

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List of Acronyms

ANC African National Congress

AV Alternative Vote

BV Block Vote

DI (Darul Islam) Islamic Domain

DPD (Dewan Perwakilan Daerah) Regional Representative’s Council

DPR (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat) People’s Representative Council

DPRD (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah) Provincial People’s Representative

Council

FPTP First Past The Post

GAM (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka) Free Aceh Movement

GBHN (Garis-Garis Besar Haluan Negara) Broad Outlines of State Policy

Gestapu/ G-30-S/PKI (Gerakan 30 September/PKI) 30th September movement /PKI

Gestok (Gerakan Satu Oktober) 1st October Movement

Golkar (Golongan Karya) the Functional Groups

IGGI Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia

IPKI (Partai Ikatan Pendukung Kemerdekaan Association of the Supporters of

Indonesia) Indonesian Independence Party

KPU (Komisi Pemilihan Umum) Election Commission

LV Limited Vote

Masyumi (Majelis Syuro Muslimin Indonesia) the Consultative Council of Indonesian

Muslimin

MMP Mixed Member Proportional

MPR (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat) People’s Consultative Assembly

NGO Non-Government Organisation

NDP National Democratic Party (Egypt)

NU (Nahdatul Ulama) the Conservative Muslim Nahdatul Ulama

OPM (Organisasi Papua Merdeka) Free Papua Organization

PAN (Partai Amanat National) the National Mandate Party

PARKINDO (Partai Kristen Indonesia) Indonesian Christian Party

PARMUSI (Partai Muslimin Indonesia) Indonesia Muslimin Party

PBB (Partai Bulan Bintang) Cresent Star Party

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PBR (Partai Bintang Reformasi) Star Reform Party

PBV Party Block Vote

PD (Partai Demokrat) the Democrat Party

PDI (Partai Demokrasi Indonesia) the Indonesian Democratic Party

PDI-P (Partai Demokrati Indonesia Perjuangan) the Indonesian Democratic Party in

Struggle

PDS (Partai Damai Sejahtera) Peace and Welfare Party

PERTI (Persatuan Tabiyah Islamiyah) Islamic Education Union

PNG Papua New Guinea

PNI (Partai National Indonesia) the Indonesian National Party

PNIM (Partai Nasional Indonesia Marhaenisme) Indonesian National Party Mahaenism

PK (Partai Keadilan) the Justice Party

PKB (Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa) the National Awakening Party

PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia) the Indonesian Communist Party

PKPB (Partai Karya Peduli Bangsa) Concern for the Nation Functional Party

PKPI (Partai Keadilan dan Persatuan Indonesia) Indonesian Justice and Unity Party

PKS (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera) the Prosperous Justice Party

PP (Partai Pelopor) Pioneers’ Party

PPDI (Partai Penegak Demokrasi Indonesia) Indonesian Democratic Vanguard Party

PPDK (Partai Persatuan Demokrasi Kebangsaan) Democracy Unity and Nationhood Party

PPP (Partai Persatuan Pembangunan) the Development Unity Party

PR Proportional Presentation

PSI (Partai Sosial Indonesia) the Indonesian Socialist Party

PSII (Partai Syarekat Islam Indonesia) the Indonesian Islamic Union Party

SARA (Suku, Agama, Ras, Antar Golongan) Ethnic, Religion, Racial and “among-

groups”

SNTV Single Non-Transferable Vote

STV Single Transferable Vote

Supersemar (Surat Perintah Sebelas Maret) Letter of Order of 11th March

TNI (Tentara National Indonesia) Indonesian Armed Forces

TRS Two-Round System

ZANU-PF the Zimbabwe African National Union-

Patriotic Front

Democratization and Intitutional Design in Deeply Divided Places __________________________________________________________________________________

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Chapter 1

Democratization and Institutional Design in Deeply Divided Places

1.1. Theme

Democratization is not a new phenomenon. The first wave1 occurred in the 18th cen-

tury had its roots in the French and the American revolutions. The second wave took place

after the World War II and transformed some formerly totalitarian states, such as West Ger-

many, Japan, and Italy. The third, seen as the largest and most impressive one, began in Por-

tugal and Greece in 1974 and reached out to Spain in 1975 as the Franco authoritarian regime

gave way to democracy. The third wave of democracy spilled also over to Asia, for instance

the fall of the Marco’s autocratic regime in Philippines in 1980, and to Latin America, for

example the withdrawal of military leaders from politics and formation of civilian govern-

ment in Ecuador in 1979. At the end of the decade, the democratic wave engulfed also the

communist world.

Unfortunately, the process of democratization is not an eternal process. It often fails

and most of time it is accompanied by violence intrastate conflicts, which may potentially

shift away the democracy to traditional forms of authoritarian regime or even worse to more

brutal and pervasive forms of totalitarism. Like for example the conquest of power by Hitler

in 1933, which ended German democracy at the first wave of democratization or the military

coup in 1964 in Brazil and Bolivia, which overthrew the civilian governments, at the second

wave.2 The question here is, why do some democracy survive and why others not?

Some political thinkers3 have argued that democracy is incompatible with a society

hosting social cleavages.4 The main problem here is that the politicians who are hungry of

power have strong incentives to misuse the identities of the people, which bearing a great deal

with symbolic and emotional meaning related to ethnicity, religion belonging, etc. as political

force to achieve their ambition. In most of the cases, the failure of democracy results in the 1 Defined by Samuel Huntington, a wave of democracy is a group of transitions from non democratic to democ-ratic regimes that occur within a specified period of time and that significantly out number transition in the op-position direction during that period of time (Huntington 1991, p. 15). 2 These examples are only to name a few among others, which also called as ‘the reverse wave of democracy’ (see Huntington 1991). 3 Some of them are Rabushka/ Shepsle (1972) and Dahl (1971). 4 According to Lipset and Rokkan, there are three specific connotations to the term cleavages. First, a cleavage involves a social division that separates people along at least one key social characteristic such as occupation, social status, religion or ethnicity. Second, groups involved in a cleavage must be conscious of their collective identity and be willing to act on that basis. Third, a cleavage must have an organizational component that gives formal institutional expression to the interests of those on one side of the division (Lipset/ Rokkan 1967).


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rise of internal conflicts leading its way back to authoritarian rule, shown by most of the states

in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and East Europe.

Another on-going debate revolves around the question whether the governmental system has

caused the failure of democracy in some countries. Linz and Valenzuela for instance claim

that the presidential system is incompatible with democracy because it fosters a zero-sum

competition (winner-take-all result), promoting deadlock between the executive and legisla-

tive branches and encouraging the shift from personalized to authoritarian leadership or even

dictatorship, as happened in most of states Latin American.5

Today, most scholars recognize that with the optimum design on the political institu-

tions, democracy can survive and achieve its sustainability even in highly diverse societies

and presidential system.6 The main challenge here is to find a proper design of basic political

institutions, such as party systems, electoral systems, rules of law and so on, which enables

democracy to achieve stability in diverse societies, to promote inter-ethnic cooperation and to

avoid zero-sum outcomes. Therefore, the next question to post is which form of ‘political ar-

chitecture’7 can be used to achieve these purposes?

In the political literature, there are two dominated power-sharing approaches: conso-

ciationalism, advocated by Lijphart, and centripetalism, related to the work of Horowitz. Both

approaches base on the design of basic political democratic institutions: representative, medi-

ating, and power sharing institutions. The main institutional features of consociational design

are grand coalition cabinet, which includes different segments represented through political

parties; segmental autonomy with ethnic federalism; mutual vetoes on matters of vital impor-

tance to the segments, especially for the minorities; and the principle of proportionality

throughout the public sector, including electoral system.8 Centripetal institutions, by contrast,

advocate an executive coalition restricted to moderate parties; a model of decentralized gov-

ernment that disperses power to multiple point, but does not promoting ethnically-based

autonomy; and stress on majoritarian electoral systems, which are designed to reward moder-

ates.9

Both of them claim to work in deeply divided places wherein the democracy hard to

find its stability. The successful experiences of each of them are very variety. In effect, poli-

5 Linz/ Valenzuela 1994. 6 This statement is represented for instance by Lijphart (1977); Horowitz (1985); Reilly (2001), Shugart/ Carey (1995), etc. 7 Andrew MacIntyre used this term to call ‘the complex of rules that make up the constitutional structure and party system’ (in Reilly 2007, p.5) 8 Lijphart 1977, p. 25. 9 Primarily is the use of Alternative Vote system for legislative and presidential election, but also majoritarian combined with regional distribution for presidential election. (Horowitz 2008, p. 1217-1219).


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cymakers are confusing from which to choose for a diverse set of divided places.10 As Indo-

nesian, I am interested on the choices of the design of the political institutions in the transition

times (1999-2004) attempting to overcome the political chaotic in the country and also con-

solidating the democracy.

1. 2. Case Selection, Research Question and Research Method

The objective of my dissertation is not to compare that one theory of institutional de-

sign is better than the other. The purpose of my thesis, in the first place is to understand more

about the concept of both of power-sharing practices; second, to understand the important role

of political institutions by consolidating and crafting democratization process in countries,

specially those which facing multiple communal cleavages; and third, to find out the reason of

the selection on using particular set of the design institutions, aiming to achieve stable democ-

ratic government in divided places. For these purposes, Indonesia is selected as the case study

The Republic of Indonesia is one of the largest and most ethnically diverse countries

in the world, which encompass hundreds of different languages, ethnic groups, religion etc.

Unfortunately, the riches of Indonesian’s culture are more like curse than bless. The cultural,

regional, religious and ethnic differences have been major sources for political conflicts which

have contributed substantially to the turnout of first democratization process in Indonesia

bearing the consequence of nearly 40 years embedded democracy11. It starting with the failure

made by President Sukarno, namely the political aim to establish a robustly democratic form

of government after post independence in 1949 and later the transformation to the authoritar-

ian “New Order”, initiated by Suharto which primarily focused on building a “strong unitary

state”. This period of New Order was characterized by Military led authoritarian rule and

tightly controlled elections every 5 years from 1971 to 1997. The fall of Suharto’s12 regime in

1998 triggered by the Asian economic crisis in 1997-1998 and pressured by the students’

movement together with Indonesian’s elite politicians was the turning point for the Indone-

sian’s democracy to return. The process itself has begun in the late eighties.13 Like experi-

enced in many other cases, the transition from authoritarian regime to democracy in Indonesia 10 Lijphart 2004, p. 96 11 Embedded democracy is a concept, which proposed by political scientist such as Aurel Croissant, Wolfgang Merkel, und Hans-Jürgen Puhle, to describe a condition of democracy with certain defects. It is a grey zone between democracy and autocracy. (For more see Merkel et al. 2003) 12 Suharto was the second president of Republic Indonesia, who came to power in 1965 by the military coup against the ‘old regime’. 13 „…the process of transition began much more earlier when President Suharto faced increasing pressure from various individual and groups. Events in the late 1980s and early 1990s were very important for the subsequent consolidation process. In response to pressure from different groups both inside and outside his government, President Suharto allowed a certain degree of political openness…”(Hadiwinata 2007, p.16)


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was also accompanied by the rising numbers of internal conflicts. Some conflicts have had

theirs root in the former time and have never been solved. Most of them are happened during

the Suharto’s presidency, such as those of Aceh (west of Indonesia) and of Papua (east of In-

donesia), which fought for their right of self-determination. There were also violent inter-

ethnic clashes in other Indonesian outer regions, such as Maluku, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and

Riau. Tensions between ‘local’ and ‘migrant’ groups have often been influential: between

Islamic migrants and local Christian in Maluku; indigenous resistance to in-migrants from

other Indonesian province in Papua; and Dayak attacks on Madurese migrants in Kalimantan,

etc. At that time, the country seemed ready to crumble. There has been much speculation

among the political experts14 over whether Indonesia has a future as a coherent nation-state or

not. It was a period where as changes in the political institution were essentially needed to

deal with the conflicts, to consolidate the democratization process and also to avoid the fall-

apart of Indonesia, which were happened in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

This dissertation analyses the relations between the complex structure of the Indone-

sian’s society and the choice of the institutions in the past and present. By focusing on the

failure of democracy in the former time and the choices of institutional design approach in

present used to overcoming the internal conflicts and to maintaining the unity of Indonesia,

three central questions have been developed, namely (1) How far can the democratic failure in

the past be explained by the society or political institutional factors? (2) Which kind of insti-

tutional design has been implemented in Indonesia since 1999? And (3) what are the reasons

to the choices of these institutions attempting at the democratic consolidation?

Based on these three central questions, I have delivered two theses for my work. First,

I argue that the multi-ethnicity of Indonesian’s society is not the mainly cause of the democ-

ratic failure in the past. It is rather the inability of the Indonesian’s government to accommo-

date the diversities of Indonesian’s society within institutions to support the democratization

process. Past choices affect current outcomes. The choice to use authoritarian institutions to

maintain the unity of Indonesia has stopped the democratization process and made Indonesia

as an autocratic state.15 Over time, the authoritarian institution created unacceptable con-

straints on particular ethnic groups, wherein they were recognized but excluded by the regime.

These situations, exclusion of particular groups, intensified the tensions between groups and

14 Among them are R. William Liddle, Olle Tornquist, Benjamin Reilly, Andrew Reynolds, Donald L. Horowitz etc. (Liddle 2001, p. 7) 15 Authoritarian Rule is highly concentrated and centralized power structures, in which political power is gener-ated and maintained by a repressive system that excludes potential challengers and uses political parties as mass organizations to mobilize people around the goals of the government. The political stability under authoritarian system is maintained by control over and support of the military to provide security to the system and control of society (Vestal 1999, p. 17).


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led to violent internal conflicts, which have not only shaken the stability of the Suharto’s re-

gime but also threatened the national unity. The fears that Indonesia may break up (once

again)16 have raised the awareness of Indonesian’s political expert. They decided to change

the authoritarian institution with the democratic institution, which can maintain the national

unity and at the same time create stable ethnic relation. For these purposes, the centripetal

democratic institutions have been adopted (national based political parties and direct elected

president with two-round system), in order to encourage inter-ethnic cooperation and to re-

duce the appeal reliant on regional or ethnic ties.

My dissertation presents a quantitative research project that seeking of the relation be-

tween institutional design and democratization process in Indonesia. For this purpose, the

research method employed in this dissertation is N=1 case-study method. I chose this method

because of its advantage of in-depth analyzes of a single case. The weakness of single case

study approach, which was assumed to constitute a flawed basis for assessing the relative

merits of consociationalism and centripetalism,17 I argued, would not influence the quality of

the results of my dissertation, since there is no mean to compare both of the theories. The only

thing, which going to be compared here, is the use of the political institution in the past and at

present.

1. 3. Structure

This dissertation advances the argument; first, that the plurality of Indonesian’s society

is indeed a challenge for democracy, but it in itself has not caused the democratic failure in

Indonesia in 1950s. The authoritarian institutions chosen in the past in order to keep Indonesia

as unitary state, which in turn endangered the national unity, have rather caused the democ-

ratic failure in the 1950s. Second, the reforms of the political institutions, which began in

1999, were made to prevent the failure of Indonesia as a nation because of the rise of violent

internal conflicts in the end of 1990s and to create a stable democratic government. In making

this argument, this dissertation is divided into three parts. The first part composes of three

chapters. The first chapter sets out the research questions and guiding assumption of the dis-

sertation. Chapter 2 poses the challenge for democratization in Indonesia, namely the existing

of social cleavages. Chapter 3 analyzes how these social cleavages have been managed under

16 The first time was after the first democratic parliamentary election in 1955 as some groups rebelled against the central government. They were longing to be independent state because they were disadvantaged from central decision-making. Further about this theme will discuss in chapter 3. 17 Lijphart 1971, p. 691.


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3 different regimes. From post-independence in 1949 until 1998, three kinds of ‘democratic’18

regimes have been practiced, namely: Parliamentary Democracy (1949-1957), so called

‘Guided Democracy’ (1959-1965), and the concept of ‘Pancasila Democracy’ (1966-1998).

The evidences show that the division of the party system which was divided along both ethnic

and class lines; the strong central government; the dominant role of the executive and the

military thereby the absence of check and balance; the marginalization and exclusion of some

groups, were the major causes for the violence internal conflicts. The existence of internal

conflicts has then led to the democracy’s failure in the 1950s. Ethnic identities became politi-

cized and the potential for mobilization was heightened when groups felt threatened by the

structure and principles embedded in political institutions. Most obviously, groups, which are

excluded from representation or which do not have the ability to pursue their interest within

given institutions, may become increasingly alienated from the state and tend to rebel.

The second part of this work, chapter 4 and 5, deal with the three arenas of political

institutions and the theoretical discussion of institutional designs for divided societies. Chap-

ter 4 describes the institutions, which are essentially needed to sustain democracy in a coun-

try. They are mediating institution, representative institution, and power sharing institution.

Chapter 5 introduces the famous discussion about how to consolidate democracy in plurality

society, namely: consociationalism defended by Arendt Lijphart and centripetalism advocated

by Donald L. Horowitz. The discussion will then embrace the issue of ‘political architecture’,

designing the institutions mentioned in chapter 4 (representative, mediating and power-

sharing) aiming at achieving stable democratic government in a multi culture country. The

choice of particular set of electoral system, legislative structure, types of government and the

decision to be federalist or unitary state, embody a certain conception of the nation or the rela-

tion between the nations. The intent of this chapter is not to compare that the one is better than

the other, but rather to understand the concepts of the two designs. In relation to this theme,

Chapter 6 will pose the reforms package in Indonesia, namely: constitutional reform, electoral

law reform, party system reform, and change from centralization to decentralization. The re-

forms have been implemented since 1999 and renewed until 2008 aiming to overcoming the

conflicts, accommodating inter-ethnic relation, strengthening the democracy, and preserving

the political stability in Indonesia.

18 The ‘democracy’ term, which I use in this chapter, is absolutely debatable or even not correct. I use this term, because it was used by the regime at that time to describe their regiment, although democratic principles were not 100-percently implemented. To all non-Indonesian observes, these institutions and procedures were obvi-ously not democratic. Rather they were a mask put on to conceal the authoritarian means, by which Sukarno and Suharto maintained their dominance.


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Indonesia’s new democracy, in my point of view, has become considerably more and

more stable in the last ten years. Indonesia has successfully passed the hard times, meaning

the transition from authoritarian regime to democracy. History notes that Indonesia has run

six fair and free elections19 and the results are accepted by all participating parties. The first

directly elected president in 2004, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is able to run his office for a

full term and he is trusted to continue his duty as president of Indonesia for second time, for

the period 2009-2014. The newly adopted electoral law and party systems have indeed re-

duced the numbers of parties competing for elections and they encourage parties as well as the

candidates to compete for votes across the archipelago rather than relying on pure regional

support. The Indonesians now enjoy extensive political freedoms, including freedom of

speech and expression. Regarding to these positive progress, I would say, that Indonesia is on

the right way to stabilize its democratic government but does still need control from all, to

make sure, that this democracy stay on the right track.

19 They were Legislative election in 1999, legislative election and first direct presidential election with second round in 2004, and legislative and presidential election in 2009.

The Problem of social cleavages in Indonesia __________________________________________________________________________________

8

Chapter 2

The Problem of Social Cleavages in Indonesia

Divided societies or social cleavages, without a doubt, are one of the main challenges

for democratic countries. The cross-national studies show that the more fragmented a society

is, the more difficult it is for a democracy to find its sustainability.20 This statement is support

by the evidence of democracy failures experienced in most of the newly independent states in

Asia and Africa, wherein the societies are deeply divided.21 Commonly, social cleavages are

defined as conflicts among large segments of a population rooted in sociological division, to

be distinguished from similarly-scaled conflicts rooted in other divisions, for example: con-

flict between two rock groups “the Hell Angels” and “the Bandidos” in Germany.

In their book “ Party System and Voter Alignments”, Lipset and Rokkan distinguish

the social cleavages in four main cleavages:22

1. Centre-periphery cleavage, when liberals and conservatives face resistance to

state/administrative centralization and cultural standardization (language/religion)

2. State-church. It is conflict between liberal and secularized state against clerical and

aristocratic privilege, and over religious education, influence of church in politics, de-

mocratic institutions.

3. Rural-urban. The conflict is between industrial and agricultural sectors of the econ-

omy on trade policies: agrarian protectionism vs. industrial liberalism, for example:

free trade vs. tariffs.

4. Workers-employers. It is conflict on job security, pensions, social protection, degree

of state intervention in economy.

In a fragmented society, conflicts between different groups of ethnic, religion, race,

region are at the center of politics. The societal divisions pose challenges to the cohesion of

states and sometimes to peaceful relations among states. In a divided society, affiliations to

specific groups are powerful, permeative, passionate and pervasive. This chapter presents the

20 One of the studies was done by Robert Dahl who concludes that it is not impossible for democracy to be con-solidated in highly fragmented countries, but still pluralism often places dangerous strains on people’s tolerance and mutual security is less likely to take place in countries with considerable measures of sub cultural pluralism (Dahl 1971, p. 109-111). 21 Low 1991, p. 272-273. 22 Lipset/ Rokkan 1967, p. 1-64


9

problem of the fragmented society in Indonesia and will show that the conflicts between its

societal groups pose the main challenge to democracy.

Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s largest state, which is scattered across around 17.000 is-

lands, of which only about 6000 are inhabited. Indonesia spans a distance of almost 4000

miles from Sabang, the most north of Sumatra Island, to Merauke, the southern of Irian Jaya/

West part of Papua New Guinea.23 According to the Indonesian Central Statistic Bureau, the

national populations counted in 2006 national census are 222 million people, 130 million peo-

ple live on the island of Java and about 22 million of them live in Jakarta, the capital of Indo-

nesia.24 The Indonesian archipelago, which is divided into a total of 1072 distinct ethnic

groups,25 is the most ethnically complex state in the contemporary world.26

2.1. Ethnic Divisions

The largest group is by far the Javanese, who constitute about 45 percent of the na-

tional population.27 They are concentrated in East and Central Java, and the northern plain of

West Java, but millions of them have migrated to other islands throughout the archipelago.

The Sundanese, Malay, and Madurese are the next largest groups in the country. Beside the

indigenous Indonesians, there are also ethnic groups, who came to Indonesia between the 18th

and 19th centuries through trade and then stayed. They are Chinese immigrants, the Arabs, and

the Indians. The Chinese immigrants constitute 3 percent of the population while the others

two, the Arabs and the Indians, constitute less than 1 percent of the population. Uniquely, if

we look in detail, as one moves from western (Sumatra, Java and Bali) to eastern Indonesia,

group sizes diminish while the numbers of ethnic groups increase. At the eastern end of the

archipelago, Irian Jaya, there are fewer than two million inhabitants, which constitute only

about 1 percent of the population, with more than two hundred distinct cultural groups.28 (See

table 2.1 for the allocation of ethnic groups in Indonesia).

The main cleavage on the ethnic dimension is mainly between the majoritarian Java-

nese and all other ethnics. These tensions exist since the 1950s and were caused by centraliza-

tion of power and decision-making in Jakarta. Although the population of the capital Jakarta 23 The description is varies, some scholars wrote that the Indonesian archipelago stretching to almost 5000miles, it contains 13.611 islands and 990 of it are inhabited. 24 Indonesia Central Statistic Bureau, 1st September 2006: 25 This is the result of the newest census in 2000, which claim that most of the ethnic are founded in Papua (Van Klinken 2003, p. 63). Ethnic group can be defined as a collectivity within larger society, which has real of puta-tive common ancestry, memories, and common cultural traits such as languages, religion, kinship, region of residence, or physical appearance. See Smith 2001, p. 48. 26 See Reilly 2001, p. 14 27 Suryadinata 2002, p. 3 28 Liddle 1997, p. 276


10

and the government personnel are multiethnic, the vast majority of them are still the Java-

nese.29 This condition gives sense that centralization and government policy equal Javaniza-

tion, for example: the transmigration program during the 1980s – it is government program to

enhance migration from overpopulated areas like Java and Madura to less populous areas,

such as Papua, Kalimantan, Sumatra and Sulawesi.30 The purpose of this program in the first

place was to reduce the considerable poverty, caused by the overpopulation, on Java. Another

aim was to open up new agricultural land on other islands. Many indigenous people see this

program rather as an effort of the Javanese-based government to reduce the proportion of na-

tive populations31 in the destination areas and to have more control over the region. This pro-

gram has been seen as failed, because it led to many bloody internal conflicts.32 Examples of

such conflicts are the ones between Madurese and Dayaknese in Kalimantan or those, which

were happening on the Moluccas, resulting in hundreds of deaths. Transmigration has also

triggered separatist movement, like happened in Papua.

Table 2.1 Ethnic Groups, Percentage, Location and Major Religions in Indonesia33

Ethnic Group Percentage Location Major Religion

Javanese 45 Java Orthodox santri, abangan Sundanese 14 West Java Modernizing santri Madurese 7 East-Java (Madura Island) Orthodox santri Malay 7 Coastal and South Sumatra Modernizing santri Minangkabau 4 West Sumatra Modernizing santri

Buginese 4 South Sulawesi Modernizing santri

Chinese 3 Distributed Confucianism, Christianity, Buddhism

Acehnese 2 Aceh Modernizing santri Batak 2 North Sumatra Christianity, modernizing

santri Balinese 2 Bali island Hindu Minehasa 2 North Sulawesi Christianity Ambonese Dayak Papuan

1 1 1

Mollucas Central Kalimantan West New Guinea

Christianity, Islam Animism, Islam, Christianity Christianity, animism

Other 5 Note: The number in table 2.2 was made in the mid-1980s, where the Indonesia’s populations were

still at around 168,875,000.

29 In the 1980s and the 1990s, more than 70 per cent of the key positions in the military were held by the Javane-se. Suryadinata 2002, p. 3 30 For more see Colin: Transmigration in Indonesia, 1978. 31 The native populations which are meant here are the people who live in a particular region since the beginning of Indonesian’s history, for example: the Dayaknese in the Central of Borneo, the Papuans on West-Papua. 32 Duncan 2005. 33 Sundhausen 1989, p. 245


11

2.2. Religion Divisions

There are five religions, which are officially recognized by the Indonesian govern-

ment, namely the Islam, the Protestantism, the Catholicism, the Hinduism and the Buddhism

(see table 2. 2). Most Hindus are Balinese; while Protestant and Catholic are found mainly

among several smaller groups on the periphery of the archipelago, which were reached by the

missionaries before the Islam had gained many followers there (table 2.1 shows the distribu-

tion of the religions in Indonesia). The largest concentration of Protestants and Catholics are

in the east, from North Sulawesi through Ambon to Papua. Most Buddhists are Sino-

Indonesian, meaning the migrants from China that emigrated between the 18th and 19th centu-

ries.

Moslems constitute the overwhelming majority of Indonesians with nearly 90 percent

but Indonesia is neither a Muslim state nor an Islamic state.34 They are mainly concentrated in

the western Islands of Indonesia, such as Java and Sumatra. They are themselves divided into

several groups, the Javanist syncretist (Moslem abangan)35 and the santri. The Moslem aban-

gan are the Moslems who have a mixture of Islamic and pre-Islamic beliefs. They have been

heavily influenced by Javanese mysticism and Hinduism. They worship Allah but also pay

respects to Hindu and Buddhist gods and goddesses. The abangan are not rigid in their Is-

lamic pratices, while santri are rigid in the performing Islamic value. They observe Islamic

rituals strictly. The santri are divided into traditionalists and modernist or reformist. The tradi-

tionalist santri adhere to the Islamic school of legal interpretation within Sunni Islam, while

the modernists or reformists is a movement that came to Indonesia from the Middle East in

the last quarter of the nineteenth century. They practice the direct interpretation of the mean-

ing of the Koran. Table 2. 2 Religious affiliations in Indonesia36

Religious Group Percentage Muslim 86.9 Protestant 6.5 Catholic 3.1 Hindu 1.9 Buddhist 1.0 Other 0.6 Total 100.0

34 A Muslim State refers to a state, which selecrs Islam as the only official religion or as state religion and based ist constitution on the „syariat law“/ Islam law. Suryadinata 2002, p. 6 35 Geertz 1964, p. 35. 36 Liddle 1997, p. 275


12

Among the religious divisions, the clashes are between the Moslems themselves, be-

tween the Moslem abangan and the santri, as well as, between santri traditionalists and santri

modernists. Another tension is between Moslem and Christian. The clashes between Moslems

and Christians have firstly occurred in the colonial times, as the Dutch gave the Christians

more opportunities for modern education and employment. Based on this condition, many

Moslems fear the domination of Christian community, which was supported by foreign mis-

sionaries. This fear was increased as the former President Suharto put a large proportion of

Christians in his cabinet aiming to “de-Islamize” the government during the 1980s. On the

other side, the Christians fear of the formation of an Islamic state, wherein non-Muslims

would be second-class citizens. The Christians have seen the transmigration program in the on

1980s as one attempts of the government politic to “Islamize” Indonesia, by fostering migra-

tion from western Indonesia, where Moslem mostly live, to eastern regions, wherein the

Christians form the majority.37

The cleavage between Moslem abangan and santri, at the beginning, was more about

values. The Moslems santri denied the Moslems Abangan, because they practice the Islam

combination with animism, Buddhism, and Hinduism beliefs. The tension between these two

Moslem groups was sharpened during the 1955 election campaign as the Moslems Abangan

supported secular and nationalist parties, rather than Moslem parties, in order to resist Islami-

zation. The Moslem Modernists and Traditionalists are political opponents. The Moslems

Modernists, seeing themselves as more educated Moslems than the Moslem traditionalists,

claim that they alone able to express political views of the whole Muslim community. The

Traditionalists have opposed this statement by forming a political institution to impede the

attempt of the Modernists gaining power over the Moslem communities.38 All these three re-

ligious cleavages have been institutionalized during the independence period in the form of

political parties and the tensions between them led to bloody political conflicts. This will be

further discussed in the following chapter.

2.3. Racial Divisions

Beside ethnic identity and religion, the Indonesian society is also divided into five

kinds of racial differences. The great racial majority of the populations are the Malays, who

constitute about 70 percent of the population. They are themselves divided into over 300 eth-

nic groups. In the east of Indonesia, meaning on West of New Guinea and its neighboring

37 Sidney 2000. 38 Liddle 1997, p. 278.


13

islands, there live Polynesian, which divided into over 300 ethnics groups. The other three

races have a foreign background, which came to Indonesia during the 18th century through

trade or economic migrants offering its labor force. They are the Chinese, constitute approxi-

mately 3 percent of the populations, the Arabs and the Indians, which constitute less than 1

percent of the population.

The first distinction in the racial division is between Sino-Indonesians and the indige-

nous Indonesian. Sino-Indonesians are Indonesian citizens, whose ancestor are Chinese, who

came to Indonesia during the Dutch colonial through trading or as labors and submitted as

Indonesians. The distinction between the so-called Sino-Indonesian and the indigenous peo-

ples is one of the inheritances from the Dutch colonialism, which divided the Indonesian soci-

ety into three classes: the Dutch, Chinese Immigrants, and the indigenous Indonesians. The

Sino-Indonesians live mainly in cities and town. In the past, many Indonesians saw them as

“foreigners” – regardless of their actual citizenship status, who have come to Indonesia only

to make money. They believe that this 3 percent of the population controls 75 percent of cash

flow.39 The sentiments against the Chinese are most of the times expressed in anti-Chinese

riots, in the form of attacks against Sino-Indonesians and destruction of their property. The

biggest anti-Chinese riots were those, which erupted in the mid-1960s and in 1997. This con-

dition was particular because during the New Order era, the Chinese were barred from in-

volvement in political activities and were compelled to concentrate on business sector.

The second racial distinction is the distinction between the black-skinned, frizzy-

haired Papuans and the brown-skinned, lanky-haired Malays indigenous, who constitute the

majority of the population in the Republic Indonesia. Many Papuans, which live particularly

in the Province of Irian Jaya and in the neighboring islands, feel that they are disdained as

backward, even primitive by the western Indonesia.40 This condition has led to violent upris-

ings by the Papuans ever since this province was absorbed into Indonesia in 1963. Further-

more, it enhanced the formation of pro-independence organization, namely the OPM – the

Free Papua Organization.

2.4. Regional Division

The last line of division is between the center (Jakarta), where political power and

economic wealth are concentrated, the Java and the periphery (the Outer Islands).41 The

39 This condition is particularly because during the New Order era, the Chinese were barred from involvement in political activities and were compelled to concentrate on business sector. 40 Liddle 1997, p. 280 41 Feith 1962, p. 31.


14

Java’s resentment of Jakarta is not too significant, regarding that the most inhabitants of Ja-

karta are Javanese. The sharpest tension has been between the entrepreneurial culture of the

Outer Islands and the aristocratic-administrative Java. Java has always been seen as a “con-

sumer society” while the Outer Islands are the producers.42 Government revenue has gone to

Java from Outer Islands. This has caused an uneven distribution of revenues between Java and

the Outer Islands. Uneven distribution of power and wealth has been ongoing problem affect-

ing ht relationship between Java and the Outer Islands. During the parliamentary democracy,

some non-Javanese rebelled against the central government in Jakarta and attempted to gain

more autonomy. They also wanted to enjoy a larger share of the revenue for regional devel-

opment. The rebellions were always crushed by military strength. The Suharto rule caused the

Java-Outer Islands relationship to deteriorate further. The 1974 local government laws gave

the monopoly political and economic power to Jakarta. This created discontent and grievances

among the Outer Islanders. The Suharto regime blatantly robbed the local resources at the

expense of the local people. Although those involve were not necessary Javanese, they were

collaborators of the Javanese regime. People anger was than targeted on the Javanese. Anger

towards Javanese “rulers” escalated when Jakarta used military means to oppress the local

discontent. Figure 1.1 shows the lines of cleavages in Indonesian society.43

Figure 1.1. Lines of Cleavage in Indonesian Society44

Field of Cleavage Religious Santri ----> Abangan

<---- Modernists -----> Traditionalists <------ Muslim -------> other Religions (Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, animists) <-------

Ethnic Javanese ------> other ethnic minorities <-----

Racial ------> Sino-Indonesians Indonesians Malays <----- <----- Papuans

Regional Jakarta <------- Java <------- outer Islands * Note: Arrows reflect direction of antagonism; double arrows are mutual antagonism

To summarize, there are four major lines of cleavages, which characterize the Indone-

sian society, namely religious, ethnic, racial and regional. These cleavages are overlapping in

most of the time. For instance the rebellions of 1956-1958 were mainly regional in character 42 To be note, most of the nature resources in Indonesia are founded not on Java Island but the Outer Island, such as on Sumatra, Celebes, Borneo and Irian Jaya. 43 Liddle 1997, p. 286-292. 44 Sunhausen 1989, p. 460.


15

but also reflected ethnic conflicts between the Javanese and Non-Javanese. The rebellions

were further spurred by religious and racial issues given the strong and active role Christian

churches play in West New Guinea and former East Timor.45

Each of this division, which has led to hostilities, violent conflicts, uprisings and ever

out-right civil war, are caused by the low capacity of politicians to solve or to manage the

diversities of Indonesian’s society.

The next chapter is containing about how the social diversities and the cleavages had

been manage under three difference regimes before the reformation era (1950-1998).

45 To experience more about these conflicts, please read Feith 1962, p. 31

Lesson From The Past __________________________________________________________________________________

16

Chapter 3

Lesson From The Past

From 1950-1998, Indonesia has witnessed three types of ‘democracy’.46 The first was

the Parliamentary democracy, which took place during 1950-1957. The failure of Indonesia’s

first democracy led to the model of ‘Guided democracy’, which was practiced, from 1959 to

1965. The model of ‘Guided democracy’ was established by Indonesian’s first President, Su-

karno,47 aiming to overcome the rebellions, which occurred after Indonesian’s first democratic

legislative election in 1955. Sukarno called this model as ‘democracy with leadership’ which

meant that democracy was going to be directly led by the leader of the country namely Su-

karno himself. The end of Sukarno’s Guided democracy was followed by the 32 years of

autocratic regime under Suharto, who came to power through a military coup in 1965. Su-

harto48 named his regime ‘Pancasila Democracy’, meaning that the democracy based on the

five principles of national ideology (Pancasila).49 The five principles are: belief in almighty

God, Just and Civilized Humanity, Unity of Indonesia, People guided by the Spirit of Wisdom

in Deliberation and Representation, and Social Justice.

Each of these regimes was always accompanied by the dilemma of cultural, regional,

religious and racial cleavages, which have been the roots of many political conflicts in Indo-

nesia. All these political conflicts contributed substantially to the breakdown of every regime

46 With the exception of the parliamentary democracy, between 1959-1998 Indonesia has practiced what Merkel et al. call embedded democracy, it is type of regime with very weak democratic institutions or it is a grey zone between democracy and authocracy (Croissant et al. 2003). In this chapter I use the same term of democracy as what the regime’s leader at that time also used to describe their regime. It is important to note that the tern of democracy used here is absolutely different from the democratic system, which Dahl qualified in his terms known as polyarchies. (See Dahl 1972) 47 Sukarno was the dominant figure of Indonesia’s nationalist movement against the Dutch. He was elected as the first President of Indonesia in 1950. www.famousmuslims.com/Sukarno.htm 48 By the mid-1960s both the military and the Indonesian Communist Party had gained considerable power under the regime of Indonesian President Sukarno. When a group of dissident pro-Communist army and air force troops attempted to seize control of the government in Jakarta in October 1965, Suharto successfully suppressed them. Although he was not Indonesia’s dominant military leader at that time, Suharto outmanoeuvred his mili-tary competitors for power during the succeeding months. In March 1966 Suharto successfully persuaded Presi-dent Sukarno to authorize him to restore security and order, which effectively transferred executive authority to Suharto. In 1967 the Indonesian parliament appointed Suharto acting president. He was elected as full president by the parliament in 1968 and was re-elected to successive five-year terms in 1973, 1978, 1983, 1993, and 1998. (www.famousmuslims.com/MohammedSuharto.htm) 49 The first draft of Pancasila was formulated by Sukarno and delivered on June 1, 1945 in front of the Independ-ence Preparatory Committee, which then became an Indonesian philosophy. The aim was to unite the Indonesian archipelago, which divided into different group of religions, ethnics, regions and races. When Suharto took power, Pancasila was accorded a most prominent place in the dominant discourse. Pancasila was ‘the source of all sources of law’. Every rumour against Pancasila would be understood as an anti-Pancasila attitude and a threat for state security. Suryadinata 2002, p. 10-11.


17

as they failed to manage the tensions of the Indonesian society’s structure. This chapter ana-

lyzes the political system of Indonesia with its institutions from 1950 to 1998, which failed to

ease the challenge of social cleavages and thus led to many bloody internal conflicts and the

failure of Indonesian’s democracy.

3.1. Parliamentary Democracy (1950-1957)50

After having declared its independence from the Dutch colonial rule on August 17,

1945, the Indonesian still had to fight for four more years, because at the end of the Second

World War, the Dutch attempted to re-establish their authority in Indonesia. To reach this, the

Dutch appealed the ethnic identities in order to destroy the nationalist power. The Dutch pro-

moted the establishment of independent regions based on the existence of major ethnic

groups, like for example the state of Pasundan in west Java, where the Sundanese formed the

majority or the state of Madura with the Madurese being the majority; and the autonomous

territory of the Great Dayak for the Dayak in central of Kalimantan. In brief, the Dutch try to

turn Indonesia into federal state based on ethnic majority. The concept was accepted by the

Indonesian’s politicians at that time but never fully agreed until 1949. As the Dutch left In-

donesia in 1950, the federal system quickly crumbled and a unitary state was than adopted

again.51

By 1950, the Indonesian political leaders of different groups agreed to adopt the prin-

ciple of a unitary state with a provisional constitution based on liberal democratic principles

including a strong parliament and a weak president. They had rejected federal system because

of the negative experience with the Dutch model of federal state. Instead of federalism, re-

gions were considered to be autonomous. At this time, Indonesia Republic had control over

most of the former Dutch East Indies, except west New Guinea52. There was also an agree-

ment between the political leaders that political parties would be organized along different

social goals, religious identities or other political objectives, assuring the parties would be

used as vehicle for different groups to express their interest. There were four largest parties;

PNI (the Indonesian National Party), supported primarily by the upper class syncretic Muslim

Javanese; Masyumi (the Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims), represented non- 50 The period of Parliamentary democracy has various names. Herbert Feith called it ‘Constitutional democracy’ (1962). Most in Indonesian political community, writers and commentators call it ‘liberal democracy’ which was popularized by Sukarno (Feith, 1962) 51 Bertrand 2004, p. 32 52 As the Dutch left Indonesia in 1949, Papua still remained under Dutch colonial rule until an international agreement sealed their fate. In 1963, without broad consultation, they were integrated into the Indonesian Repub-lic. Although the consultation was accepted by the UN, the process was not democratic and was widely critized by the Papuans and many foreigners (see Bertrand 2004, p. 144-160)


18

Javanese modernist Muslims; Nahdlatul Ulama referred to Javanese traditionalist Muslims;

and the PKI (the Indonesian Communist Party), supported primarily by lower class syncretic

Muslims and other smaller Christian or Catholics Parties and regional parties.53

The stability of this new independent country still remained for the next few years. But

unfortunately, this peaceful and stable situation wasn’t lasting long. After the parliamentary

election in 1955, the number of conflicts and regionalist rebellions were erupted. Regions

became increasingly dissatisfied with political centralization and Javanese dominance.54 The

leaders in those regions challenged the 1950s compromise in which regional autonomy was

set out as basic principle for the unitary state. They denounced the Jakarta’s exchange policies

that stifled economic exports from the regions.55 The Rebellion in Sumatra, Sulawesi, and

Aceh were backed by the Islamist Party Masyumi and they joined the Darul Islam Move-

ment.56 They rebelled against the central government, longing for the revision of the 1950

provisional constitution,57 which was ought to be used only for temporary, as results from

1950s compromise. They claimed that the 1950 provisional constitution reflected mostly the

objectives of secular nationalist and Javanese, while the interests of Muslim groups and other

regional groups were sideline.

Another important conflict, beside the conflicts caused by the regional rebellions, was

the conflict in the 1955 parliament, namely the conflict between the Masyumi58 and PNI

(secularist Muslim party). The conflict was about how to define the status of the Republic

Indonesia. The issue revolved around the question whether it would be come an Islamic state

or a secular state. The Masyumi wanted to make Indonesia as an Islamic state, while the PNI

supported Pancasila.59 The situation became worse as the central government (at that time was

53 Liddle 1997, p. 280 54 Both the population of the capital city and the personnel of the central government were multiethnic, but the sheer numbers of the Javanese and their physical proximity to the capital, make centralization seem equivalent to Javanization to non-Javanese (Liddle 1997, p. 279) 55 There was the manipulations of the foreign exchange rates in favour of the Javanese interests as well as an excessive trade-licensing system to the disadvantage of business in the Outer Islands (Sunhausen 1989, p. 432) 56 The Darul Islam Movement was formed in West Java in 1948. They sought an Islamic state of Indonesia. They waged guerrilla struggle against the Republic from 1948 to 1962. Bertrand 2004, p. 32. 57 The 1950 Provisional Constitution was made to replace the Federal Constitution of 1949 when Indonesia uni-laterally withdrew from the union with the Netherlands agreed at the Round Table Conference and returned to being a unitary state. It came into force on 17th August 1950. Feith 1962, p. 30. 58 Masyumi party (The Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims), which led predominantly by non-Javanese modernist Muslims was backed by the Muhammadiyah. They were the largest social and educational organiza-tion of Indonesian Muslim modernists, which was founded in 1912. (Sundhausen 1989, p. 431) 59 The Five Principles – Pancasila –: (1) nationalism, in the sense on unity in one nation; (2) internationalism or humanitarianism, implying peaceful relation with other nations; (3) representative government or consent; (4) society prosperity or social justice; and (5) belief in God. The last principle, which then became the first princi-ple, was not well accepted by the Muslim leaders who wanted more explicit reference to Islam in the Indonesian constitution. It should be “belief in God with the obligation for adherents of Islam to carry out Islamic law”. The nationalists decided to drop the last clause and retain only “belief in God”. They do that to ensure the support


19

dominated by PNI and supported by other secularists parties) rejected the idea of an Islamic

state.

The central government responded to all these challenges with the use of force, aiming

to strengthen the national political position of the central armed force’s leadership and that of

President Sukarno, with whom the armed forces were allied. The central government had also

abandoned liberal democracy, as former President Sukarno used the armed forces to over-

come the conflicts. Sukarno then established a new political regime, which he called “Guided

democracy”. The concept about guided democracy will be further discussed in the next part.

Based on the regional and political conflicts occurring during the parliamentary de-

mocracy, I examine that there were 4 major failures, which have contributed to the rise of

internal conflicts and ended the parliamentary democracy.

First, it was the inability of the government to deal with the varied demands of the so-

cieties. The provisional liberal constitution, which artificially grafted onto the political sys-

tem, did not reflect the political realities or even aspirations of the populace. The regional

autonomy agreed on 1950 to decentralize the cultural and economic regulation was never im-

plemented; instead ethnic groups were excluded from the processes of decision-making. The

policies for regions were made by the central government and they advantaged only certain

group – here the Javanese – and discriminated other regions outside of Java, for example the

passed of trade-licensing system, which has disadvantaged the business in regions outside

Java. Last but not least, the army was dragged into political controversies without having its

nonmilitary functions sufficiently clarified.

Second, the central government proved reluctant to ease and manage the tensions and

cleavages between groups by means of negotiation. This paved the road for violently internal

conflicts and rebellions, because instead of looking for agreement or consensus within con-

flicting regions, the central government used the armed forces to dissolve the conflicts

Third, the party system was politically weak and too fragmented. The political parties

with four major parties and 24 minor parties were divided along ethnic, religion and class

lines.60 Thus the parties were unable to form lasting coalitions that might have provided a

measure of executive strength and political stability. Parties rather were used as a tool to

achieve its’ leaders ambitions. In the time of conflicts, they were misused as a medium to or-

ganize and mobilize they supporters to rebel against the state.

from other religion groups, but at the same time, they alienated a numbers of Muslim leaders. (Bertrand 2004, p. 33) 60 Sundhausen 1989, p. 432.


20

Finally, it has to be noted that this system was adopted directly from Netherland’s sys-

tem without real understanding on how the parliamentary system should work. The basic

principle of the representative democratic regime was to allow ethnic and other groups to ex-

press themselves within an open political competition. The groups’ interests should be articu-

lated through political parties. And parties competed in elections for seats in parliament and

thereby influence power. The government formed on the basis of a parliamentary majority.

Conflicts should be settled through negotiation and compromise in the parliament. Because of

the lack of education and the missing of a democratic culture, the political leaders were un-

able to get involved into an open competition to achieve consensus and maintain stable center

in the government. Instead of consensus reached in parliament, violent political conflicts

erupted and led to the failure of Indonesia’s parliamentary democracy.

3.2. Guided Democracy (1959-1965)61

Since the parliamentary democracy could not reach political stability and manage the

regional issues at that time, former President Sukarno in alliance with the central leadership of

the armed forces decreed a return to the revolutionary constitution of 1945. This constitution

allowed the president play a more dominant role in the political system. Sukarno labeled his

new regime “Guided Democracy”62, which means a democracy with leadership by the Presi-

dent. This was to indicate Sukarno’s attention to provide the leadership that had been lacking

in the parliamentary system, which meant that the concentration of power was on the execu-

tive, particularly the president.

Under guided democracy, Sukarno dealed with the demands of ethnic and other

groups through coercion. For instance, the rebellions, which demanded for greater autonomy

and the form of Islamic state, were ended immediately with the use of military forces. In

1960, The Masyumi and the PSI, the political parties which were most closely identified with

the Islamic state idea, were banned because they were assumed to be backing the regional

rebellions in Sumatra and Sulawesi. Other political parties were restricted in 1961 to a total

numbers of ten parties.63 Not only the parties, but also the national parliament was dissolved

and replaced in October 1961 with parliament appointed by the President. The restriction of 61 Liddle 1996; Bertrand 2004. 62 Guided democracy was based on Indonesian tradition namely ‘mutual cooperation’ (ind: gotong royong). According to Sukarno, this concept should interpreted as excluding no major political grouping from the process of decision making and that voting on issues, as practiced in western democracy, should be replaced by ‘delib-eration’ (ind: musyawarah) until ‘consensus’ (ind: mufakat) was reached. If no consensus in time, decisions should be taken under the guidance of the elder statesman, which was Sukarno himself (Feith 1962; 515-518). 63 The ten parties were PKI, Murba, PNI, Partindo, IP-KI, NU, PSII, Perti and two Christian parties (Feith 1962; 590-597)


21

parties and the dissolving of the parliament evoke the idea that the armed forces was used to

secure the unity of the nation, stability of the state and resolution of fundamental questions

about Indonesia’s national model.

Guided democracy was only implemented in Indonesia from July 1959 to October

1965. After six years, ’the systematic and well planned democracy’64 failed to achieve a

healthy economic system.65 The economic collapse66 in 1965 with chronic inflation was then

followed by a struggle for power between the army and the Indonesian Communist Party

(PKI). The murder of six army Generals and one lieutenant by PKI, which happened during

the political and economic chaos in 1965,67 carried out a coup d’état on 11th March 1966 un-

der the leadership of General Suharto, to bring down President and his guided democracy. On

the same day, President Sukarno had to sign an executive order to transfer power to at that

time General Suharto effectively.68 This day was the end of Indonesia so- called guided de-

mocracy. In March 1968 Suharto got the title as president of Indonesian Republic, which he

held until 1998.

During the so-called guided democracy, President Sukarno has successfully settled the

two most important ethnic-related conflicts, namely the conflict between extreme Muslim

Group and the state and between regional rebels and the center. Yet it was with the use of the

armed forces and the armed forces themselves, which overthrew him as President.

The Indonesian parliamentary democracy and Sukarno’s concept of guided democracy

has something in common: in both regime elite politicians did not how to manage the diversi-

ties in the country and yet the military forces were also used under Suharto’s concept on Pan-

casila democracy. The end of the so-called guided democracy was also the end of Sukarno’s

presidency, which then continued with the era of Suharto’s Pancasila Democracy. Sukarno

died on 21st June 1970 at the age of sixty-nine and still under house arrest.69

64 Bertrand 2004, p. 36 65 There were two events, which caused the economic collapse in 1965; the first was the ‘successful’ struggle to win control over Dutch-ruled West New Guinea (now Papua); and second was the ‘quixotic’ crusade against the formation of Malaysia. These campaigns exacted high prices in term of domestic economic growth. (Bertrand 2004, p. 36) 66 The economic collapse in 1965 signed by the sunk of the value of rupiah (Indonesian’s currency) to hundredth of its legal value. The economic collapse has caused the cost living to increase by 2000%. (www.marxist.com/revolution-counter-revolution-indonesa1965.htm) 67 Sukarno referred the movement done by PKI on the early morning of 1st October 1965 as “Gestok”, an abbre-viation of ‘Gerakan satu Oktober’ (1st October Movement), while Suharto regime called it “Gestapu” or G-30-S/PKI (movement on 30th September), similar to Gestapo in Nazi Germany, which Indonesian Communist Party was accused as masterminding. 68 This executive order was known as ‘Letter of Order of 11th March’. 69 At the end of his presidency, Sukarno was judged by the military court as guilty because of the corruption of his administration and his possible involvement in the murder of the six Generals on 1st October Movement. As long as his involvement still investigated, Sukarno was forbidden to engage in any kind of political activities and stayed under house arrest. (Bertrand 2004, p. 36)


22

3.3. Pancasila Democracy70 (1966-1998)

Suharto came to power for the first time in March 1966 as President Sukarno signed a

letter transferring the effective presidential power to him. In 1967 the parliament appointed

Suharto as acting president. He was then elected as full president in 1968. Suharto named his

presidency ‘New Order’ thereby underlining a new beginning from Sukarno’s ‘Old Order’,

meaning a rotten and bankrupt system.71 ‘New Order’ regime was built on military strength

and based on a united nation coinciding with a unitary state. Like Sukarno’s concept of

guided democracy, the so-called New Order was guided by the constitution of 1945 and Pan-

casila formed its foundation. It used even more intrusive and repressive measures to contain

political oppositions, which assumed endangered the existence of Pancasila, Constitution of

1945, and the national unity, such as secessionist movement, Islamist groups, which longing

for Islam state, and communist groups, which want to change Pancasila ideology with com-

munist, etc.72

The New Order’s institutions were based on the basis of five pillars.73 First, Pancasila

legitimized the regime’s vision of a nation and it was the only legitimate ideology for any

social or political organizations.74 With this statement, former President Suharto settled all the

questions about the formation of an Islamic state or even communist state and it would not be

reopened. The communist party was banned and its members were forbidden to take part in

politics activities, neither actively meaning to run for an office, nor passively like electing the

representative on election.75 The ex-members of the communist party even had to spend their

life in jail during Suharto’s era. He used also repression to ensure that Muslim groups re-

mained non-politicized. Many incidents occurred in the 1970s and early 1980s; one of the

70 The concept of Pancasila democracy was guided by the five principles of national ideology; (1) Belief in God; (2) Humanitarianism; (3) Nationalism; (4) Democracy with deliberation for consensus; (5) Social justice. The vast majority of Indonesians, for years, accepted the system as democratic without claiming for its democratic legitimacy. Reasons for this acceptance or silence included memories of the anti-communist pogrom conducted by Suharto’s armed forces in the mid-1960s, continuing repression of dissident, a steadily rising standard of living, the persuasive power of the government’s symbolic formulations, and the relative isolation of most Indo-nesians from the democratic outside world. (Liddle 2001, p. 3) 71 Bertand 2004, p. 37 72 Another example of an important new order symbol was SARA, an acronym for the Indonesian’s words for ethnicity, religion, race, and ‘among groups’, the later generally taken as a reference to class conflict. It is meant to delineate the most sensitive political issues, those which may not be discussed in public, let alone serve as a basis for political mobilization and action (Liddle 1997, p. 293) 73 Betrand, 2004; 38-39. 74 The Pancasila ideology was taught and learned in the schools and universities. The education of Pancasila was one of important subject beside Indonesian language and religion. For Pancasila subject the students have to reach minimum note 6 (10 was the best note) to get to the higher class. Otherwise, the students have to repeat the whole year on the same class. 75 Liddle 1997, p. 303


23

most spectacular and the most traumatic for the Islamic community as a whole was the Tan-

jung Priok incident, where over one hundred Muslims were shot down during a protest in the

Jakarta harbor area of Tanjung Priok in September 1984.

Second, Suharto used the constitution of 1945 to vest his position. Although Indonesia

practiced a presidential system, it was defines in the 1945 constitution that the president

would not be directly elected by the people, but by the People Consultative Assembly (MPR)

as the highest institution in the republic. The members of MPR are political parties, the func-

tional groups,76 and regional delegates. There were only two political parties and functional

groups, which were allowed under New Order era, one of them was president’s party Golkar

which always won the election (see table 3.1). The representative of regional delegates was

appointed by the president, means that over two-third of the MPR member were the presi-

dent’s client and they had elect Suharto as president every five years. Beside that the constitu-

tion of 1945 guaranteed a strong president with wide-ranging executive power. According to

1945 constitution, the president’s term is five years and the president can unlimitedly be re-

elected. The amendment of the ‘executive heavy’ 1945 constitution was one of taboo theme

during Suharto’s era.

Table 3.1: Election results in the New Order Regime (% of votes cast)77

Year Golkar PPP PDI

1971 62.8 27.1 10.1

1977 62.1 29.3 8.6

1982 64.2 28.0 7.9

1987 73.2 16.0 10.9

1992 68.1 17.0 14.9

1997 75.5 22.4 3.1

The third pillar of New Order regime was strong political control and hierarchy which

were vested in the centralized government bureaucracy. Under government legislation

adopted in 1971 and 1974, the central government introduced a homogenous government bu-

reaucracy across all regions (provinces, districts, and sub-districts) as well as homogenous

structures of village government. Civil servants were appointed at all levels of government,

except for the villages and they accounted directly to the central government departments.

76 Functional groups are an army-controlled confederation of anti-communist organizations which was founded in 1964. During the New Order regime, functional groups played also role as government party, known with the name „Golkar“. Cheong 1976, p. 92. 77 Hadiwinata 2006, p. 90


24

The purposes of these bureaucratic and administrative structures were to eliminate institu-

tional differences in various regions so that it is easier for the central government to control

the regions. Besides, the government placed also military units at provincial, district and sub-

district levels. Military forces were often used as the first instrument to solve problem, as for

example in Aceh: the independence movements in 1970s and 1990s were crushed by army

special forces, resulting in several thousand deaths. The similar events took place in Irian Jaya

and former East Timor. In year 2002, former East Timor becomes independent from Indone-

sia through self-determination choice.

Fourth, the government limited strictly the political freedom of the people by deter-

mining which political parties are allow to participate at elections. Only ten political parties

were accepted to participate on the first election under Suharto’s presidency in 1971. By

1977, the government simplified the party system to only 3 parties (see table 3.2). The four

Muslims parties (NU, Parmusi, PSII and Perti) emerged into the Development Unity Party

(PPP) while the three secular parties (PNI, Murba, and Parkindo) and the two Christian parties

(IP-KI and Catholic party) formed the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). The main purpose

of the fusion was to make it easier for the government to limit the partisan mobilization be-

cause of the decision taken by Indonesian’s politicians to still hold regular parliamentary elec-

tions. The decision for regularly election delivers the most serious potential threat to Suharto

and the armed forces’ influence to dominate the political arena.78 The third party was Gol-

kar.79 Golkar operated effectively as a large government party. Only Golkar was allowed to

organize political activities at the sub-district and local level. The other two parties could only

be active at those levels during election campaigns. Suharto forbade the use of any kind sym-

bols referring to particular religious, ethnic, or cultural belonging for party’s symbol and

names and the party’s ideology could only based on Pancasila.

The fifth pillar was the doctrine of ‘development’. The purpose of development was

not only reaching welfare, but also to create a ‘modern’ Indonesian nation under state guid-

ance. This meant to open other Indonesian regions which were still closed and not effected by

modern life. As result, many groups still living in traditional or nature ways, such as groups in

Kalimantan and Irian Jaya (now Papua), were called as ‘backward’ and ‘excluded’, from the

Indonesian nation. Government policies, bureaucratic pressure and military intimidation were

designed to enforce change for modernization, one of the way is through a transmigration

78 Liddle 1997, p. 303. 79 Golkar was formed on October 20, 1964 not as political party but as ‘functional groups’. Backed by the senior of army officers, Golkar was formed to counter the increasing influence of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Under Suharto, Golkar became the government’s party and always won the election with clear majority, over 60 per cent (Bertrand 2004, p. 39).


25

program which transferred people from overpopulated islands, namely Java island, to occupy

‘closed’ regions, like Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Papua.

Table 3.2: List of participating parties until 1987 election80

1955 1971 1977 1982 1987

Muslim Parties

Masyumi/Parmusi 5.4

Nahdatul Ulama (NU) 20.9 18.7

PSII 18.4 2.4

Perti 2.9 0.7

PPP 1.3 29.3 28.0 16

Non Muslim Parties

PNI 22.3 6.9

Parkindo 2.6 1.3

P. Katolik 2.0 1.1

IP-KI 1.4 0.6

Murba 0.5 0.1

PDI 8.6 7.9 11

PKI 16.3

Fucntional Groups/ Golkar 62.8 62.1 64.1 73

Often the transmigration program ruined the natural lifes in those areas and caused internal

conflicts, as witnessed in Central Kalimantan, Moluccas Island, Papua, and Sulawesi in the

late of 1990s. Logging operation and land clearing for industrial timber, palm oil, and coconut

plantations have been causing the loss of significant tracts of rainforest. The World Bank

noted in 1994 that land-clearing projects contained no measures to prevent erosion.81 Beside

that an investigation in the early 1990s by the UNDP and World Bank showed how Indone-

sian forestry and land laws denied indigenous peoples rights over their habitat and thus facili-

tated the take-over of their lands by other interests. As one example was land clearing in Su-

matra, which banished both the indigenous populace as well as the nature. In Sumatra, there

were native hunting tribes names the Kubu Rimba, which have lived in the forest of southern

Sumatra since prehistoric times as hunters-gatherers and nomadic farmers. They have lost a

80 From 1987 until 1998 the number of participating parties remain three, they are: PPP, PDI and Functional Groups/ Golkar (Sundhausen 1989, p. 440). 81 World Bank: Indonesia Integrated Swamps Development Project, 1994.


26

significant part of their land after settlers from Java cut down the forests to create oil palm

plantations. They could not defend their land, because they are not settled. Under Indonesian

law, not settled people do not qualify for possession of any land and the government consid-

ered their land appropriate for resettlement under the transmigration program.82

In brief, the stability of the nation under Suharto’s presidency had been maintained

through force and intimidation. In the course of time, the stability could not be granted. By

the mid-1990s, the Suharto’s concept of New Order national model began to lose its stability

by the rising of ethnic violence. Riots in East and West Java voiced out ethnic issues.

Churches were targeted, while the property of some Chinese Indonesians was destroyed.83 In

former East Timor, violence erupted after several years of relative calm. In Kalimantan, doz-

ens of people were killed in conflicts between Dayaks and Madurese. These examples only

highlight some of the conflicts at that time. It was not coincidental that ethnic conflict was on

the rise at that particular time. The New Order regime had already lasted thirty years. Its insti-

tutional legacy and relative stability had been maintained through force and intimidation. Eth-

nic grievances have never been resolved, they were pressed down by the used of armed

forces. Many groups were controlled and manipulated by the regime’s leader.84 With Suharto

ageing, there were several open debates about succession and institutional changes. Such un-

certainty provoked ethnic tensions to rise in spite of existing instruments of control. Riots

continued to occur. As the election in 1997 returned another majority for Golkar, the political

riots could not be avoided.85

Suharto ruled Indonesia for about 32 years and stepped down in May 1998, as security

forces were unable to stem the political chaos. The collapse of his regime triggered indeed by

the Asian economic crisis in 1997 but it was shake in mid 1990s as some internal conflicts

raised and created pressure for institutional change. The Asian financial crisis disrupted the

normal course of affairs. By January 8, 1998, the rupiah had declined to 10.000 per US Dollar

(from 1500-2000 per US Dollar). As the crisis deepened, students organized demonstration

calling for reforms. On May 12, 1998, student demonstrators were shot by the state security in

front of Trisakti University, killing six students. During subsequent days, thousands of rioters

rampaged through Jakarta and several others major cities across Indonesia.86 His resignation

in 1998 was forced by the students and Indonesian elite politicians. In the months following

Suharto’s resignation, several violent regional conflicts erupted. Secessionist movements in-

82 Colchester 1986, p. 89–98. 83 Bertrand 2004, p. 42 84 Liddle 1997, p. 288-296 85 Bertrand 2004, p. 42 86 For a good historical background on this period, see Forrester/ May 1998.


27

tensified their activities in Aceh, former East Timor (now Timorese), and Irian Jaya. Conflicts

between Christian and Muslim in Ambon became violent and spread to other regions of

Moluccas. New incidents of violence occurred between indigenous Dayak and migrants

Madurese in Kalimantan.87 They all showed the failures of the institutional forms of the new

order’s model which in most of time have shaped, defined and redefined the identity of the

people in relation to other groups, state and the nation.

On 21st May 1998, Suharto transferred his presidency to B. J. Habibie, his vice presi-

dent. This early stage of political transition from Suharto to Habibie led to the next stage of

political liberalization which was marked by some political reforms that will be further dis-

cussed in chapter 5.

3. 4. Repression and ‘Indonization’

Since independence, ethnic, religious, regional and racial divisions have been indeed

the sources of conflict in Indonesia, but they, in themselves have not caused the conflicts. The

conflicts were clear products of the Indonesian government’s inability to manage the societal

diversities and problems between different groups. The tensions between groups were rather

acuminated than accommodated by the politics of the government.

During parliamentary and Sukarno’s concept of ‘guided’ democracy, political parties

were not used to mediate the relation between the people and the state. They were rather used

as tool for the elite politicians to gain popular support and to mobilize the masses for their

own objectives.88 During Suharto’s concept of ‘Pancasila’ democracy, political parties were

used as a tool to control political activity of the people, for instance: the emerging of all Mus-

lim parties to only one party, PPP (Development Unity Party), and other non-Muslim parties

to PDI (Indonesian Democratic Party) with the purpose to attempting to limit partisan mobili-

zation and to reduce Muslim political influence. Further more, Suharto tried to gain popular

support by switching the function of Functional Group (Golkar) as government party.89

While during the parliamentary democracy election still had the purpose to elect the

people’s representatives for parliament, Suharto misused the election to maintain the status

quo of the regime.90 During the Suharto’s regime, elections were held, regularly every five

years, with the sole purpose to confirm the power through Golkar. Civil servants were pressed

87For further information about these conflicts please see: www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2001-01/02RP01.htm 88 Feith 1962. 89 Liddle 1997, p. 303. 90The house of representatives, the political party systems, and the government that resulted from the national elections did not reflect the will of the people (Liddle 1997)


28

to vote Golkar and local government officials at all level were assigned ‘quotas’ of votes to be

mobilized for Golkar in every general election.91 Given this situation, it is not surprising that

Golkar secured a convincing majority of votes in every general election (see table 3.1). In

fact, the regime itself had been identified as Golkar. This underlines that there was no clear

separation of power between Legislative, Executive, and Judicatif, as normally exist under

presidential system, all power was concentrated in the hand of the president and the central

government of Indonesian’s unitary state.

The choice to be a unitary state made Indonesian as an autocratic state. The institu-

tional legacy of the Suharto’s concept of New Order regime, which excluded and denied eth-

nic minorities, threatened peoples identities and made them feel insecure, had intensified ten-

sions between certain ethnic groups and led to violent conflicts. Political conflicts were never

resolved; they were rather dissolved with the use of armed forces. Pancasila was imposed,

while Islamists were side-lined. Chinese were included as citizens but under terms that per-

petuated their differentiation.92 Discussion of ethnic or religious issues became curtailed,

while the expression of diversity was limited to non-political forms and controlled by the cen-

tral government.93 Regional autonomy continued to be recognized in principle but was very

limitedly practiced as national policies were given preponderance.94 Groups that were deemed

“backward” were subjected to migratory pressure and policies, such as the Transmigration

program, to modernize and “Indonesianize” them. This was indeed part of the official policy

and not a mere side effect was clearly indicated by a statement of Martono, the Minister of

Transmigration, in a presentation to the Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia (IGGI) on

20th March 1985. The Minister stated, “By way of transmigration, we try to…integrate all the

ethnic groups into one nation, which is Indonesian nation. The different ethnic groups will be

in the long run disappear because of integration…and…there will be only one kind of man”

(Indonesia, Department of Transmigration and IGGI 1985).95

The choices in favor of repressive approaches and authoritarian institutions had conse-

quences for future conflicts which could potentially break down the unity of Indonesia. Thus

changes of the state’s institutional legacy were essentially needed to prevent the break down

of Indonesia. Past choices affect current outcomes. The political crisis of the late 1990s

showed that the past choices in favor of a certain institutional design had caused the failure of

91 Liddle 1997, p. 304. 92 For example: the Chinese could not form politic party. Furthermore, they have special code on their ID-card which defined their identity as Chinese Indonesian. 93 Liddle 1997, p. 293. 94 Liddle 1997, p. 296. 95 Colchester 1986, p. 89.


29

representative democracy in 1950s and had laid the basis for ethnic conflicts. Therefore,

changing institutional structures is contingent for required outcomes, such as those, which can

maintain the unity and at the same time recognize the diversities, encourage cooperation and

accommodate differences between groups. The next chapter introduces two institutional ap-

proaches of political engineering96 that is, conscious design or redesign of political institu-

tions to achieve certain specific objectives, which are based on democratic institutions. Both

of them claim to work in countries, which society is highly diverse, like Indonesia. They

claim not only to manage the conflicts between different groups but also to achieve political

stability and consolidate democracy.

96 Definition is according to Reilly, in Political Reform and the Demise of Consociationalism in Southeast Asia, p. 4

Democratic Institutions __________________________________________________________________________________

30

Chapter 4

Democratic Institutions

Institutions play the most important role by forming a state. The way that institutions

shape determine the state’s form, whether it should be an autocratic or a democratic state.

Democratic institutions are institutions, which are used to create effectives rules of the game

and an effective government, and to ensure the freedom of the peoples. These institutions are

usually framed by national constitution.

In the preface to Politics in Developing Countries, Larry Diamond, Juan Linz, and

Seymour Martin Lipset argue that the institutions influence political stability in a democratic

country in four important respects. Firstly, because they structure behavior into stable, pre-

dictable and recurrent patterns, institutionalized systems are less volatile and more enduring,

and so are institutionalized democracy. Secondly, regardless on how they perform economi-

cally, democracies that have more coherent and effective political institutions will be more

likely to perform well politically in maintaining not only political order but also a rule of law,

thus ensuring civil liberties, checking the abuse of power and providing meaningful represen-

tation, competition choice and accountability. Third, over the long run well-institutionalized

democracies are also more likely to produce workable, sustainable and effective economic

and social policies because they have more effective and stable structures for representing

interests and they are more likely to produce working congressional majorities or coalitions

that can adopt and sustain policies. Lastly, states that have capable, coherent democratic insti-

tutions are better able to limit military involvement in politics and assert civilian control over

the military.97

There are three arenas of the institution, which play a key role in order to build a de-

mocratic democracy.98 They are:

(i) Representational institution, covering the formal structures of elections, which

translate the votes into seats in a legislative chamber.

(ii) Mediating institutions, such as political parties and party systems, which do not

only aggregate popular preferences and play an intermediary function between the

state and its society, but they can also manage conflicts and promote stable politics.

97 Diamond/ Linz/ Lipset 1995, p. 33 98 Reilly 2001, p. 35.


31

(iii) Power sharing institutions, meaning institutions which attempt to divide, devolve

or share power between different groups, horizontally by the composition of executive

government as well as vertically by the devolution of political power.

In new democratic states, especially where a society is deeply divided along ethnic,

regional, or religious lines, political institutions even play a greater role. The optimal ar-

rangement of the political institutions can able the government to manage and accommodate

the diversities of a society, so that democratic stability can be achieved. Political institutions

are prominent in this case to channel the communication between divergent groups. The dis-

cussion about the set of institutional rules that should be adopted to support democratization,

especially in countries, whose societies are deeply divided, will be further discussed in the

next chapter.

This chapter deals with the three arenas of institutions which I have mentioned above.

The first part of this chapter discusses electoral systems, diverse types of them, some of their

strengths and weaknesses. Following this theme, the second part discusses about the variety

of party system and the role of political parties. In modern democracies, political parties and

electoral systems go hand in hand: modern mass parties were created to contest in elections

and electoral systems exist to structure the competition among parties. The last part of this

chapter poses the possibility how the power and the tasks of the elected governments can be

shared, vertically and horizontally.

4. 1. Electoral System

The electoral system is considered as central ‘rule of game’ in a country, because the

choice for particular electoral system can effectively determine who will be elected and which

party gains power. It gives incentives for those competing for power to couch their appeals to

the electorate in a distinct way.99 In cases of divided societies, where ethnicity or religion rep-

resents a fundamental political cleavage, particular electoral systems can reward candidates

and parties who act in cooperative and accommodative manner with rival groups. Contrarily,

it can also punish the candidates who appeal only to their own ethnic group. Electoral systems

may also encourage or discourage the forging of alliances between parties which can affect

the broader political climate.

The main problems faced by the designers of the electoral system are the exchanges

between the competing desire and the consequences. For example, one may want to create a

99 Reilly/ Reynolds 1999, p. 6


32

system that gives voters a wide degree of choice between candidates and parties but this may

in return promote intraparty fragmentation and competition. On the other side, one wants to

have a system which gives rise to developing a strong coherent party. This may reduce the

influence of the voters and open chance for patronage. By choosing electoral system, it is ad-

vised to pick the most suitable system of casting and counting votes with regard to the indi-

vidual situation of the country concerned: its geography, demography, ethnic composition, the

political format as well as the existing political party system or the desire of having a particu-

lar political party system. There are basically two mainly electoral systems available: the dis-

trict and the proportional system. In practice, many countries apply a combination of these

two systems, so that many variations exist.100

4.1.1. District Systems

The district system is well known as the plurality-majority system. Each district has

only one representative. The candidate with the majority of votes wins and will represent that

district. The minority votes are regarded to disappear.

There are two variations of the district system: the simple and absolute majority plu-

rality system. First, in the simple majority plurality or first-past-the-post plurality system

(FPTP), the candidate who gets the majority of votes will win the district concerned. Canada,

New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom, among others, apply this system.

Another application of FPTP that is used usually in multi-member districts is the so

called the Block Vote (BV), wherein the voters have as many votes as there are seats to be

filled in the district and the highest-polled candidates fill the position regardless of the per-

centage of the vote they actually achieve. This system is used in some parts of Asia and the

Middle East. A variation of the BV is the Party Block Vote (PBV), which requires the voters

to choose between party lists of candidates rather than individual candidate. The party which

gets the most votes wins all the seats in the district. This system is applied, for instance, in

Singapore.

The second variation is the absolute majority plurality system. In this system a candi-

date will win if he or she can get an absolute majority, 50 percent + 1 vote. In cases where no

candidate wins the absolute majority of the votes, the problem can be solved through one of

the following two variants: a “majority run-off” or an “Alternative Vote (AV). A majority-

run-off is applied if no candidate obtains a majority on the first ballot, a second and final bal-

lot is held between the two candidates who received the highest number of votes in the first

100 Blais/ Massicotte 1996.


33

round. Fifteen countries with direct presidential elections use this system, including France,

Austria, Finland, and Poland.101 This system is also known as two-round system (TRS).

An Alternative Vote (AV) is used in Australia and newly in Fiji. The operation of this

system is to transfer minority votes to a higher-polled candidate so that one candidate will

have an absolute majority of votes. In this system, the voters rank the candidates according to

their preference, “1” for the most favorite one, “2” for the second favorite, etc.

The district system offers five positive prospects: first, the closeness of the candidate

to the district concerned, since the legislators represent defined areas of cities rather than just

party labels. Second, the choice between individual candidates inherent within single-

member-district systems means that voters can assess the performance of the candidates rather

than just having to accept a list of candidates presented by the party. Third, they funnel the

party system and thus voters’ choices, into a competition between two broadly based political

parties, and fourth, this will help to encourage broadly based multi-ethnic political parties.

Fifth, broadly based multi-ethnic political parties are good basis to create a stable government,

especially in deeply divided countries.102

Yet, this system has also some weaknesses. First, it excludes smaller parties from fair

representation. Second, this system is well known for wasted votes, which can create the feel-

ing among minority party supporters that they don’t have a realistic chance of ever being rep-

resented by the candidate of their choice. This can increase the likelihood that anti-democratic

extremists mobilize anti-system movements, which poses a threat to democracy’s stability.

Third, the possibility of money politics arises during the process of national election.

4.1.2. Proportional Representation Systems

The proportional Representation system is a system based on the proportional count-

ing of the votes received by one contestant. Each political party will get seats in the parlia-

ment in proportion to their popular vote. Usually minority votes in one constituency are dis-

tributed among the other candidates according to the second and later choices indicated on the

ballots papers, or will be combined with those in other constituencies for the political party

concerned so that no votes will disappear. The positive of this system is that minorities and

small parties still have a chance to gain seats in the parliament.

There are two variations of the PR system: first, the list PR system where the voter

elect either only the political party or political party and specific candidate. Parties receive

101 Blais/ Massicotte 1996, p. 56. 102 Reynolds et al. 2008, p. 3-4.


34

seats in proportion to their overall share of the national votes. The list PR system is differenti-

ated into closed list and open list. In closed list system, the party fixes the order in which the

candidates are listed and the voter simply casts a vote for the party as whole. It means that

voters are not able to indicate their preference for any candidates on the list, but must accept

the list in the order presented by the party. This is the most common type of PR and it is

widely used in Europe, Latin America, and southern Africa. While the open list system is de-

signed to give voters some influence over the order of the list and thus which candidates get

elected. In the open list system, the voters are allowed to express a preference for particular

candidates, not just parties. Voters not vote for a party but cast a vote for an individual candi-

date. This vote counts for the specific candidate as well as for the party. The most popular

candidates rise to the top of the list and have chance of being elected.103

Second is the single transferable vote system (STV) which works in the same manner

like AV, namely the voters rank the candidates in order of preference on the ballot paper. This

system uses “quotas” which a candidate must achieve, to be elected. Any candidate who has

more first-preference votes than quota is immediately elected. If no one achieved the quota,

the candidate with the lowest number of first preferences is eliminated, and their second pref-

erences are redistributed among remaining candidates. The surplus votes of elected candidates

are redistributed according to the second preferences on the ballot papers until all seats for the

constituency are filled.

The strong points of PR system are that wasted votes are very low. The lower the

threshold for representation, the lower the wasted votes. Second, PR can facilitate minority

parties’ access to representation. Unless the threshold is unduly high or the district magnitude

is unusually low. Third, PR makes power sharing between majority and minorities more visi-

ble. Lastly, many scholars found that that PR system increases the women representation in

the parliament, because parties are able to use the lists to promote the advancement of female

politicians.

The most often cited arguments against using PR systems are, the firsts of all that it

leads to a detachment of the representatives from their constituents. When the seats are allo-

cated in large multi-member districts, there is often no accountable link between voters and

their member in parliament. Secondly, by using closed list PR, the voters often have difficul-

ties to determine the identity the person who will represent them. Beside, they do hot have the

ability to vote out a candidate if voters feel he or she failed in office. Thirdly, closed list PR

leaves much power within party structures and their leaders, and therefore the candidates are

103 www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/beginningreading/howprwor.htm


35

dependent on support from party bosses. This situation can contribute to the use of money

politics104 in case to be the first on the party list. Fourth, since the PR system tries to include

as many parties as possible in the parliament, it leads to a fragmentation of party system,

which can easily destabilize coalitions government, and fifth, lead to legislative gridlock as

well as the inability to carry out coherent politics at time of most pressing need.

4.1.3. Semi-Proportional Systems

Semi-PR systems are those which translate vote cast into seats in a way that falls

somewhere in between the proportionality of a PR system and the majority of a plurality-

majority system. The three semi-PR electoral systems, used for legislative elections, are the

single nontransferable vote (SNTV), the parallel (or mixed) systems, the Limited Vote

(LV),105 and Mixed Member Proportional (MMP). In the SNTV, each elector has one vote but

there are several seats in the district to be filled, and the candidates with the highest number of

votes fill these positions. The parallel (or mixed) systems use both PR lists and single-

member districts running side by side. Part of the parliament is elected using PR system, and

the other part is elected using some type of plurality or majority method. The Limited Vote

(LV) gives voters more than one vote but fewer votes than there are seats to be filled. In the

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP),106 the PR seats are used to compensate for any dispro-

portionality produced by the district seat results, and the single-member districts ensure that

voters have some geographical representation. For example, if one party wins 10 per cent of

the vote nationally but no district seats, then it will be awarded enough seats from the PR lists

to bring its representation up to 10 per cent of the seats in the legislature, as in Germany and

New Zealand.

Since these systems are a combination of PR systems and plurality-majority systems,

mixed systems has advantages of both sides, namely, a greater inclusiveness with minority

representation, less party fragmentation and less wasted votes.

Though, these systems have some weaknesses. The systems are complicated. It con-

fuses the voters, because it is a combination of two different systems. It requires the voters to 104 Politicians pay some amount of money to achieve particular purpose, for example: in order to be elected or to get a seat in Parliament. 105 It is not easy to put LV and SNTV systems under particular category. In the Handbook of Electoral Systems Design published by IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance), both of these systems are cate-gorized under “Other Systems”. It means that both of these systems do not fit neatly under any one of the above- mentioned categories (IDEA 2002, p. 29). But Reilly and Reynolds, in their work: Electoral Systems and Con-flict in Divided Societies (1999: 21) categorized both of these systems under the Semi-Proportional System. 106 Reilly and Reynolds in one of their work: Electoral Systems and Conflict in Divided Societies (1999) catego-rized the MMP system under PR system. But since this system used the combination of both PR system and majority plurality system, I put them under Semi-proportional system.


36

vote strategically, and it does not guarantee overall proportionality because of the combina-

tion with plurality-majority system.

In the literature, there are eleven types of electoral systems (see figure 4.2)107 which

have been implemented dispersed in 199 nations108 (see table 4.1 and figure 4.1). In terms of

the number of countries using them, List PR system are the most popular, with 70 out of 199

countries and related territories (35 percent), followed by the 47 cases of FPTP systems (24

per cent), which are used in countries with a population of twice size of List PR countries.109

Next in order are Parallel systems (16 per cent) and Two-Round systems (8 per cent). The

Block Vote is used in 15 countries, while MMP systems are only used in only 9 countries.

The STV, LV, AV, PBV, and SNTV are the rarest electoral systems in use today. AV is used

in Australia, Fiji and PNG; SNTV systems in Afghanistan, Jordan, the Pitcairn Island and

Vanuatu; and STV systems only in the Republic of Ireland and Malta.

Figure 4.1. The world of electoral system110

107 Reilly/ Reynolds 1999, p.19-22 108 Reynolds et al. 2008, p. 31-32 109 FPTP is used in India with 1,1 billion people and the United States with 293 million people. The largest coun-try that uses List PR is Indonesia with 238 million people. 110 Reynolds et al. 2008, p. 32


37

Figure 4.2. Electoral System Families111

111 Reynolds and Reilly 1999, p. 20. Except the little change on MMP, I have adopted the Figure from their work. I categorize the MMP under Semi-PR, since this system uses the combination of PR electoral system and plurality majority system.


38

Table 4.1. The Distribution of Electoral System across National Legislatures112

Africa Americas Asia Eastern

Europe

Western

Europe

Oceania Middle

East

Total

FPTP 15 17 5 0 1 7 2 47

BV 1 3 2 0 3 2 4 15

PBV 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 4

AV 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 3

TRS 8 3 6 1 1 1 2 22

Parallel 4 0 8 7 1 1 0 21

SNTV 0 0 1 0 0 2 1 4

LV 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1

List PR 16 19 3 13 15 0 4 70

MMP 1 3 0 2 2 1 0 9

STV 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 3

Total 48 45 26 23 26 18 13 199

Different electoral systems translate the vote into different results and lead to different

political outcomes. Even the same electoral systems can works differently in other countries.

There are indeed common experiences in different regions of the world, but still the effects of

a particular type of electoral system depend on the socio-political context in which it is used.

More precisely, the consequences of the use of particular electoral system depend on ques-

tions such as how a society is structured in terms of ideological, religious, ethnic, racial or

class divisions; whether the country is an established democracy, a transitional democracy or

new democracy; whether there is an established party system or not; and whether particular

party’s supporter are geographically concentrated or dispersed over different regions. It is

hence recommendable to list the criteria, to prioritize goals, unfavorable situations, and favor-

able government systems, when designing electoral system.113

112 Reynolds et al. 2008, p. 31 113 Reynolds et al. 2008, p. 7


39

4. 2. Political Parties and Party Systems

Modern democracies are party democracies. Political institutions and practices in de-

mocratic government would be unthinkable without them.114 A political party is defined as an

organized group of people with similar political aims and opinions, that seeks to influence

public policy by getting its candidates elected to public office.115

In the literature, there are five different types of party system: nonpartisan democracy,

single-party system, dominant-party system, two-party system, and multiparty system.116

Although it occurs very rarely, some democratic countries can be considered as non-

partisan, meaning a democratic country without official political parties, such as in Microne-

sia, Palau, and Tuvalu. The absence of political parties can be caused by a law which prohibits

their existence or simply because they have not yet formed any.

Meanwhile, the single-party system exists only in dictatorship, as for instance in Libe-

ria (1878-1980), China, Nord Korea, Cuba, Eritrea, Laos, Vietnam, Syria, and Turkmenistan.

In these countries, there is only one party, usually the government’s party. The debate about

forming other parties is often absolutely taboo or even forbidden by the law.

Dominant-party systems are characterized by one very large party that dominates all

others with a large majority, meaning above the absolute majority of 50 per cent of parliamen-

tary seats, over several decades. In these systems all parties are legal and allowed to compete

in free elections but there is only one party which has a realistic chance to win the election

and gain the power because electors vote massively for the dominant party. In most cases, the

dominant-party system occurs in autocratic states, for instance: the NDP of Hosni Mubarak in

Egypt and the ZANU-PF of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. In some cases, there are democ-

ratic countries, with only one party dominates for a long period like the ANC in South Africa

since 1994, the Botswana Democratic Party in Botswana since 1966, the Liberal Democratic

Party in Japan from 1955 to 1993, and the Congress Party in India from 1947 to 1977.117

The fourth type of party system, the two-party system, hosts two major political par-

ties who have a realistic chance of holding power. But this does not mean that these are the

only parties. There are also a number of other smaller parties compete in the elections. How-

ever, they are marginal as they are not necessary to form a government.118 Prominent are the

two-party systems in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Costa Rica, and

114 Lipset (1996), Schnattschneider (1942), Katz (1980) 115 Schmidt: Wörterbuch zur Politik, p. 514. 116 Clark et al. 2009, p. 543-547 117 Caramani 2008, p. 328. 118 Caramani 2008, p. 328


40

Malta. According to Larry Diamond, Juan Linz, and M. S. Lipset in their multi-volume com-

parison of democracy in developing countries, the two-party system with only two parties

contested for votes is the optimal basis for democracy.119

The last type to be regarded is the multi-party system which is embraced most by de-

mocratic countries. In multi-party system, there are more than two political parties which are

allowed to compete in the elections and each has, theoretically, a realistic chance of gaining

power, separately or as part of coalition. While multi-party system are considered to represent

better socio-political pluralism in countries with religious, regional and ethno-linguistic cleav-

ages, there were, on the other side, held responsible for instability, frequent coalition ‘crises’,

and poor responsiveness, with no single party clearly accountable.120

In democracies, political parties perform a number of essential functions that are cen-

tral to the operation of modern states, and particularly modern democracies. They do not only

channel, aggregate, and express political demands of different groups; but they provide the

basis for coordinated electoral and legislative activity, meaning they recruit and train candi-

dates for public office. (See Figure 4.3.). They can integrate disparate groups as well as sepa-

rate integrated groups. They enable individuals to take part in the decision-making process of

democracies. That is why the regulation of political parties is very important in order to con-

solidate the fragile and new democracies. Some of the world’s famous political scientists have

confirmed that strong parties are a sine qua non of successful democratization.121

In democratic countries, especially in those with divided societies, the numbers of po-

litical parties, participating in political competition, play an important role. This is one of the

themes, which is still on debate in the scholarly literature. Scholarly like Lijphart argued that

the most optimal party system for democracy in multi-culture countries is multi-party system.

Political parties are legal channels, through its each group can articulate their demands and

preferences. Lijphart is convinced that any tension and conflict between different groups can

be accommodated by ethnic parties which are ideally represented proportionally in govern-

ment and state institutions. Malaysia is one of the examples for this multiparty government,

wherein each ethnic group is represented separately by their own party. Meanwhile, there are

cross-national studies, which show that the existence of ethnic parties tends to lead to conflict.

An increase in the number of parties represented in the legislature leads to higher government

subsidies and transfers but lower spending on public goods. For example in India, the multi-

119 Diamond et al 1995, p. 35. 120 Caramani 2008, p. 330. 121 Samuel Huntington, Juan Linz, Larry Diamond and Seymour Lipset, in Reilly 2008, p. 8.


41

party government has to spent more on personnel than on developmental expenditures, and

has a lower provision of public goods than those with two-party system.122

Figure 4.3. Functions of Parties123

Functions of Parties Coordination Maintaining discipline and communication within parliamentary

caucus.

Coordinating action of the parliamentary caucus in support of, or opposition to, the cabinet.

Organizing the political activity of like-minded citizens.

Patterning linkage between representatives in public office and or-

ganized supporters among the citizenry.

Conducting electoral campaign and structuring competition

Providing candidates and linking individual candidates to recog-nizable symbols, histories, and expectations of team-like behaviour.

Developing policy programmes.

Recruiting and coordinating campaign workers.

Selection and re-cruitment of person-nel

Selection of candidates for elections.

Recruitment and/or selection of candidates for appointed office.

Recruitment and socialization of political activists and potential office-holders.

Integration of new citizens into the existing political system.

Representation Speaking for their members and supporters within or in front of government agencies.

Being the organizational in the political sphere of demographically or ideologically defined categories of citizens.

So far I have given an overview of the different types and functions of party systems

and further analyses has to be done elsewhere. My purpose is to demonstrate that the party

systems as well as electoral systems can vary substantially. In many cases, the type of party

system, the number and the relative sizes of political parties in the legislature, is influenced by

the electoral system. Besides, the way parties campaign and the way political elites behave

122 Mukherjee 2003, p. 699-728. 123 Katz 2008, p. 299.


42

can also be influenced by the electoral system, thus helping to shape the broader political cli-

mate.124

4. 3. Power-Sharing Institutions

Power-sharing institutions are considered to be the most typical characteristics of

every democracy. The regular elections and the existence of political parties are ineffective if

the authority or the power in a country lies only on one person. The main function of every

power-sharing institution is to create a balance and control of power within the elected repre-

sentative in the government. Power sharing can be found in both horizontal, by the formation

of the government as well as vertically, by federalism or decentralization.

There are three kinds of executive forms. The first type is the presidentialism wherein

the president acts as the chief executive, but the state powers are divided between the execu-

tive, legislative and judicial branches to ensure systemic checks and balances. In the presiden-

tialism, the president is elected by popular vote and has fix terms of office.125

The second type is parliamentarism. In the parliamentarism, the ministers of the ex-

ecutive branch are drawn from the legislature and are accountable to that body. In contrast to

the presidential system and its clear separation of power, there is no clear-cut separation of

power between executive and legislative branches in parliamentarism. In parliamentary sys-

tems, the head of government is both the chief of executive and the chief of legislator. Parlia-

mentary systems are expected to strengthen democracy in ethnically, racially, or ideologically

divided nations, because power is more divided or shared by more actors. Yet in presidential

system the executive power is concentrated in the president. Linz argued, “The feeling of hav-

ing independent power, a mandate from the people…is likely to give the president a sense of

power and mission that might be out of proportion to the limited plurality that elected him.”126

In the political literature, the debate over the merits of presidential and parliamentary systems

appears to be a never-ending debate127, because of its strengths and weaknesses.

Also relevant to this debate is a third type of democratic system, namely what Du-

verger (1980) called a semi-presidential government. Similar to presidential systems, the

president is directly elected by the people. Yet in presidential system, prime minister exists

and he or she as well as the cabinet, are responsible to both the president and legislature. The

government must maintain a supportive majority and the loss of it may culminate in a vote of

124 Reynolds et.al. 2008, p. 6. 125 Shugart/ Carey 1992. 126 Linz 1994, p. 19. 127 Linz 1994; Horowitz 1993; Lijphart 1995a; Shugart/ Carey 1992 etc.


43

no confidence for the government and thus the president. Those who favor semi-presidential

systems, argue that it represents a compromise between the extremes of presidentialism and

parliamentarism, namely the potential majoritarian excesses inherent in presidential systems

and the possibilities for endemic government instability under parliamentary systems. The

advocates of semi-presidential systems contend that the elected president can help to

strengthen the government vis-à-vis the legislature and reduce the propensity toward cabinet

instability. However, all three types of the government systems – presidential, parliamentary,

and semi-presidential – can work effectively with a sound institutional combination and con-

stitutional design.

Vertically, power sharing can be done in several ways, from full-scale federalism, de-

centralization to special or wide-ranging autonomy arrangements. Federalism is a system,

wherein groups in different regions and at different levels of government are enabled to ac-

cess and exercise governing authority independently from central control. In federalist sys-

tems, governing power is constitutionally divided between national and state (regional) gov-

ernments.128 In the Asia-Pacific regions, Malaysia is the only example for a state, which has

implemented a federal system. Another way to share the authority and responsibility for pub-

lic functions between central government and the regions is by decentralization. Decentraliza-

tion is the transfer of a range of power and responsibility from central to regional or to local

government to planning, financing and managing their region. Meanwhile autonomy means

that a region has the authority to pose regulation that is convenient with the situation of the

region and the needs of the peoples. Decentralization and autonomy can be done in all sectors,

except for the national security sector and foreign affair. For example the declaration of mak-

ing war or peace with other states, exporting or importing particular nature resources, and

signing international treaties need to be undertaken by the central government.

In conflict-prone societies, the power-sharing institution on the vertical level has an-

other function, namely to manage the tensions between groups by promoting inclusivity and

to balancing influence of all major groups.129 Giving a special status and governing power to a

defined regional entity, special autonomy, has become an increasingly attractive possibility

for policymakers when attempting to manage secessionist or self-determination struggles.

Indonesia’s government in 2001 offered both conflict regions – Aceh and Papua – a ‘special

autonomy’ status so that they have more local control over cultural, political, and economic

affairs as well as a greater portion of the revenue from local natural resources projects. How-

ever, this will be further discussed in the next chapter. 128 Reilly 2007, p.167 129 Sisks 1996, p. 9.


44

Power-sharing institutions to manage society diversities can also be found at the ex-

ecutive level, formally and informally. A formal power-sharing institution at executive level

requires written regulation stating that the members of particular political parties or social

groups have to be included in government-building. For instance in Fiji, the allocation of min-

isterial positions in proportion to a party’s overall seat and vote share are constitutionally ar-

ranged. The formal power sharing is rarely used. It appears to be applied only in times of war

or emerging of civil conflict in order to turn the country into a stable democracy. Informal

power sharing means that the representatives of different parties or groups are routinely in-

cluded in the cabinet as part of established political practices, without any legal requirement.

Malaysian’s cabinet form with its Barisan National ruling Malaysia since 1974,130 is perhaps

the most enduring example of informal power sharing in Asia-Pacific. In Asia-pacific coun-

tries, it can be observed that the informal power sharing takes place in a less structured way.

Many governments make an effort to include a range of representatives from different regions

into the governing executive in order to provide some kind of balanced representation and

thereby swallowing all the potential of the political opposition. One example is the grand coa-

lition in Indonesia during 1999-2001, in which all parties were simultaneously included in a

national unity government.131

So far I described the three arenas of political institutions, which are essentially

needed in order to build a democratic country. In the next chapter, I pose two proposals on

designing the three institution arenas aiming to create a stable democratic government in multi

ethnic country.

130 Barisan National is a cabinet coalition in Malaysia which is formed by three big Parties – the UMNO, MCA, and MIC – along with a range of smaller parties. (Reilly 2007, p. 148) 131 The grand coalition in Asia-Pacific is not the grand coalition, which is supposed to be, wherein two largest parties with different ideological orientations form a coalition to form the government.

Institutional Design __________________________________________________________________________________

45

Chapter 5

Institutional Design

Political institution design or political engineering has become more important, in the

past decade, not only to ensure democratic consolidation but also to manage conflicts in

deeply divided societies that are, societies with sharp ethnic, religious, national and/ or lin-

guistic cleavages.132 An increasing number of political scientists like A. Lijphart, D. L.

Horowitz, E. Andrew, A. Reynolds, B. Reilly etc. argue that careful and purposive institu-

tional design is necessary to consolidate fragile, new or transitional democracies. It is not

about creating suitable ambience for a stable democracy, but rather designing the democratic

institutions to suit the given situation.

Institutional design is the design of political institutions aiming at changing the politi-

cal behavior and political outcomes in a country, such as the design of electoral systems, the

regulation of political parties and party systems, and devolution of power horizontally and

vertically. The design of institutions is essentially needed to create a stable democracy be-

cause institution constitute and sustain democracy.133 As Larry Diamond argued: “the single

most important and urgent factor in the consolidation of democracy is […] robust political

institution, such as secure executives and effective legislatures, composed of coherent broadly

based parties, and encouraged by aggregative electoral institutions.”134 Institutional design

plays an important role especially in newly democratizing and multi-ethnic countries, because

in the absence of other structures, politics became the primary mode of communication be-

tween divergent social forces.135 In deeply divided societies, the primary aim of institutional

design is to find constructive ways to reduce the political salience, social resonance and inten-

sity of conflict and thereby to open the political space for intergroup cooperation and com-

promise.

Especially in Asia-Pacific regions, the policy makers have redesigned the basic institu-

tional components for representative democracy: electoral systems, political parties, legisla-

ture and executive governments. In this chapter, I present the two prominent contrasting ap-

proaches to political engineering if dealing with social cleavages. Both approaches support the

idea that institutions change political outcomes and if we want to change the political behav-

132 Reilly calls this kind of societies as “conflict-prone societies” (Reilly 2007, p.5) 133 See March/ Olsen 1984, p. 747; Koeble 1995, p. 232. 134 Diamond1996, p. 239 135 Reilly/ Reynolds 1999, p. 3


46

ior and political practice of the elite politics, we have to change the formal political institu-

tion.

Despite all the agreement about the importance of institutional design in new democ-

ratic and divided countries, there is still a discussion about which kind of institutional ar-

rangement is the optimal set to achieve democratic stability.

The first is consociationalism approach, advocated and defended by Arendt Lijphart

(1977), is based on elite cooperation between leaders of different communities. The coopera-

tion of all actors leads to grand coalition cabinets and can create harmony between groups.

Proportional representation elections, minority veto power and ethnic federalism are the tool

to do so. The second approach, associated with the work of Donald L. Horowitz (1985), is

known as centripetalism. The ideas of centripetalism are promoting multi-ethnic parties,

crosscutting electoral incentives and inter-group accommodation in order to encourage coop-

eration among different groups

5. 1. Consociationalism

The term ‘consociationalism’ that derived from Johannes Althusius’s concept of con-

sociation in his Politica Methodice Digesta (1803) and was made famous by Arend Lijphart

in his Democracy in Plural Societies (1977) is the one of leading theory in Comparative Poli-

tics.136 The aim of consociationalism is first of all to find the best way to guarantee the incor-

poration of individuals and groups representatives within the democratic political institutions

in order to protect community interests and to provide safeguards for mutual security, so that

a stable democratic government in plural societies137 can be achieved. Lijphart argues that in

deeply divided societies, interests and demands of communal groups can be accommodated

by establishing the power sharing approach.138 According to him, each problem between

groups should be solved by cooperation and agreement between the leaders of each group.

The cooperation and agreement between the leaders are realized by grand coalitions in the

government, based on the power sharing principle and group autonomy. These are the two

primary characteristics of what Lijphart calls a consociational democracy. Power sharing

means that the representatives of all segments can participate in the decision-making of the

grand coalition. Group autonomy denotes the authority of each segment to run their own in-

136 Lijphart 1977, p. 1. 137 Lijphart’s terminology for divided societies is, societies that are sharply divided along religious, ideological, linguistic, cultural, ethnic, or racial lines into virtually separate sub societies with their own political parties, interest groups, and media of communication (1977, p. 22) 138 Lijphart 2004, p. 96


47

ternal affairs, especially in the economy, education, and culture areas. These two main charac-

teristics will be supported by two other elements, namely mutual vetoes for the minority on

those issues which affect the vital interests of specific groups and proportionality, both as an

electoral formula and as principle for service appointments and resource allocation.

For consociationalists, political parties are the principal institutional means for trans-

lating segmental cleavages into the political realm. That is why parties which are based on

explicit social belonging are most preferable, because these parties can represent each signifi-

cant group without exception. According to consociationalists, political elites can negotiate

the relevance issues effectively only by parties based on clearly and separately segments.

These political will build a grand coalition cabinet139 which entails the participation of all

segments in the executive decision-making process and in which minorities can influence

important themes, affecting their communities with mutual veto. Once elected into representa-

tive assemblies, consociationalists assert that party leaders have strong incentives to engage in

a cooperative manner, to bargain, and to achieve consensus by the give-and-take in the legis-

lative in finding balance of power. The party leaders can use their position to negotiate and

gain ministerial office in coalition governments. It is expected that by working together in

governing alliances an experience of regular face-to-face negotiations and political bargaining

take place. The intercommunity cooperation and social tolerance would be strengthened this

way. The form of government which is based on elite cooperation in my point of view, is very

vital for democracy. If the elites fail to achieve compromises and fail to maintain a stable po-

litical centre, the downfall of democracy is likely to follow as result, as Indonesian experi-

ences during the 1950-1957 parliamentary democracy (Chapter 2) showed. They led to violent

internal conflict and ended with four decades of an authoritarian regime. Another weakness of

grand coalitions is that it swallows the potential of the opposition which has the function to

control the government.

The grand coalition is typically associated with the formation of a multiparty cabinet

in a parliamentary system, as for example the Netherlands (1917-1967) and Austria (1945-

1966) has shown. The Austrian arrangement ensured a delicate balance of Catholic and So-

cialist representation in cabinet while in Dutch government formed by the coalition of the four

so called pillars of the Dutch polity namely Catholic, Calvinist, socialist, and liberal. Lijphart

prefers the parliamentary arrangements over presidential system because of the potential of

collegiality and ability within cabinets in decision-making processes which offset the majori-

139 The term grand coalition, which is used by Lijphart to describe the preferable cabinet, does not have the same meaning like grand coalition in the political literature, wherein two biggest parties, in form of coalition, form the government. May be it will be more clearly if the cabinet called as “the elite’s cartel” instead grand coalition.


48

tarianism that he views as intrinsic to presidential systems.140 As also criticized by Linz, pre-

sidentialism promotes a strong element of zero-sum game with rules that tend to produce

“winner-take-all” outcomes.141 Though, a consociational executive can be found in presiden-

tial system as well, see for examples: Lebanon during the National Pact era (1943-1975). Dur-

ing that time, Maronite Christians were guaranteed the position of president while a Sunni

Muslim held the position of prime minister. Shia Muslim filled the position of president of the

national assembly and a member of the Greek Orthodox community served as deputy

speaker.142

The fact that the cabinets in parliamentary system depends on the majority’s support

and that they can be dismissed by the parliament’s vote of no confidence may lead to cabinet

instability and consequently regime instability. This is one potential problem of parliamentary

systems. But since most of the stable democracies are built upon parliamentary rather than

presidential or semi-presidential forms of government, this problem should not be overesti-

mated.143 Besides, Lijphart argues that constitutional provisions can be designed to prevent

this effect. An example is shown by the constructive vote of no confidence, adopted in 1949

constitution of West Germany that could strengthen the position of cabinet’s vis-à-vis legisla-

tures. According to this constitutional provision, the prime minister (chancellor) can de dis-

missed by parliament only if a new prime minister is elected simultaneously. This eliminates

the risk of a cabinet being voted out of office by a “negative” legislative majority that is un-

able to form an alternative cabinet.

To ensure that each segment represented by political parties, will be fairly represented

in the government, consociationalism uses the electoral system of proportional representation

with party list. Lijphart argues that the PR election system allows for a higher district magni-

tude, thus increasing proportionality and is less vulnerable to electoral manipulation. Fur-

thermore, the PR election system will be less open to suspicion and is simpler than STV for

the voters and vote counters.144 The party list may be either open or closed.145 An open party

list allows voters to express their preferences not only for a political party but also for specific

candidates, while the closed party list keeps the ranking of candidates in the hands of party

leaders. Lijphart specially advocates the closed-list variant of PR, because it encourages the

formation of cohesive political parties and strengthens the influence that leaders hold on their

140 Lijphart 2007, p. 80 141 Linz, 1994, p. 18. 142 Lijphart 2002, p. 37-54 143 In Lijphart comparative studies, 30 of the 36 stable democracies had parliamentary systems. See Lijphart 1999. 144 Lijphart 1999, p.11 145 For explanation please see chapter 4, p. 34


49

parties.146 For many democracies, mainly those which are facing deep social divisions, PR is

especially recommended, because it fosters a higher proportionality and minority representa-

tion compared with majoritarian electoral systems, and allows the groups to define themselves

politically.147 It treats all sorts group of ethnical, racial, religious, or even non-communal

groups, in a completely equal manner which is essentially needed for democratic stability.

In addition to the formula used to translate votes into seats, electoral systems also dif-

fer in term of such features as district magnitude and thresholds for representation. District

magnitude refers to the number of elected candidates. The number of positions can range from

two to nationwide candidates. Lijphart recommends larger multimember districts, because

low district magnitude limits the effective participation of small minorities and may thus

serve to increase disproportionality in representation.148 District magnitude and electoral

threshold may serve as barriers to representation. The variability of such thresholds is defined

in a minimum percentage of votes won in order to gain parliamentary representation. Low

thresholds make it easier for small parties to win seats, whereas higher thresholds hinder

smaller parties to get into the parliament. Both, district magnitude and electoral thresholds

have implications for the degree of proportionality, the electoral system provides. In both

cases the percentage of the population represented by minority groups should be taken into

account and they should be designed in such a way as to ensure they do not function as barri-

ers to group participation.

One attractive model of list PR system is used in Denmark. Denmark has 17 districts

that elect an average of eight representatives each from partly open party lists. The districts

are small enough for minority parties with more than 8 percent of the vote to stand a good

chance of being elected. In addition to the 135 representatives elected in these districts, there

are 40 national compensatory seats that are apportioned to parties (with a minimum of 2 per-

cent of the national vote) aiming at maximizing overall national proportionality. The Danish

model is advantageous for divided societies, because the compensatory seats plus the low 2

percent threshold give small minorities that are not geographically concentrated a reasonable

chance to be represented in the national legislature.149

Some scholars have identified that countries like Namibia (1989), Nicaragua (1990),

Cambodia (1993), South Africa (1994), Mozambique (1994), Indonesia (1999), and East-

146 Lijphart 2007, p. 79. 147 Lijphart 1995, p. 281. 148 Lijphart 2007, p. 9 149 Lijphart 1995b, p. 417; Lijphart 2004, p. 101


50

Timor (2001) have implemented party list PR in their transitional election and have had suc-

cessful transition to democracy.150

According to consociational concepts, the proportional representation of groups should

be found not only in the parliament, but should also be applied in the civil service appoint-

ments, in the executive, in the judiciary, in the security forces and in the allocation of finan-

cial resources to facilitate the inclusion of all groups.151

In sum, PR systems are preferable since they; first, faithfully translate votes cast into

seats won and thus avoid destabilizing and “unfair” results thrown up by plurality-majority

system. Second, they give rise to very few wasted votes. Third, they facilitate the minority

party access to representation and encourage parties to present inclusive and socially diverse

lists of candidates. Fifth, they make easier representatives of minority culture/ groups to get

elected. As one example the South African 1994 National Assembly can be named, wherein

52% was black (11% Zulu, the rest of Xhosa, Sotho, Venda, Tswana, Pedi, Swazi, Shangaan,

and Ndebele), 32% white (one-third English, two-thirds Africans), 7% colored and 8% In-

dian.152 PR systems further make power sharing between groups more visible.

To protect minorities from majoritarian decision-making, the consociational concept

facilitates the minorities with mutual veto. The problem here is that smaller groups may be

proportionally represented in the coalition but they don’t have the numerical strength to pre-

vent their (vital) interests from the enforcement of some legislation decision, which can dis-

advantage them. Lijphart has labeled the veto as “the ultimate weapon that minorities need to

protect their vital interest.”153 Without the veto the principle of majority rule can be easily

enacted within the power-sharing executive, thereby defeating the very purpose of the coali-

tion. The veto serves as a form of insurance that minority segments participate authentically in

the decision-making process. Vetoes can be either informally given or constitutionally en-

shrined and can cover constitutional change, routine legislation or both. Belgium is one ex-

ample which had both informal and formal veto arrangements: the linguistic groups were

guaranteed these powers in the constitution on educational and cultural issues, while veto

rights operated only informally between the familles spirituelles.154

The final consociational institutional design is segmental autonomy.155 Segmental

autonomy can be implemented either territorially or in a corporate fashion that is segments

150 Lijphart, 1997; Reynolds, 1995. 151 Lijphart 2004, p. 105 152 Reynolds 1995. 153 Lijphart 1990, P. 495 154 Bieber 1999, p. 88 155 Lijphart 1977, p. 41


51

can be given their own constituent units of the state via territorial pluralism or they can be

granted autonomous action in areas of their exclusive domain, such as education and cultural

affairs. Territorial federalism is one mean to operationalize the principle of segmental auton-

omy, if groups are territorially concentrated. Otherwise, decentralization can also be used in a

unitary state. The purpose of territorial federalism is not minority empowerment and self-

governance, but rather to limit the majority’s dominance and to pursue national identity that

glosser over group difference. It is important to be noted that federalism is not always a con-

sociational framework, means that it can also be used in other framework. According to Li-

jphart, federalism is consociational only when the federal principle is applied along with the

other three institutions of consociation, namely a grand coalition, mutual vetos and propor-

tionality.156

Last but not least, Lijphart defines the only purpose of consociational institution as to

achieve democratic stability, especially in deeply divided societies.157 Consotional institutions

work best when they allow for the voluntary participation of groups. Moreover, certain key

conditions can influence the success of implementing consociational arrangements. Lijphart

identifies nine such conditions: (1) the absence of majority of certain ethnic groups, (2) the

absence of large socio-economic differences, (3) the presence of ethnic groups of roughly the

same size, (4) the presence of external danger that promotes internal unity, (5) the presence of

overarching loyalties, (6) the geographic concentration of groups, and (7) prior conditions of

compromise and accommodation. These conditions, Lijphart stresses, are simply helpful

which means that they are neither essentially nor sufficient for the successful enactment of

consociational solutions. Even if the favorable factors are evident in a particular case, they do

not by themselves guarantee success.158

The history notes, that consociationalism which had been designed by the politicians

and constitution writers long before scholars began to analyze it in 1960s, has witnessed suc-

cess especially in European countries, such as Belgium, Austria, The Netherlands and Swit-

zerland. Meanwhile its record in the Asia-Pacific region is still mixed.

In the next section, I will describe the other power-sharing model159, advocates by

Donald L. Horowitz, which in recent time mostly used by the countries in the Asia-Pacific

region.

156 Lijphart 1979, p. 509 157 Lijphart 1985, p. 222 158 Lijphart 1985, p. 119-128 159 While Sisk argues that both consociationalist and centripetalism are forms of power sharing because they seek the same outcomes which are democratic stability in a situation of ethnic pluralism by divergent means (Sisk, Power Sharing, p. 6), Lijphart rejects the idea that centripetalism is part of the power sharing family. He argues:


52

5. 2. Centripetalism

Centripetalism is an alternative model of political engineering which is an apt label for

Horowitz’s model of power sharing. Its original name was “incentives approach”. Centripetal-

ism is a term that has been used by Benjamin Reilly to describe Horowitz’s work which then

became the preferred term of Horowitz himself.160 It is called centripetalism, because the ex-

plicit aim is to engineer a “centripetal spin” to politics in divided societies, as its institution

are thought to encourage cooperation, accommodation and integration across cleavages.161

For the centripetalists, the best way to manage democracy in divided societies is not

simply to institutionalize the minorities into political parties and placed them as a part of leg-

islative or other representative organ, but rather to encourage minorities’ influence on major-

ity decision-making by the use of electoral rules.162 The centripetalists design the electoral

system as incentives for the campaigning politicians to court support across ethnic lines. By

doing so, centripetalists make the politicians dependent on the votes of members of other

groups rather than only on their own.163

Just like consociationalism, centripetalism focuses on four democratic institutions.

They are: the Alternative Vote (AV) electoral system, aggregative multi-ethnic political par-

ties which are supposed to form a centrist coalition government with political actors coming

from different groups. Moreover, the centripetalists prefers the office of president, elected by

regional distribution requirements and the devolution of power via non-ethnic federalism in

order to proliferate points of power.

In the term of the electoral system, Horowitz recommends the use of the AV electoral

system. The AV electoral system, typically used in single-member districts, requires the win-

ning candidate to obtain an absolute majority of all votes casted. In order to ensure an abso-

lute majoritarian result, voters rank the candidates according to their preferences (1, 2, 3 etc.).

If an absolute majority is not obtained in the first round, the candidate with the lowest number

of votes is eliminated with his or her votes distributed to the other candidate for a second

round. This procedure continues until one candidate achieves ‘50 percent plus one’ of all

“The essence of Horowitz’s vote-pooling is that minority voters will benefit not by electing their own representa-tive but by helping the more moderate candidates of the majority group win election; this has nothing to do with the idea of power sharing as used in everyday language.” (Lijphart 2000, p. 427). 160 Reilly 2001; Horowitz 2008, p. 1217. 161 Reilly 2002, p. 159. 162 The electoral system, according to Horowitz, is the most powerful lever of constitutional engineering in di-vided societies (Horowitz 1991, p. 163). 163 Based on the experiences that in divided societies, the politicians have a strong incentive to mobilize follow-ers along ethnics, religion or other lines.


53

votes casted and is thereby elected.164 Yet it has to be notes that, AV with its 50 percent plus

one poses constraints on the participation and parliamentary access of small parties. Horowitz

regards AV as “a modest reform of first-past-the-post, a sound way of diminishing the arbi-

trariness of the polarity system without yielding to the dominance of central party officials in

candidate selection that tends to accompany list-system PR.”165 AV surpasses both, single-

member plurality systems and PR systems, by raising the bar of representation which means

that in order to get elected parties need to garner widespread support. Since, it is possible to

address the FPTP weakness of wasted votes and allows voters to have a say on all candidates,

AV is preferential. This system ties politicians from different parties to dependent on prefer-

ence transfers from their rival groups and their voters. Therefore political leaders under this

procedure have strong incentives to campaign outside their own group to make explicit cross-

ethnic appeals by moderating their own claims and behaving moderately on the issues of con-

flict. This create a scenario in which the majority is dependent on minority support and con-

sequently must take the minorities’ demands seriously in order to enhance its own electoral

success. This electoral system has been successfully implemented in Australia, Papua New

Guinea and Fiji for legislative elections. Variations of it are regularly used in presidential con-

tests in Sri Lanka and The Republic of Ireland.

By contrast to consociational prescriptions which fostering the presence of ethnically

or other group based party systems, centripetalists ideally favor a cross-ethnic party system

from which a centrist coalition of government evolves. How can such party system be encour-

aged to develop?

There are three approaches on the development of party engineering to achieve a solid

party system: 166

(1) Building National Parties. Promoting the development of national party and con-

straining the growth of regional, local or secessionist parties by introducing party formation

rules that require them to demonstrate a broad organizational base as a precondition for com-

peting in elections. In Turkey for example, parties must establish regional branches, hold

regular conventions and field candidates in at least half of all provinces to be eligible to con-

test national elections. In Indonesia, parties must establish an organizational network in two-

thirds of all provinces across the archipelago and in two-thirds of the municipalities within

those provinces, before they can compete in elections.167 Further about this theme will be dis-

164 Reilly/ Reynolds 1999, p. 49. 165 Horowitz 1991, p. 191. 166 Reilly 2008, p. 11-17. 167 Tan 2002, p. 484-508.


54

cussed in the next chapter. Another purpose of promoting cross-ethnic parties is to ensure that

parties or individual candidates do not represent only a certain group or the people of their

own home base but also other groups in different regions of the country. Evidences show that

this kind of party regulation has consolidated party systems while at the same time disadvan-

taging small or regionally based parties and banning ethnic-based parties. For instance, in

Asia aggregation via centripetal incentives has been common a reform. In Africa, bans of eth-

nic parties is the predominant reform approach.

(2) Restricting the number of parties by reforming the electoral system. The aim of re-

stricting the number of parties is not only to reduce the number of competing parties but also

to restrict the number of parties in the legislature, for example by using a vote threshold. Tur-

key is probably the most extreme example for this, since Turkish parties must attain at least

ten percent of the national vote before they can be represented in parliament. This has lead to

some extreme vote-distortions: at the 2002 Turkish election, 46 percent of all votes were

wasted, because so many smaller parties failed to clear the ten percent threshold.168 Electoral

systems can be further used to counter party fragmentation and encourage inter-party coopera-

tion and coalitions between party leaders. This can be accomplished by using the vote-pooling

electoral system in which electors rank-order candidates and votes are transferred according

to these rankings. These systems encourage cross-party cooperation and aggregation by mak-

ing politicians from different parties reciprocally dependent on transfer votes from their rivals.

(3) Top-down Approaches. Strengthening party organizations by building stable party

structures in a top-down modus can increase party discipline and cohesion in the legislature.

One way to do this is to restrict the capacity of members changing parties once elected by

using “anti-hopping” provisions. India, Brazil, Thailand, and Papua New Guinea have used

such “anti-hoping” provisions. In Thailand, for example, the 1997 constitution mandates that

candidates must be members of a political party for at least ninety days prior to an election.

This has made it difficult or even impossible for a politician who got elected with party A to

change allegiance to party B once in office.169

The purpose of developing aggregative party systems is to avoid the turning of elec-

toral politics into a contest arena between parties which are based on identity issues.170 The

1993 election in Burundi serves as one example: the ethnic based parties which participated in

the election were supposed to build power-sharing government. In fact, parties were misused

168 Özbudun: The Institutional Decline of Parties in Turkey, 1995. 169 Reilly, 2007, p. 140. 170 In societies divided along ethnic, religious lines etc., politicians have strong incentives to misuse the identity or belonging of the voters for campaigning parties to attract voter support.


55

as means to mobilize groups which were divided along ethnic lines. As result, it served as a

catalyst for the ethnic genocide.171

Multi-ethnic parties, meaning those that are willing to make pre-election pacts across ethnic

divide to pool votes with other parties, will then create what Horowitz called “coalition of

commitment”. This coalition is thought to converge into a multi-ethnic center. Moreover, this

coalition provides the political space for a viable opposition which can control the govern-

ment.

While Lijphart indicates a preference for parliamentary arrangements, centripetalists

favor presidential arrangements, meaning the office of a directly elected single person. The

president should be elected with territorial distribution requirements and at a minimum, he or

she can also be elected by a majoritarian-preferential system. Under a territorial distribution

system, the winning candidate must have majority support across the country and must also

surmount a predetermined regional threshold. For example: in the 1978 Nigerian constitution

the president had to gain not only the absolute majority of votes at the national level, but he

also had to gain a minimum of 25 percent of the popular votes in at least two-thirds of the

federal states.172

Purposes of such arrangements are: firstly, to make it more difficult for the representa-

tives of one single group to capture the entire state by securing a majority in parliament and to

avoid “winner-take-all” outcome. Secondly, to provide an important outlet for intergroup con-

ciliation, as the winning candidate will have to present him or herself as pan-ethnic in order to

meet the election requirements.173

The last concept of centripetal institution is the adoption of non-ethnic federalism

which can disperse power away from the center. This sort of federalism is inspired by

Madisonian arguments which argues that the majority “must be rendered, by their number and

local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression”.174 Therefore,

centripetalists would ideally arrange constituent units in which the groups are heterogeneous

and inter-mixed. In doing so, they allow groups to practice moderation before arriving at cen-

tre and it also assists in the creation of regional and territorial alignments that cut across eth-

nicity. This form of administrative federalism is advocated for its dispersal of power and thus

conflict, away from the ethnic divide. This federal form has been advocated for the Iraq. The

intra-group split within the Kurdish community combined with the need to lessen to demo-

171 Reilly 2006, p. 813. 172 Horowitz 1991, p. 184. 173 Horowitz 1991, p. 205. 174 James Madison: The Federalist No. 10, p. 61


56

graphic dominance of the Shia majority makes the Iraq a particularly appropriate place for

non-ethnic federalism.175 Centripetalists also argue that the non-ethnic federalism makes it

less likely for politicians at the regional level to engage in ethnically antagonistic politics.

The work of Horowitz is supported by Benjamin Reilly who said that the use of pref-

erential electoral systems encourages three related phenomena in divided communities: elec-

toral incentives, arenas of bargaining, and centrist political parties. All of these phenomena

“focus competition at the moderate centre rather than the extremes”.176

To sum up we can say that a centripetal political systems advocate institutional de-

signs which encourage negotiation and accommodation between opposing political forces.

They foster political competition rather than strict proportionality. They encourages the politi-

cians to do more than just “shop” for votes in their own community.

Figure 5.1. show all the differences between consociationalism and centripetalism

structurally in four-part dichtonomy.

Figure 5.1. Consociationalism vs. Centripetalism177

Consociationalism Centripetalism

Electoral system List PR, large districts to

maximize proportional out-

comes

Alternative Vote to make

politicians dependent on

other communities

Party systems Ethnic parties – each repre-

sent their own group

Aggregative multi-ethnic

parties

Cabinets Grand coalition governments

with minority veto on vital

issues

Multi-ethnic parties coalition

governments

Devolution Segmental autonomy and

ethnic federalism

Non-ethnic federalism or

autonomy

Despite all the differences, there are agreements they have in common. Firstly, both of

them agree on the ability of a political institution to change political outcomes. Secondly, they

agree on the important role of electoral systems and political parties to manage communal

tension in ethnically diverse societies. Third. They embrace the conviction that there is the

need to deal with different groups of ethnic and others rather than to deny them or wish them

away.

175 Wimmer 2003, p. 124. 176 Reilly 2001, p. 11, 151. 177 Reilly 2007, p. 95


57

5. 3. On the Record

The consociational model has in fact been successful in several plural societies in

European countries in the early decades. Yet in recent time democratic reforms in Southeast

Asia and Pacific prefer to use the centripetal model of political systems. The vast majority of

Southeast Asia and Pacific countries have opted for institutions and regulations consistent

with aggregative goals, like for example the use of regional vote distribution requirements for

presidential elections in Indonesia, multiethnic group representation constituencies in Singa-

pore, and the use the of AV electoral system on the Fiji Island and Papua New Guinea.

Has consociational model lost its appeal or are there any other reasons to explain this

phenomenon? The reason for this shift can rather be related with the bad post-colonial conso-

ciational experiences in the 1950s-1960s. After independence the political and constitutional

writers in ex-colonial states have often adopted the political system from the colonial state,

without understanding about the adopted system works. The inability of the adopted post-

colonial political system to cope with the ethnic issues has caused the roll back of the third

wave of democratization in Southeast Asia and Pacific states. These experiences provided a

powerful negative example for today’s reformers and taught them the lesson not to implement

the consociational model again.

Another possible explanation is the development of political engineering. Political en-

gineering has become increasingly important to promoting stable democracies in highly di-

verse societies, and thus opened up many further options to choose than in earlier decades.178

The last explanation is the result of a number of examinations of the practical record

of consociationalism in divided societies, claiming that consociationalism may maintain the

peace in deeply divided societies, but does not for long-term.179 The results have raised the

incentives for political reformers to move from consociational political systems to centripetal

models.

In the next chapter, I take a closer look at the biggest reform packages that Indonesian

has ever take, attempting to consolidate the democratization that has taken place since 1999

and to avoid the fall down of Indonesian threatened by the raise of violent internal conflicts as

the results of political failure in the past.

178 Lijphart 2004, p. 96-109. 179 Reilly/ Reynolds 1999; Roeder/ Rothchild (eds) 2005; Jarstad/ Sisks (eds) 2008.

Indonesian’s Reform Packages __________________________________________________________________________________

58

Chapter 6

Indonesian’s Reform Packages

The sudden and unexpected stepping down of the former President Suharto in 1998

left behind a dozen of problems in the Republic. The good news was that his stepping down

gave Indonesia an opportunity to break with the authoritarian rule. At that time, the democra-

tization process took place under difficult circumstances. Public trust in the government and

its institution, including the military was very low. Ethnic and religious conflicts broke out in

many parts of the country and secessionist movements emerged. The weak economy with its

high unemployment and poverty made it further difficult to install political stability. In May

1998, political activists of all parties and university students gathered to discuss a political

reformation. They declared that fixing the chaotic situation, winning back people’s trust, in-

stalling a stable policy, and preventing the falling apart of Indonesia from breaking down are

the main objectives for the reformation. At the previous chapter, I described the three basic

political institutions, namely the representative, the mediating, and the power sharing, which

can shape a democratic system profoundly. Both proposals of Lijphart and Horowitz aim at

designing the three institutions in order to achieve a stable democratic government in multi-

culture countries. This chapter presents the institutional reforms, made in Indonesia since

1999 with the attempt to achieve the named purposes.

There were four major structural challenges faced by the Indonesian’s political re-

formers and President Habibie at beginning of the transition time between 1998-1999.180 The

first question emerged was, what should be the design of the electoral system? Should the

proportional representation system of the Suharto’s concept of ‘New Order’, and indeed of

Indonesian’s only previous genuinely democratic institution in 1955, be maintained or should

it be replaced with other electoral arrangements, such as: first-past-the-post? Second, should

the quasi-presidential division of powers between the executive and the legislative branches in

the Constitution of 1945 be maintained or should it be replaced with other systems, either

more wholly presidential with a directly elected president or parliamentary? Third, how

should a political party be ruled? Finally, how should the government restructure center-

regional relationships? Should Indonesia adopt federalism, a type of center-region relationship

that had been discredited since its association with the last gasp of Dutch colonialism in the

late 1940s or choose a more limited form of decentralization? 180 Liddle 2001, p. 4.


59

After long and intense discussions, also with the foreign political experts,181 they came

to the conclusion that the constitution of 1945 had to be amended to cope with ethnic is-

sues/conflicts and create a stable democracy.

6. 1. Constitutional Reform182

The constitution is the most fundamental law of a state. Constitutions define nations. It

is the source of all other laws and legitimates the form of government. Constitutions guaran-

tee the political and legal system and its fundamental features. It determines and regulates the

power of and relationship between president, legislature and judiciary and where the govern-

ment is decentralized, the constitution also regulates the relationship between the central gov-

ernment and the regions as well as between the governments at the regional and local level. It

is also the constitution, which can provide and secure the line for stable democracy. That is

why, it is expected in a democratic state that such fundamental laws must be clear in their

objectives. Indonesia’s 1945 constitution which was drafted in post-colonial independence

was intended to be only temporary to support the independence declaration at that year. There

are too many weaknesses in this constitution which have to be revised in order to support the

democratic consolidation.

First, the constitution defined Indonesia as an unitary state with a presidential system,

but it stated that the president was not directly elected by the people, as it is usually the case

in presidential systems.183 In Indonesia, the president was elected by the People’s Consulta-

tive Assembly (MPR),184 as the manifestation of all the people of Indonesia.185 The election of

the president by parliament of an electoral college, in this case by MPR, could be more vul-

nerable to excessive lobbying and money politics.186 There is indeed no guarantee that a di-

rectly elected president eliminates the money politics automatically, but a directly elected

president provides at least a very direct form of executive accountability. In cases of direct

vote of the head of the state, it is necessary, especially for populous and diverse country as

Indonesia, to ensure that the winning candidate requires not only a majority of the votes, but

gains broad national support. There is neither determined term of office in the 1945 Constitu- 181 There was a conference, which was held in Jakarta in August 1998 under sponsorship of LIPI (Indonesian Institute for Science) and the Ford Foundation. Its purpose was to provide information and analysis about a range of possible answer to the specific structural questions named above related to democratization. The participants of the conference, beside Indonesian’s political experts, were R. William Liddle, Olle Tornquist, Andrew Rey-nolds, Dwight Y. King, Donald L. Horowitz, etc. (Liddle 2001). 182 The constitutional amendment was done in four stages: in 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002. 183 For more explanation of a presidential system, see Shugart/ Carey, 1992. 184 Art. 3, verse 6 1945 constitution of the Republic Indonesia (old version). 185 Art. 1, 1945 constitution of the Republic Indonesia (old version). 186 President could in practice pay all the corrupt members of the parliament in order to be voted.


60

tion nor can statement be found, saying how many time can a president be re-elected.187 This

led to long-live presidencies just like in monarchies.

The second weakness was the unclear relation between the executive and the legisla-

tive. A separation of power which normally exists under presidential rule was not clearly de-

fined in the constitution. The indirect election of the president undermined the political sys-

tem which is always based on a separation of power.188 Furthermore, there were no clearly

defined institutional roles between the DPR, the legislative, and the President, being the ex-

ecutive. They were in most of the times overlapping by operating their power. While the leg-

islative passed legislation, the executive had the power to change these laws by making sub-

ordinate laws, which most of the time advantaged the relatives of president. One of the exam-

ples was the passing of presidential law No. 57/1993.189 This presidential law discharged ad-

mission fees and the taxes for importing cars if they would be used as taxis. This presidential

law altered the legislation No. 7/1983 passed by the parliament which obligated the charge of

admission fees and taxes for all imported luxury properties without any exception. The pass-

ing of presidential law No. 57/1993 yet advantaged the oldest daughter of the president, Siti

Hardiyanti Rukmana, also known as Mbak Tutut, who at that time imported many cars for her

taxi business. The overlapping of power between the legislative and executive contributed to

the lack of institutional control of the executive. The result was a strong executive and a weak

legislature. However, the constitution has to secure the balance between an empowered legis-

lature and an effective executive.

Third, the constitution stated that the members of legislative did not all have to be

elected, like about one-third of them were reserved for the military and the police forces.190

Besides, it also stated that the members of the supreme body, MPR, were composed of the

members of legislative, the regional representatives and the group representatives, meaning

lawyers, academics, artists, NGOs, etc. The fact that the regional representatives and the

group representatives were appointed by the president191 creates a situation where president as

executive body had influence, indirectly, on the MPR as supreme body.192 It was widely rec-

ognized that Indonesia’s democracy could only be consolidated, if the members of parliament

were fully elected by the people. This requires the elimination of all appointed positions. 187 Article 3, verse 7, 1945 Constitution of Republic Indonesia (old version). 188 Under “separation of power” principle, the state’s powers are divided into three branches. The classic form of separation of powers is between legislative, executive, and judicative. Each of them has separate and independ-ent power and areas of responsibility (www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Politics_SeparationPower.html) 189 Media Transparansi Online, 1st Edition, October 1998. I thank my good friend, Rizky Nugraha, for helping me finding this example. 190 1945 Constitution of Republic Indonesia, Chapter VII 191 Article 2, 1945 Constitution of Republic Indonesia, (old version). 192 Hadiwinata 2006, p. 86.


61

Another detecting weakness was the establishing of People’s Consultative Assembly

(MPR), as the highest institution of the state. The MPR exercised the sovereignty of the peo-

ple in full. The MPR concept derived from the doctrine of an integralistic state which rejects

both, the principle of the separation of power between the individual and the state as well as

the principle of separation of powers.

Regarding on these weakness, there are several fundamental issues, which have been

amended by the Ad Hoc Committee193 in four steps between 1999-2002. They are:194

1. The implementation of the sovereignty of the people in accordance with the constitu-

tion itself, instead of the exercise through the MPR.

2. The limitation of the MPR’s functions. This includes considering constitutional

amendments, swearing in the elected President and Vice-President, and deciding upon

action if the Constitutional Court rules that an impeachment charge is well grounded.

The presidential or vice-presidential impeachment process excludes removal from of-

fice on policy grounds.

3. The MPR has no longer the constitutional function to make Broad Guidelines of State

Policy (GBHN)

4. There will be no more military representation in representative assemblies, marking

the end of the double functions – dwifungsi195 – principle. The so-called ‘dwifungsi’

principle formalized a political role for the military. The MPR has to be made up en-

tirely of elected representatives. They are the member of the DPR (People’s Represen-

tative Assembly) and the member of the new regional chamber, the DPD (Regional

Representative Council).

5. The DPD will participate in legislation on issues relating to regional autonomy, centre-

region relations and natural resources management. It will further exercise oversight

on these issues plus budget management, tax, education and religion.

6. The President and the Vice-President are directly elected as one ticket, with a second

round, if in the first round no ticket achieves 50 percent plus one of the national votes

193 Ad Hoc Committee was one of the MPR’s working-body which was formed in the late 1999 to address for-mal constitutional amendments. www.insideindonesia.org/content/view/502/29/ 194 Ellis 2004, p. 4-6. 195 Dwifungsi or Dual Function is a doctrine developed by Suharto to legitimize activities of the armed forces in areas not ordinarily considered belonging to the military sphere, such as the politics. Under the „dwifungsi“ doc-trine, they undertook a double role as defenders of the nation and as a social-political force of national develop-ment (www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/indonesia/abri.htm).


62

and win the election at least in half of the whole provinces.196 The president can be

elected maximal for two terms of office.

7. Political parties are participants in the DPR elections and the participants in DPD elec-

tions are individual candidates.

8. A Constitutional Court, separate from the Supreme Court, has to be established with

the powers of judicial review of legislation, resolving disputes between state institu-

tions, hearing claims for the dissolution of political parties and disputes relating to

election results as well as ruling on motions to impeach.197

9. An independent Judicial Commission is being established, dealing with the judicial

ethnics issues and proposing appointments for Supreme Court.

10. Constitutional backing is given for the principles of regional autonomy, confirming the

spirit of the 1999 decentralization and devolution laws.

11. A central bank whose independence and accountability is to be determined by law is

provided within the Constitution.

12. Human rights provisions are added in line with the larger part of the Universal Decla-

ration of Human Rights.198

13. Future constitutional amendment can be introduced by at least one-third of the mem-

ber of the MPR and will require the support of over half of its total membership with

two-thirds of the members present. The Preamble is not amendable. The form of the

unitary state is unamendable, although the article containing this provision can itself

be amended.

6. 1. 1. Constitutional Amendments Reformed the Parliament199

Indonesia’s parliament under the Suharto’ presidency suffered chaotic relations and

functions because of its composition. According to the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of

Indonesia, the DPR as the legislative body has three functions: it creates and passes legisla-

tion, it examines and passes the budget, and it controls the activities of the executive govern-

ment.200 Since the first election in 1955 until post-Suharto in 1999 these roles were never per-

196 Indonesia has 33 provinces. In order to avoid the second round, the candidates have to win the election in at least 17 provinces and get the absolute majority of national votes. 197 The general power of the Constitutional Court to interpret the Constitution remains unclear. 198 This changes the fundamental thinking of 1945, when proposals to include human rights provisions in the constitution had been specifically rejected. Sukarno said that such individual rights detracted from the freedom of the sovereign state (Ellis 2004, p. 6). 199 Sherlock 2007. 200 Article 7 of 1945 constitution of the of Republic Indonesia (old version).


63

formed well. During the parliamentary democracy in 1955, the DPR was more like a battle-

field of the elected parties, in trying to find the national model of Indonesia. Under Sukarno’s

concept of “Guided Democracy” and even worse during the Suharto’s so called “New Order”

era, this body was a tool for imposing presidential decisions and the legitimizing the power

without accountability.201

Additionally, the separation of power between the executive and the legislative, which

is normally present in presidential systems, was blurred. All of this chaos was caused by the

existence of the MPR as the supreme body in the Republic. The MPR was responsible to elect

the president and vice president. Yet, the half of the members of the MPR were members of

the DPR which meant that the members of the DPR, as the members of the MPR, had power

to appoint and to replace the President. This scenario led to the situation, that the president

needed continuing support from the DPR to stay in office. This situation should not occur in a

pure presidential system. The president and the assembly are usually independent from each

other, because they are both popularly elected.202 The functions of the DPR to write and to

pass legislation were also violated by the duty of the MPR, namely to pass the Broad Outlines

of State Policy (GBHN).203 The relation between MPR and the president was also not clearly

defined. MPR was the supreme body which was responsible to elect the president. The fact

that the vast majority of the members of the MPR were appointed by the president204 led to a

situation that the MPR was positioned under president. The complicated composition and un-

clear relation between these three bodies has been changed by the constitutional reform.205

The first amendment of 1945 constitution in 1999 changed the composition of the

DPR and thereby defined the role of the DPR as a pure legislative one. It states that the ap-

pointed seats for the armed forces in the DPR were reduced from 100 to 38, meaning that the

influence of the President upon the legislative was greatly reduced. Beside that, the free elec-

tions of 1999 restored the DPR with a new legitimacy which was never been possessed during

the Suharto years. While the so-called ‘New Order’ was an ‘executive heavy’ system, the in-

201 The original draft of the 1945 Constitution gave the President the authority to make laws with the “consent” of the DPR. Since one-third members of the DPR were appointed by the President and more than the half of the rest were the members of President’s party (The Functional Groups), every law suggested by the President would be approved. (Sherlock 2007, p. 7) 202 Shugart and Carey 1992, chapter 2. 203 The Broad Outlines of State Policy were meant to be general principles to guide the activities of all state organs, including the DPR. 204To note, during the new order era, MPR as supreme body has 1000 members. These 1000 were composed by all members of DPR (500 peoples) and the others 500 by representative from regional and diverse groups. The 500 regional and diverse groups representative were all elected by the president. 400 members of the DPR were elected through national election (more than 60% of DPR’s seats were always won by the president’s party, namely Golkar) and the rest of the seats, namely 100, were appointed for the armed forces and polices. 205 Scheier 2005.


64

creased power of the DPR swung the balance too far the other way and created a ‘legislative

heavy’ constitution.206 With popular legitimacy the DPR had the confidence to intervene in

the operation of government in an unprecedented way. The removal of President Abdurrah-

man Wahid from office in 2001 by the DPR was one example for the new legitimacy of the

DPR. Such a situation should not occur in a presidential system, because usually the legisla-

tive has no right to replace the president. Clearly, the first amendment of 1945 constitutional

was not perfect, but it constituted a big change in Indonesia’s history. The amendment of

1945 constitution was a taboo theme207 and thought of as absolutely impossible to do.

The second amendment of 1945 constitution was implemented on 18th August 2000.

The second amendment changed the composition of DPR once again. According to the new

laws, the membership of the DPR was increased from 500 to 550 and all seats will be com-

pletely competed in the national elections, meaning that the appointed seats for the military

and the police were completely eliminated.208

By introducing the direct presidential election with the third amendment in 2002209 the

power of the MPR was reduced. Its main functions nowadays are to swear the President and

to amend the constitution. The MPR has also no longer the power to set down the GBHN,

thus ending its quasi-legislative role. The new MPR is made up of the members of the DPR

plus the members of the new-formed chamber, the DPD (the Regional Representative Assem-

bly).210 In the 2004 election, the DPR and the President were elected in separate mass for the

first time. This also means, that the President has no influence anymore upon the legislative

body.

The final element of the constitutional reforms that has important implication for the

DPR was the provision of powers in relation to the appointment of state officials. These pow-

ers have significantly boosted the capacity of the DPR to intervene in and oversee the actions

of the executive government. They are:211

a) to select members of the Supreme Audit Board (BPK)212

b) to deal with the results of BPK investigations

c) to approve the membership of the Judicial Commission213

206 Sherlock 2007, p. 5. 207 In 1997, the dissident Sri-Bintang Pamungkas and two colleges were arrested and jailed for publishing a pro-posed modified version on the 1945 constitution in front of Indonesia’s student in Berlin. 208 Article 7, verse 19, second amendment of 1945 constitutional of the Republic of Indonesia. The elimination of appointed seats for the armed forces ended the doctrine “dwifungsi” of the armed forces completely. 209 The third amendment of 1945 Constitutional of Republic Indonesia verse 6A 210 All of the members of the MPR will be directly elected through national election. 211 Sherlock 2007, p. 8-9. 212 The function of the Supreme Audit Board is to oversee the management of state’s fund.


65

d) to approve the membership of the Supreme Court as nominated by the Judicial Com-

mission

e) to select three out of nine candidates for the judges of the Constitutional Court

f) to give advice on the President’s selection of ambassadors and receiving of foreign

ambassadors

g) to approve the declaration of war or peace or the signing of international treaties made

by the president.

The huge political shift has indeed changed Indonesian’s parliament, though the

changes still leave room for future advancement. The DPR showed a poor performance espe-

cially in performing their role as legislative body. During the third session year (2001-2002),

the DPR deliberated on 70 bills. Of these only 23 bills were passed and 10 of them were bills

to create new districts (kabupaten) and municipalities (kota). These bills followed a formula

and mostly differ only in the name of the particular district or city involved. Out of all the

bills passed, there was only one bill, which was initiated by the DPR, namely the one to create

special autonomy for the province of Papua. The rest were bills, conceived and drafted by the

executive.214

The DPR, in the past, was a prime example of the legacy of the Suharto’s regime. This

institution was seen as an institution where patronage networks were built and maintained and

where resources were distributed to the initiated few. At the final day of the so-called “New

Order” regime in 1998, the occupation of the DPR’s building became the main target of anti-

Suharto movement, led by university students. To them, the DPR’s building is a symbol of

people’s sovereignty which was violated under Suharto’s regime. The DPR is one of the key

instruments for bringing about political change, a place where governments can be held ac-

countable and where their policy decisions can be deliberated. By reforming the legislative,

Indonesia’s government tried to win back the people’s trust in the government and its institu-

tion, which were gone during the so-called “New Order” era. The DPR, as a representative

institution with its new form, its strengths and its weaknesses, symbolizes both: the grip still

exercised by power-holders from the past the potential for future change.

213 The commission proposes candidates for the Indonesian Supreme Court and works to maintain the honor dignity and behaviour of the judges. Members are appointed by the president with the agreement of the DPR. 214 Sherlock 2003, p. 6


66

6. 1. 2. The Regional Representative Assembly (DPD)215

The DPD is a newly formed assembly, which was formed to increase the participation

of the regions in the processes of law making and the oversight of the executive. This body

counts 128 members, all of which are directly elected by the voters as individuals, meaning

without direct support from any political party. Each of Indonesian’s 32 provinces will be

represented by 4 people. According to article 2(1) of the 1945 constitution, the members of

the DPD are also the members of MPR. The DPD is the product of two parallel processes of

political change, occurring in Indonesia since 1998. First, it is the result of popular and elite

pressure for reform with the objective to widen participation on decision-making and ac-

countability. Second, it is the answer for the longing of devolution of powers from the central

government to the provincial and district levels of government in the regions.216

The legal basis for the DPD is article 22C and 22D of the 1945 constitution. Both of

these laws define the competences of DPD, as follow: to propose recommendations involving

the discussion and consideration that is related to (1) central and regional relations, (2) the

formation, enlargement and merger of regions, (3) the management of natural resources and

other economic resources, and (4) the bills related to the financial balance between the centre

and the regions. It furthermore has right to supervise the enforcement of particular laws as

well to provide input to the DPR on the bills of the national budget and bills related to taxa-

tion, education and religion. Besides, the DPD provides input on the selection and appoint-

ment of the State Audit Broad’s members.217

In order to avoid misunderstanding, it is necessary to note that DPD is not a legislative

body. The rights of the DPD are only to propose, to give advice to the DPR218, and to control

the implementation of the bill. However, DPD needs the agreement of the DPR and the ap-

proval of the President to pass legislation they proposed.219 Based on this description, we can

see that the DPD is only an advisory body. It is not even comparable to upper house in bicam-

eral parliaments of the Westminster tradition or in many presidential systems of the govern-

ment, because DPD cannot pass legislation.

The DPD was firstly elected in April 2004 and its members were sworn in October

2004. The limited power of the DPD, surrounded by the high legitimacy that comes from the

215 Sherlock 2006. 216 Sherlock 2006: 4 217 Article 22C and 22D, 1945 Constitution of Republic Indonesia; translated by Stephen Sherlock. 218 In this situation, DPR is not obligate to accept the advice from the DPD. 219 These arrangements create a situation where the legislative process is more like a dialogue between the gov-ernment and the legislative body.


67

direct popular vote has confronted the DPD by finding its role. The fact that the DPD has only

power to propose bills and give advice without being able to influence the implementation,

makes it very difficult for the DPD be heard in law making processes as the regional represen-

tative. Additionally, there is also no clear definition of how the DPD can actually carry out its

constitutional mandate in practice. Consequently, thus the DPD bodies have not yet begun to

operate. As results of the limited power, the DPD has become the place for regional legisla-

ture and administrations to organize lobbies, particularly at the district and sub-district level.

The regional governments use the DPD’s members to put pressure on the higher level of gov-

ernments to address local problems and support new projects.

So far, there has been no significant report about the DPD’s work, but this is under-

standable, concerning DPD as a new body in the republic. The members of DPD for the sec-

ond term (2009-2014) were elected on 9th April 2009, with great expectation that the new

DPD can work more efficiently. The limitations of DPD’s power make it harder for DPD to

establish as an important institution in national political life, though it not impossible.

6. 2. Electoral Law Reform

With the upcoming of a debate about democratization in 1998, one of the crucial top-

ics discussed was the type of electoral system to be chosen. Should it be a plurality-majority

system or a proportional representation (PR) system?220 The PR system has been used con-

tinuously in Indonesia since the 1955 legislative election.221 There was agreements among

political experts that the 1955 election with its PR system produced indeed a strong represen-

tative parliament, but it did little to strengthen the ability of the political leadership to govern

and consequently leading to the failure of parliamentary democracy.222 Regarding this nega-

tive experience with PR system, some foreign experts, such as R. William Liddle and Dwight

Y. King, recommended the adoption of a plurality-majority system to ensure a stable govern-

ment. However, looking at the plurality of Indonesia’s society, local experts, such as Rizal

Mallarangeng, Ramlan Subakti, Valina S. Subekti and others, argued contrarily. According to

them, the PR system could ensure a proportional share of seat by representatives of different

220 For a democratic state, the choice on electoral system is very crucial. It has function as the democratic vehicle that produces representatives that genuinely represent the people. As a matter of fact, the objectives of national elections are (1) to enforce people’s sovereignty, (2) to crate representative government, and (3) to create legiti-mate power. 221 In Indonesia election have been held seven times, all based on the multimember constituency or proportional representation system. 222 King 2001, p. 120.


68

social and cultural groups in the parliament.223 For the local experts, the threat of the use of

violence in the politics and the fear of possible insurgencies and separatist movements are the

main consideration to adopting a PR system. To them, single-member district or first-past-the-

post (FPTP) systems tend to sharpen the tension which could have easily been the case be-

tween Java and outer Java. With FPTP seems that the candidates are strongly tied to a particu-

lar region, while PR seems to give political parties more opportunities to shuffle candidates

from or to Java and outer Java. Thus, by adopting a PR system the proportional allocation of

seats would also guarantee a more balanced representation between Java and outer Java. Fur-

thermore, a PR system could avoid that candidates form a too strong attachment with particu-

lar regions. This argument was made by Ramlan Subakti, the deputy head of the election

committee, who argued that “the adoption of PR system would result in a more balanced rep-

resentation between Java and outer Java in the parliament, in which around 58 percent (290

seats) come from Java and 42 percent (210 seats) from outer Java. Given that Java has more

than 50 percent of the country’s total population, this proportion seems to be acceptable.”224

Whatever system will be chosen, it should take three aspects into account: first, the

pluralism of the Indonesian society in the terms of religion, ethnicity, regional differences,

and many newly formed political parties. Second, it should consider the people’s wish to em-

power political parties as the agent of democracy in the reformation era. Third, it should also

consider the limited time frame. In the transition period, there was only a brief time of six

months available until the election was to be carried out in May 1999. For all these reasons,

the election committee proposed the use a PR system with closed party lists for the 1999 leg-

islative election.

6. 2. 1. The 1999 Electoral Law225

The first proposed laws prepared by the Team of Seven226 was a combination of sin-

gle-member district and PR system which had already adopted by some Asian democratic

countries. These are Japan (1994), the Philippines (1998), Korea (1996 & 2003), Taiwan

(2005), and Thailand (1997).227 The Team of Seven named this mixed system a “district plus

223 Kompas, 10th June 1999. 224 Kompas, 2nd July 2002 225 Sherlock 2004. 226 Team of Seven is a group of academics that was temporarily formed to assist in drafting new laws, which turned out to be Indonesia’s most important reforms since the beginning of the so-called “New Order”. They drafted three laws to define the requirements for forming political parties, to change the electoral system and the composition of the national and local representatives bodies. 227 Reilly 2001, p. 109.


69

system” wherein 76 percent of seats would be allocated to single-member districts and the

remaining 24 percent would be elected by PR system. This proposal was rejected by the main

political parties. They argued that this system was too complicated and the time was too short

to arrange for singe-member electoral district by 7th June 1999.

At the end, it was decided that the closed list PR system will be adopted in order to

elect the new legislatives on 1999 election, meaning the ballots would only include the name

and logo of the party. In order to candidate, it was required for all parties that each of them

must list their candidates at the district and municipal (Kabupaten and Kotamadya) level.

Winners would be determined with consideration to the largest votes obtained by that particu-

lar political party in each district (Election Law, article 68). A list of candidates assigned by

the parties to a specific district will, however, be made public and posted at the polling sta-

tions. The purpose was that although the voters voted only for a particular party, it was ex-

pected that the voters would also indirectly vote for the people they know. Unfortunately, this

was not the case. Most of the parties did not posted their candidates in public as it has been

required. This led that to very strong clientelism: most of the people who occupied a seat in

the 1999 parliament were clients of the party leader and money politics gained importance, in

order to have a seat in the parliament.228

In spite of their weaknesses the 1999 election laws represented a vast improvement

compared to the old system. Moreover, this system has been accepted by the parties and all

political players, as the first basis for a democratic election. The 1999 election produced a

parliament which is composed of 6 major parties and neither party won a majority (See Table

6.1). Most important was that the result of the election has been accepted by all.

Table 6.1. 1999 Legislative (DPR) Election Results

(With seats calculated according to strict proportionality in brackets)229

PARTY % VOTES NO. SEATS

(462 Elected)

NO. VOTES

(MILLION)

PDIP

Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle

33.7 153

35.71

Partai Golkar

Golkar

22.4 120

23.74

PKB 12.6 51 13.34

228 The candidates pay the party leader for a winnable position on the ballots. A party with a strong following in a particular district could charge a high price for the position and the candidate received the comfortable assur-ance of winning a parliamentary seat without the effort of campaigning (Sherlock 2009, 5). 229 Sherlock 2004, p. 38


70

National Awakening Party

PPP

United Development Party

10.7 58

11.33

PAN

National Mandate Party

7.3 34

7.53

PBB

Crescent Star Party

1.8 13

2.05

PK (now PKS)

Justice Party

1.3 7

1.47

Other Parties 6.35 26

Total elected seats 462

TNI (appointed seats)/Armed forces 38

Total Seats in Parliament (DPR) 500

6. 2. 2. The 2004 Electoral Law230

To support the 2002 constitutional amendments, by which the principle of direct elec-

tion of the president and the election of the members of legislative were introduced, the DPR

passed three new election laws in 2003, namely the adoption of an “open-list” PR system, the

direct election of the President and the Vice-President as one package, and the election law on

the newly formed Regional Representative Assembly (DPD)

Under an “open-list” PR system, the parties’ candidates will be named on the ballot

paper under the parties’ logo and name. Thereby, it was expected that the voters would have

the opportunity to cast a vote for a single individual as well for a party. The purpose of this

new system was to give voters more influence over which candidates from a given party list

would be elected. This should, in theory, strengthen the relation between voters and politi-

cians. The danger of this system is, that it allows entrants to ride free on the party label, mean-

ing that any candidate could be elected, even if he or she gathered support without the accep-

tance of the party itself. To avoid this, the law required the voters, who opted to support indi-

vidual candidate, to vote also for the party list or the vote will be declared as invalid. A vote

will also be declared as invalid, if the voters vote for a party A but choose the name of a can-

didate from party B. The result of this new system is that only 2 seats out of 550 were chosen

directly by the voters.231

This newly introduced open-list PR system has been seen as a complicated system that

would likely produce a very large number of invalid votes. The reasons were, first Indonesia 230 Sherlock, February 2004, p. 38. 231 Reilly 2001, p. 106.


71

has no experience with this voting system. Second the election committee (KPU) did not have

enough time and resources to politically educate the voters. In the late 2003, an electoral NGO

undertook a series of test elections. The study revealed that a number between 30 to 50 per-

cent of ballots have been declared as invalid. These results showed that the majority of voters

did not understand this new voting system.232 Based on this survey, most of the political par-

ties encouraged their supporters to simply mark the party list instead of vote for an individual

candidate in order to avoid a high number of invalid votes.

Another new feature, introduced by the 2003 laws, was the size of electoral districts,

which certainly affected the electoral chances of some parties. During the 1999 election, the

electoral district were simply the provinces, with 17 average number of seats per province;

varied from the large of the provinces: West Java with 82 seats down to Bengkulu and former

East Timor with each 4 seats. In 2004, the electoral districts were part of provinces, with the

number of seats per electoral district ranging from a minimum of 3 to a maximum of 12 seats.

Small provinces with a population less than 975.000 people required for 3 seats, the entire

provinces is considered as one electoral district. The larger provinces, mainly on Java and

Sumatra, will be divided into numbers of electoral districts. The purpose was to make the

2004 electoral arrangements more majoritarian than the 1999 election. At the same time, this

new system disadvantaged smaller parties. Smaller parties now have to win more votes in

order to have a seat in the DPR. For example, in West Java in 1999, with 82 seats contested,

less than 1 percent of votes had to be gathered in order to win a seat. During 2004 election,

West Java was divided into seven districts with an average of 9 seats each districts, meaning

that a party must win over 11 percent of the votes to gain a seat in the DPR.

In addition, the 2003 electoral laws introduced, for the first time, a law to elect the

president and the vice-president directly with a two-round system. The first direct presidential

election took place on 5th July 2004. The law required the winning candidate to receive 50

percent plus one of the popular vote as well as 20 percent of the votes in at least half of the

provinces in order to avoid a second round. Individual or independent candidate were not al-

lowed. The aim of this regulation was to ensure that the winning candidate did not only com-

mand support from a particular group or a simply majority of voters, but that he or she gath-

ered support from the people across of the country. The president and vice-president should

be campaigning in one package and only parties that have won a minimal 3 percent of the

232 Jakarta Post, 24th October 2003; Tempo, 15th October 2003


72

seats (16 seats) or 5 percent of the votes in the DPR election can stand for the president and

vice-president candidate.233

The winner of this first direct presidential election was Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

with Jusuf Kalla as his running mate. The purpose of this direct presidential election, in the

first place, is to eliminate the formidable powers of the MPR, by placing it directly into the

hands of the people. Second, the President will no longer have to calculate the political bal-

ance in the DPR, but the elected president will govern with the legitimacy of a popular man-

date, supported by the vice-president and his cabinet. However, the President still needed par-

liamentary support to pass legislation and the other way around.234

The third passed election law was the electoral system for the DPD which has been

categorized as unusual in many respects.235 Firstly, all candidates for election of the DPD

must be “independent” candidates without direct links to any political party. Only the names

of the individual candidates appear on the ballot paper. This regulation was introduced to an-

swer a heavy criticism about the dominance of political parties in the other chambers.236 Sec-

ondly, elections for the DPD are held under “single non-transferable vote” (SNTV) or known

better as first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, a system, which is quite different from the PR

system in the DPR. Elections to the Regional Representative Council (DPD) are based on the

Provinces as electoral constituencies. Each Province will elect four DPD members who are

non partisan. Voters are vote for one candidate only and the four candidates with the highest

number of votes are elected. The DPD elections will take place on the same day as the vote

for the DPR. The weakness of SNTV systems is the tendency to produce an extraordinarily

high rate of “wasted” votes, that is votes that did not contribute to the election of a candidate.

In over half of the provinces (17 of 32) the combined vote for all four successful candidates

ranges from as low as 27 per cent of the total vote in their province to 40 per cent. There are

four elected DPD members, who were elected with less than 20 per cent of the votes and 79

members out of 128 received less than 10 percent.

Three nationwide elections have been conducted in 2004: legislative election together

with the DPD’s election in April, followed by the first round direct presidential election in

July, and the second round in September. It has to be underlined that the elections have been

widely accepted as well conducted and marred by surprisingly few incidents of intimidation

or logistic problems.

233 Reilly 2001, p. 134. 234 The legislative needs also the agreement from the president by passing a bill (Sherlock 2007, p. 8). 235 Sherlock 2006, p. 22-30. 236 To remind, DPD is not an upper house through which all legislation must pass. For more information please read point 5.1.2


73

Table 6.2. 2004 Legislative (DPR) Election Results237

PARTY % VOTES NO. SEATS

(550 elected)

NO. VOTES

(MILLION)

PDIP

Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle

18.5 109 21.06

Partai Golkar

Golkar

21.6 128 24.48

PKB

National Awakening Party

10.6 52 12.03

PPP

United Development Party

8.2 58 9.3

PAN

National Mandate Party

6.4 52 7.26

PBB

Crescent Star Party

2.6 11 2.95

PKS (former was PK)

Justice Party

7.3 45 8.28

PD

Democrat Party

7.5 57 8.51

PBR

Star Reform Party

2.4 13 2.73

PDS

Peace and Welfare Party

2.1 13 2.38

PPDK

Democracy Unity and Nationhood Party

1.2 4 1.36

PKPB

Care for the Nation Functional Party

2.1 2 2.38

PP

Pioneer Party

0.8 3 0.91

PKPI

Indonesian Justice and Unity Party

1.25 1 1.37

PNIM

Indonesian Nationalist Party - Marhaenism

0.8 1 0.91

PPDI

Indonesian Democracy Upholders Party

0.8 1 0.91

Total 93.7 106.82

Invalid Votes 6.3 7.84

237 Sherlock, June 2004, p. 3-4; http://pemilu2004.goblogmedia.com/hasil-akhir-final-pemilu-legislatif-2004.html


74

6. 2. 3. 2009 Electoral Law238

After having two successful election periods in 1999 and 2004, each with newly re-

vised electoral laws, the Constitutional Court questioned the details of the latest electoral sys-

tem, stating that there are still needs of improvement. To remind us, the introduction of an

open-list PR system for 2004 election was the answer to the critics on closed-list PR system,

used during the 1999 election. The political experts diagnosed that closed-list PR system

placed a great power on parties leaders and led to the phenomenon that candidates paid the

party leader in order to enter the DPR.239 The adoption of the open-list PR system was seen to

reduce the influence of the parties’ leaders on the selection of candidates and to increase the

accountability of the parliament’s members to their constituencies by the ballot box. But the

advancements expected to be drawn by introducing the open-list PR system in 2004 were

largely illusory. If a voter failed to mark both, candidate and party, the vote would be declared

invalid. This method of counting individual votes resulted in the particular case that only two

candidates were allocated a seat in the 2004-2009 term of the DPR on the basis of personal

votes. Thus, the 2004 election law, which indeed still heavily weightened in favor of party

control over candidates, need to be revised.

There are two new laws on legislative election, which were passed in 2008 in order to

improve the 2004 election laws. First, the voters could now vote for either an individual can-

didate or a party, meaning that a vote would still be counted as valid, even if the voters did

not mark the name of the party. The purpose is to encourage voters to select an individual

candidate and eliminate the possibility of such votes being ruled invalid as it occurred in the

2004 election. Second, seats would be allocated to individual candidates, who won the largest

number of personal votes, regardless of their position on the party list, provided they received

more than 30 percent of the quota for their district.240 As the result, the value of position on

the party’s list and the power of the party office-holders, controlling the list, have been greatly

reduced. Unfortunately, there is no statement about how many members of the DPR have

been elected on the basis of personal votes in the 2009 election.

In the 2009 election, the range of district size has been reduced from 3 to 10, while in

2004 election the range of district size was from 3 to 12 seats (Law 10/2008 Art. 202). It

means that the effective threshold in the largest district increased form 8 percent to 10. This

238 Stephen Sherlock 2009. 239 With the arrival of democratization in Indonesia, the seats in DPR became more attractive because DPR member now had greater influence and decision-making power. 240 Quota is the number of votes, required by a party to win a seat. It is determined by taking the total number of valid votes in a district and dividing it by the number of seats in the district. (Sherlock 2009, p. 6)


75

heightens the difficulty for small parties to enter the DPR. The purpose was to reduce party

fragmentation in the parliament.241 Besides, only parties that win a minimum of 20 percent of

the seats in the DPR or 25 percent of the total national votes can stand for presidential elec-

tion. Parties with less than the required votes or seats must join in a coalition with other to

reach the threshold. The objectives behind this change were to reduce the number of presiden-

tial candidates and to limit the number to those with substantial party backing.

The changes to the electoral laws since 1999 represented an agreement among the par-

ties in the DPR and the government. They agreed that it was necessary to strengthen and im-

prove the electoral system in order to support the democratization process in Indonesia. The

2009 general election has witnessed some significant changes since 1999, at the level of rep-

resentation and the level of political institution. Quota for women is promulgated in the law

for the first time to increase the number of female candidates obtaining seats.242 The closer

relations with constituents because of the smaller district size could help improve the channel

for public input into the work of the DPR. Nevertheless, there is still another important aspect

that needs to be urgently examined and reviewed in order to support the electoral process,

such the preparation of the voters list. It starts from the registration and update process to the

distribution of voter’s invitation letters.243 Despite controversy about aspects of the electoral

system, various disputed results and criticism of the quality of electoral administration, Indo-

nesia now has a functioning and tested system of democratic elections.

6. 3. The Reform of the Party System

Political parties, play a vital role in modern democracies as aggregators, mediators,

and in bringing about solutions to collective action. In highly diverse and new democratic

countries determines the strength of the party system the durability and success of democratic

experiments. In plural society, political parties in many cases are symbols belonging of the

241 See chapter 4. 2. (party system). 242 In the 2004 electoral law states that 30 per cent of party’s candidates should be women. The passage of Law 10/2008 gives more chances to women in order to participate in the politics by declaring that 30 per cent of all DPR candidates were to be female and that one in every three candidates on party’s list should be woman (Sher-lock 2009, 16) 243 This process needs more efficient functioning of the statistic bureau of the government with impossible in-volvement of expert agencies. This step is significant to be taken in order to have a healthy participatory in the democracy. Because, most of the discrepancies that crept up during the election process were related to improper voter’s registration by the concerned authorities leading to disenfranchisement of many voters.


76

peoples,244 which can either help to support the democracy or destroy the democracy by poi-

soning public attitudes.

Since its independence in 1949 until the end of “New Order” regime in 1998, Indone-

sia have never had positive experiences with political parties and the party system. The party

fragmentations which manifested a division along religious, ethnics, racial, and regional lines,

have contributed substantially to the end of parliamentary democracy (see chapter 3). Under

former President Suharto’s presidency, only three parties were allowed to participate in na-

tional elections. One of them was the regime’s party, which has been used to gain popular

support and the other two were simply used to control the mobilization of the people. Follow-

ing the fall of “New Order” regime, former President Habibie – Suharto’s immediate succes-

sor – introduced a series of reforms: one of them was the freedom to form political parties.

Over 100 new parties, each with extremely limited support basis, mushroomed in Indonesia in

a short time. This situation raised the concern among political elites that the emerging party

system was too fragmented for a democratic government in order to work effectively.245 Even

in western democracies, the presence of parties with extremely divergent policies and prefer-

ences has historically been one of the single most important causes of political instability.246

Another concern was the threat of secessionism to the territorial integrity. This concern in-

creased together with the increasing number of regional parties, which were used as a medium

for separatist movements. Therefore, building nationally based party system across the archi-

pelago has been considered as an essential step in order to avoid secessionism and to a form

legitimate and stable government in supporting democratic consolidation in Indonesia. To

achieve these goals, Indonesia’s political engineers developed a complex package of incen-

tives and restraints on party development.

In 1999, the parliament drafted the first law on political party regulation, requiring the

parties to be present at least in one-third of the Indonesian provinces, meaning in 9 of 27

provinces. Within each of these provinces, they had to establish branches within over half of

all municipalities.247 These new rules reduced the numbers of parties dramatically: from 141

parties that applied to contest in the 1999 elections only 48 met the requirements and can par- 244 Ethnic groups are motivated to form political parties in order to participate in the politics. For example the Dayaknese in Central Borneo form the Great Dayak Party or the Nahdatul Ulama which was formed to represent the Javanese traditionalist Moslem (Liddle 2007, p. 834). 245 This assumption based on the experience during the parliamentary democracy, which has been believed as the main cause of the democracy failure. 246 Taylor/ Herman 1971, p. 35-36. 247 The province is the highest tier of local government sub-national entity in Indonesia. Each province has ist local government, headed by governor and has its own legislative body. Each province is divided into some municipalities or regencies. The numbers are varied, depends on the large of the province. For example, east Java is divided into 29 municipalities while west Sulawesi only into 5 municipalities. Each party has to establish branches in at least 15 municipalities in east Java etc. so that they can compete in the elections.


77

ticipate. Furthermore, article 30 of the political party law from 1999 provided that the a party,

obtaining fewer than 10 percent of the total number of seats in the DPR was ineligible to con-

test the next general election, unless it merged with some other parties.248

These rules were than strengthened in advance of 2004 elections. The parties are now

required to establish branches in two-thirds of the provinces, meaning in 20 of 30 provinces

and in two-thirds of municipalities within those provinces. Each branch has to have a mini-

mum of 1.000 members. Only 24 parties from the 48 parties that participated in the 1999 elec-

tion met the requirements for the 2004 election. There were 38 national parties and 6 regional

parties contesting only in Aceh249 which were registered to compete in the 2009 DPR elec-

tions. From all of these parties only those which got the support from multiple regions, won

seats in the parliament – just like it had been hoped by the reformers.

An additional law made by KPU, set the requirements for competing parties even

higher: only parties which achieve more than 2 per cent of the seats in the national legislature

and/ or more than 3 per cent of the seats in at least half of the local legislatures throughout the

entire country, can participate in the future elections. Otherwise they have to merge with other

parties or form a completely new party.250 Through these strict political party regulations,

Indonesia has indeed successfully built a sustainable, aggregative, and cohesive party system

on national based. Four of the five parties in the 1999 parliament, five of the seven parties in

the 2004 parliament, and seven of the nine parties in the 2009 parliament are pluralist and

secularist. This achievement lead until now to more stable politics and less tension between

difference groups.251

6. 4. The Greatest Devolution of Power

Since the 1950s, Indonesia has been a highly centralized, unitary state with decision-

making and control of the country’s nature resources concentrated in the hands of the central

248 Horowitz 2001, p. 141. 249 The right to form regional parties special for Aceh is based on Helsinki Agreement in 2005, which signed on 15th August 2005. The contents of the agreement, some of them are (1) Aceh would receive broader autonomy, (2) inclusive special rights of the Acehnese to establish local political parties to represent their interests, and (3) government troops would be withdrawn from the province in exchange for GAM’s (Free Aceh Movement) dis-armament (Miller 2008). 250 Reilly 2001, p. 132-135. 251 In the meantime, the threats to the unity of the state which intensified in the end on 1990s have calmed down and some of them died out. Although a low-intensity conflict still simmers in Papua and the peace reached in Aceh still remains fragile, there has been an upward trend toward conflict resolution in recent years that seems likely to endure. Ethnic and religious violence in Kalimantan, Central Sulawesi and Maluku have not returned. Today, almost all political actors – from former rebels to former Suharto allies, from Islamist activists to secular nationalists – all seek to make an impact through the ballot box rather than through violent or other undemocratic means ( Report of International Election Observation Mission, 2009, p. 16)


78

government in Jakarta. Opting for a centralized government was decided by the Jakarta Elites

who have had a negative experience with federal state formed by the Dutch at the end of the

colonialism.252 The elite politics at that time feared that by giving the regions greater control

over their own affairs, violent, disintegrative forces would come up. Yet, the strong central-

ized structure is often named to cause the violently internal conflicts and secessionist move-

ments during the 1990s. At the end of “New Order” regime, the demands for more control

over their own affairs arose because people outside of Java believed that the power was not

distributed fairly. Demands for reforms were more insistent from regions that are rich in natu-

ral resources, such as Aceh, Riau, Papua, etc. This situation increased the fear at the centre

that Indonesia might disintegrate under pressure from secessionist movements. To avoid the

breakup of Indonesia, the national parliament approved two laws on decentralization in 1999

and formed the Regional Representative Assembly (DPD) to represent the people in the re-

gions and enabling them to have a greater role in policy-making at the national level. The im-

plemented regulation devolves authority to the 30 provinces253 and the 365 regencies (kabu-

paten).254 The areas of administration, public welfare, and public health were declared as the

first three areas to be decentralized, as a litmus test before transferring more authority is trans-

ferred.255

Law No. 22/1999 which manages the administrative decentralization eliminates the

hierarchical relationship between the provincial and the district governments. The district

governments will become fully autonomous, so that the heads of the district governments no

longer have to report to the governor on the province. Instead, the district heads will be re-

sponsible to the locally elected assembly (the DPRD). In contrast, the provinces will retain a

hierarchical relationship with the central government.

252 Federalism was once tried in Indonesia, as the Dutch Colonialists returned to the Republic in 1945 after Indo-nesia had declared its independence. For four years, the territory encompassing Indonesia had two parallel gov-ernments and political units: one federal and one unitary. As the Republic of Indonesia won its full sovereignty in December 1949, it was declared a federal state. But only few months later, it was transformed into an unitary state again. There are some reasons, why the concept of federal state was rejected in Indonesia. First, the federal idea was tainted as foreign and colonialist. Second, the United States of Indonesia were seen as less cohesive than an unitary state, more open to both foreign domination and to the internal danger of secession. (Antlöv 2001, p. 264-65; 280-81). 253 Until 1998, there were 27 Provinces in Indonesia. Since 1999, Indonesia has lost East Timor and Maluku split into two. Beside that the new provinces of Banten in western Java and Bangka-Belitung in southern Sumatra were established. On 5th December 2000, the DPR approved the establishment of the new province of Gorontalo, formerly part of North Sulawesi. 254 See footnote no. 68. 255 The two laws are: law No. 22/1999 concerns the administrative decentralization and law No. 25/1999 con-cerns the fiscal balance between the central government and the regions. The approval of these two laws indicate a seriousness about democratic decentralization on the part of the central government as one of the way to main-tain the national unity.


79

According to this law, the provinces have its own planning agency and various

autonomous decentralized departments under its own control at the provincial level. Each

provinces generally consisting of departments for managing its own revenues as well as de-

partments for education and culture, health, public works, traffic management, agriculture,

livestock, fishery, forestry, plantations, industry, social welfare, labor, and tourism. Matters of

defense and security, foreign policies, monetary and fiscal policies, judiciary and religious

affairs remain the competence of the central government. Like provinces, each district or re-

gency has an autonomous department in charge of own revenues with their departments de-

pending upon size and location of the district itself.

Law No. 25/1999 regulates the fiscal balance between the central government and the

regions. Thus, alters the transfers received by local governments from the central government.

The current routine transfers encompasses transfers to pay the salaries of local civil servants,

will be eliminated. Instead, these transfers will be combined into a general allocation fund

whose total amount is made up of 25 percent of the central government domestic revenues

and whose distribution among the local governments will be determined by a certain for-

mula.256 Additionally, law No. 25/1999 introduces revenue sharing for provincial and district

governments. The law assigns each level of government to share its revenues from taxes on

land and buildings and its revenues from nature resources, such as forestry, mining, fisheries,

oil, and gas. The other local government sources of revenues remained unchanged.

The main objectives of these two laws are to promote a better delivery services by the

government, to raise the level of local government accountability and to link the local gov-

ernment closer to the local people. These aims are based on the assumption that district and

municipal governments have a better understanding of the needs and aspirations of their

communities than the central government does. The evaluation of the two laws offering from

success and failure which has been expected by the political experts and observers, concern-

ing that Indonesia was a strong central state for more than 30 years.

There will be many problems that need to be overcame as implementation proceeds.

Many legitimate concerns may have been raised about the risks of regional autonomy. One of

the purposes of the centralized government was to reduce the imbalance among the region

that the central government. In effect functioned as an equalizer, redistributing revenue from

the resource-rich to resource-poor provinces. The risk of decentralization is that the disparity

between the richer and the poorer regions will be increased. This can create a new set of win-

256 From central government funds (APBN), 25 per cent of domestic revenue will be transferred to regional gov-ernment. 22,5 percent of this fund will be transferred to the local level and the 2,5 percent to the provincial level (www.indonesia-ottawa.org).


80

ners and losers.257 Moreover, the central government bureaucracies remain reluctant to give

up power and the regional and local government infrastructure may not be able to accommo-

date the new tasks or the public expectations that have been created. But all these fears have

to be balanced with the positive thought that this process can advantage the entire nation if it

succeeds. The whole process should be regarded as an opportunity as well as a challenge to

support democratization process in Indonesia. In the long term, these reforms have the poten-

tial to create economic, social, and political stability and can bring peace and security to the

people of Indonesians.

Implementation of regional autonomy must include the involvement of a wider circle

of participants, outside the boundary of central government and the bureaucracy. The respon-

sibility of local communities in each autonomous region must also be taken into account, so

that local government and the community can share the responsibility for the success of re-

gional autonomy. It is also the role of the civil society, of NGOs, academics and may be re-

search institutions to support the process by monitoring the process and by giving some

needed inputs. To sum up, the implementation of regional autonomy is a long term process

which needs to be further improved.

6. 5. Indonesian’s democracy – Evaluating the diverse Reforms

Against very heavy odds, Indonesia has made a remarkable transition from an authori-

tarian258 to a democratic political system in the last ten years. Since 1999, Indonesia has held

a series of free, fair and peaceful elections for the legislature and two direct presidential elec-

tions. Indonesians now enjoy extensive political freedoms which were never in place under

Suharto’s presidency. Numerous political parties compete freely for popular support. Interest

groups and mass media try to exercise oversight over the behavior of elected representatives

of national and local governments. If Dahl’s polyarchy concept of democracy259 is taken as

the yardstick, namely elected officials, free, fair and frequent elections, inclusive suffrage and

citizenship, freedom of expression, alternative sources of information and associational

autonomy as the criteria of a democracy, Indonesia today can be described very well as de-

mocracy.260 But if we look deeper to the performance of each of its political institution, Indo-

nesia’s democracy still has its weaknesses.

257 Soesastro, 2000. 258 See footnote no. 15, chapter 1. 259 Dahl 1998, p. 84-91 260 According to Freedom House, Indonesia is the most democratic country in Southeast Asia (www.freedomhouse.org).


81

The first detected weakness is on the amendment 1945 Constitution which blurred the

newly given authority to the DPR to pass the laws as well as the function of newly-formed

Regional Representatives Assembly. In the article 20A (1) it is stated that “the DPR has

power to make laws. This power is weakened by clause 20A (2) stating that “each bill is dis-

cussed by the DPR and the President to reach joint agreement.” This means that the legislative

authority could not be completely exercise by the DPR but it will be shared with the president

and his cabinet.261 This regulation is becoming a serious obstacle to dealing effectively with

the many urgent policy issues, especially because of the miscoordination between the gov-

ernment ministries and the DPR. To take an example, a bill to regulate the legal profession

was delayed, because the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Human Rights

left on a haj pilgrimage at the time when he was scheduled to represent his Minister in discus-

sions on the Bill with a DPR Commission. The Ministry named a junior official to represent

the Minister, but a number of Members of the Commission objected on the grounds that there

was no regulation allowing such an official to replace the Secretary General. In fact, there is

no regulation specifying who is capable of representing a Minister in deliberation over bills in

the DPR or indeed setting out the powers of a ministerial representative, including whether

she/he has the authority to express the government’s agreement or disagreement with the

bill.262 As the result, until the end of its term in April 2009, the “second generation” of the

DPR elected in 2004, still showed poorly performance in passing the bills and it remains sub-

ordinated to the executive government.

The newly-formed Regional Representative Assembly cannot perform their entire

functions either.263 As a representative body, the DPD has a great legitimacy which comes

from the popular election. But this great legitimacy is blocked by the limited powers, pro-

vided by Art. 22C and 22D of 1945 amended constitution.264 According to the amended con-

stitution, the DPD has the right to propose, take part in discussions, and advice the DPR on

the drafting and implementing of bills, related to regional autonomy, central and regional rela-

tions, formation, enlargement and merger of regions, management of natural resources and

other economic resources as well as bills concerning the financial balance between the centre

and the regions. Yet, the DPD has no power to influence the DPR by passing those bills. The

high legitimacy courted with the limited power has put the DPD in a dilemma to develop its.

261 Sherlock 2007, p. 7-8. 262 Katharina 2005, p. 22. 263 To remind, DPD was created with two main expectations: that it would provide a way for a new kind of rep-resentative from the regions to enter the national level decision-making and that as an institution it would allow the voice of the regions to be heard in the making laws and the oversight of central executive government (Sher-lock 2006, p. 38) 264 Article 22C and 22D of 1945 amended Constitution.


82

Consequently, the first generation of the DPD for the term 2004-2009 has been marked by a

lack of discernable progress.

The second detected weakness is on the Indonesian’s political parties which are stable,

but still show poor performances.265 The stability of the national party system is reflected in

the lifespan of the big political parties. Ten years into the post-authoritarian era, there are no

signs that any of the larger parties will collapse anytime soon. Another sign for the stability of

the national political party is the continuously high voter turn out. In 1999 and 2004, partici-

pation in the national elections ranged between 75 and 93 percent.266 Most of the political

parties rely heavily on charismatic leaders. The clearest example of an individual profile is

Megawati Sukarnoputri, who is a major factor in her party’s (PDI-P) vote-getting capacity.

Megawati is the oldest daughter of Sukarno, Indonesia’s first President. She is a symbol of the

qualities and vision that are identified with her father and continues to inspire large number of

Indonesians, especially urban and agricultural workers in Java and Bali.267 Such political par-

ties tend to obey the policy concerns. Instead most of them claim to represent the lower class.

In effect, the political platforms are generally poor and make it difficult for the voters to dis-

cern policy differences.268 In a national survey, the Asia foundation revealed that two-thirds of

the voters (66%) do not know if or what kind of differences do exist among the parties.269

Furthermore the poor performances presented by the political parties cannot solely be traced

back to the politician’s behavior and quantities but are also caused by the structural deficien-

cies within the parties. The fact that Indonesia has no coherent system of party financing led

to the consequence that Indonesian parties rather concentrate on fund raising instead of per-

forming their functions. The vast majority of party members pay no membership fees. The

small state subsidies to parties were cut by almost 90 per cent in 2005 and the contributions to

parties by entrepreneurs were typically slammed by the media and civil society groups.270

Some political experts criticized the new laws on political parties and electoral system,

which discriminate small parties and regional parties to compete in the election,271 with the

sole exception of those in Aceh.272 They are concerned that limiting the number of parties to

compete in national election can foster a return to an autocratic regime.273 I argue that the new

265 Due to the result of the public opinion polls, Indonesian’s political parties are ineffective, unresponsive and most corrupt (ibid.) 266 Mietzner 2008, www.insideindonesia.org. 267.Liddle/ Mujani 2007) 268 Ufen 2006. 269 Asia Foundation 2003, p. 100. 270 ibid. 271 Reilly (2007); Tan (2002); King (2003) 272 See footnote No. 65. 273 Reilly 2007, p. 70.


83

regulation on political party and election law will not affect the political climate in Indonesia

in a negative way. Instead, the new regulation on parties encourages the political leaders to

represent not only the interest of a particular group but the desire of as many groups as possi-

ble. Moreover, the new electoral procedures enhance coalitions and power sharing deals

rather than a “winner takes all” outcome. The rather strict regulation on forming a political

party seems necessary, since the Indonesian party system is still too fragmented and therefore

unable to produce stable support for the government.

Last but not least, the detected weakness is found in the revised decentralization laws

which caused complication on its implementation. To take an example, the law No. 25/1999

defined the expenditure assignment and revenue powers. This law is written in an uncoordi-

nated way without policy designed to guide this drafting. This condition led to many uncer-

tainties about the revenue-expenditure balance at the local government level. The local offi-

cials indicated that they simply do not know what will happen to their budget under the new

system, whether it will be greater, equal to, or less than the past of expenditures. Moreover,

the local officials simply do not have any knowledge of the formula for grant distribution

which is usually done by the central government. Worse, there was no guide from the central

government how to distribute grants. Above all, the institutional framework at the local level

to manage the resources and the functions is inadequate. According to a leading Indonesian

decentralization expert, 30 percent of the country’s regencies cannot meet the central govern-

ment’s standards to implement the autonomous legislation. The remaining 70 percent can

meet only minimum standards. The concern of some Indonesian and foreign experts is that in

the absence of transparency and accountability at the local level, decentralization could bring

about corruption and the rise of “little kings” in the region.274

The process of constitutional amendmends, the successful elections, the political free-

dom enjoyed by the Indonesians, including all the weaknesses named above give evidence

that the democratic transition period is completed. But there are still many tasks that need to

be accomplished, conditions that must be established and attitudes, as well as, habits that must

be cultivated before the Indonesian democracy can be regarded as consolidated.

274 Mallarangeng 2000.

Conclusion __________________________________________________________________________________

84

Conclusion

Divisions within the Indonesian society along ethnic, religious, and social lines, pose a

serious challenge for democracy to be stable. But the cleavages, in themselves, were not the

reason for the failure of the parliamentary democracy practiced in the 1950s. It was the inabil-

ity of the Indonesian government to manage these diversities within the democratic institu-

tions. The mismanagement that occurred during the parliamentary democracy caused internal

conflicts to rise. The existing institutions have never been maximally used to accommodate

the diversities of the society. Elections were seen as the chance to be in power with the prin-

ciple of “winner-take-all” and political parties were used as a tool to gain popular support and

mobilize mass. The constitution was made to vest the position of the president. The armed

forces which were chose to overcome those conflicts ended the parliamentary democracy and

turned Indonesia into an autocratic state. During autocratic regime, the armed forces were

continually used to deal with the demands of the regions and to maintain the stability of the

regime.

By 1997, an unexpected economic crisis, taking place in Asia shook the stability of the

Suharto’s autocratic regime. The sudden stepping down of Suharto in May 1998 which left a

legitimacy gap has given the chance for democracy to return to Indonesia. Unfortunately, be-

cause of the lacking experiences with democracy and its institutions, neither Habibie as the

successor of Suharto, nor any of the reformers, who had longing for democratization, were

sufficiently able to take the next step in order to implement the democratic institution and its

procedures.275 Moreover, the democratization process was impeded by the rise of internal

conflicts which potentially could break down the unity of Indonesia. Therefore, any input

from scholars would be welcome as invaluable contributions and would be taken into consid-

eration.

In August 1998, there was a conference which was arranged by Indonesian and inter-

national political experts together with international political scholar.276 The conference

275 Pressed by the demands to reform the political institutions, Habibie, the successor of Suharto, made a first step by lifting the decades-long restrictions on the right of press freedom and on the right to form political par-ties. Afterwards, there were more than a hundred new parties based on minuscule support, which were immedi-ately formed. This mushrooming of new parties rise the awareness that political fragmentation and democratic dysfunction might be in the offering (Reilly, 2007:65) 276 The conference was held in Jakarta under sponsorship of LIPI (Indonesian Institute of Sciences) and the Ford Foundation. The Indonesian political experts who taking part in the conference were Juwono Sudarsono (Profes-sor of International Relation in University of Indonesia), Dr. Soejyan Tsauri, M.Sc (Chairman of Indonesian Institute of Science), Dr. Adnan Buyung Nasution (Functionary of Indonesian Foundation for Law Assistance).

Conclusion __________________________________________________________________________________

85

dealed with the fundamental issues which were faced by Indonesia during the transition pe-

riod to democracy. All of the discussions on reforms held to ensure that the current political

reforms will not come to a standstill or lead to a vicious cycles namely evolving from tyranny

to democracy and again turning to another tyranny. The political reforms should ameliorate

the implementation of democracy’s culture which will allow the people’s participation in the

decision-making process. Political reforms should enhance the creation of harmonious centre-

region relationships, the establishment of checks and balances between governmental277 as

well as the peaceful relationship between ethnic groups. Since 1999 the reforms on political

institution were implemented in stages and have been consistently renewed.278 Since Indone-

sia is lack of experiences with political institutions, every adjustment was undertaken to react

to the implemented laws with the ‘try and error principle’.

The biggest concern on designing the electoral and party system in Indonesia was the

plurality of its society, which is manifested into political parties. The significantly rising

numbers of political parties during the transition period has increased the worries among in-

ternational and Indonesian’s political experts. Bearing in mind that the democratization proc-

ess in the 1950s was hampered and stopped by the party fragmentation at that time. It was

feared that a too fragmented party systems can halt the democratization process. To avoid

this, Indonesian reformers introduced a party regulation which can encourage party aggrega-

tion and restrict the enfranchisement of regional parties. With the election law, they pursue

regulations which can restrict the number of parties in the legislative and foster majoritarian

political outcomes.

After careful consideration, the PR electoral system has been adopted again. The po-

litical experts are assured that the PR electoral system can ensure the proportional representa-

tion of different social groups in the parliament. However, the PR electoral system, which is

implemented in Indonesia, is not like the PR system put fort by Lijphart. According to Li-

jphart’s ideal on PR system, the competing political parties are those which based on clear

social cleavages. Thereby, each ethnic group is represented by one party, meaning that the

seats in parliament will be proportionally allocated according to the votes received by each

party. Lijphart further advocates the use of PR system within large multimember districts in

order to decrease disproportionality in the parliament. The PR system, implemented in Indo-

nesia, compels the competing parties to be built on broad national support, from as many

R. William Liddle, Juan J.Linz, Olle Törnquist, Andrew Reynolds, D.Y.King, Donald L.Horowitz were some of the international political experts who were there. (Liddle, 2001: Crafting Indonesian Democracy). 277 This should also include a balanced relationship between the legislative and executive. 278 The last change was on electoral law passed by the parliament (DPR) in October 2008. See chapter 6.

Conclusion __________________________________________________________________________________

86

groups as possible. Furthermore, the seats in parliament will be proportionally distributed

only to the winning parties, meaning to those that received at least two percent of the national

votes. Moreover, Indonesia uses the PR electoral system with a low district magnitude, in

order to make the electoral arrangements in Indonesia more majoritarian.279 Like all the elec-

toral processes, the new laws on the electoral system are not entirely neutral in its political

effects and could have an impact on patterns of voting. Additionally, the reforms can influ-

ence parties which emerge as winners and losers as well as how the parties structure them-

selves internally. Despite all the controversy about aspects of the electoral system, despite the

various disputed results and criticism of the quality of electoral administration, Indonesia now

has a functioning system of democratic elections that has been tested successfully.

Today it is widely accepted that the design on political institutions play an important

role in achieving a stable democracy. Its role is even greater, if the society is deeply divided.

Yet, the design of the institutions is still contended. Among international scholars, there are

two famous concepts on designing institutions which I discussed in the chapter 5. I argue that

none of the concepts should be adopted exactly ‘one-to-one’. The concepts should be seen as

pattern which should be modified as given in each. Democracy may face the same problem in

every country, namely the existence of social cleavages. But still each country has its own

characteristics which can never be generalized. Therefore, it is highly advised to adjust the

political institutions to the circumstances of a country, such as the historical background, the

behavior of the politicians, the level of education of the people and the structure of the soci-

ety. Indonesia as a multi-culture country poses a good example of how to use a combination

of both concepts. The design of political institutions, implemented in Indonesia, is the modifi-

cation of the ‘incentive approach’, advocated by Horowitz, combined with the use of PR elec-

toral system, identified to the work of Lijphart. The aims of the design are to bring the diverse

ethnic groups together through nationally based political parties and at the same time to avoid

the ‘winner-take-all’ results. Taking into account that political parties tend to be formed based

on particular ethnic group280 and that the Indonesian political leaders still can hardly govern

moderately without advantaging a particular group.

Regional autonomy seem preferable to federalism not only due to the bad experience

in the 1950s, but because of the lack of experiences with this system, since Indonesia was

governed centrally for more than 30 years. Ten years ago, the Indonesian reformers supported

by international political scholars have built the first ground for an accountable and stable

democracy. Until this day, Indonesia still remains as unity states, but this time with function- 279Reilly 2007, p. 107 280Liddle/Mujani 2007.

Conclusion __________________________________________________________________________________

87

ing institutions. Yet, the behaviors of the politicians leave room for advancement, since they

appear to be self-serving. However, the attitudes and behavior cannot be reformed, but have to

be altered by the Indonesians, controlling the politicians and asking for more transparency.

However, what has been achieved until today are important advances in Indonesia’s democra-

tization process which should not only be enjoyed but also be improved continuously.

References __________________________________________________________________________________

88

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97

Legal Norms

• 1945 constitution of the Republic Indonesia (old version).

• 1945 constitution of the Republic Indonesia (new version).

• Law on parliamentary elections No. 22/2007

• Helsinki Agreement 2005

• Law on parliamentary elections No. 10/2008

• Law on political parties No. 2/2008

• Law on presidential elections No. 42/2008

• Law on decentralization No. 22/1999

• Law on decentralization No. 25/1999

• Legislation law No. 7/1983

• Presidential law No. 57/1993

Newspapers and Magazines

• Jakarta Post

• Kompass

• Tempo

Internetsites

• Indonesia Central Statistic Bureau http://www.bps.go.id/

• Freedom of House www.freedomhouse.org

• www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/indonesia/abri.htm

• www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/beginningreading/howprwor.htm

• http://pemilu2004.goblogmedia.com/hasil-akhir-final-pemilu-legislatif-2004.html

• http://www.famousmuslims.com/MohammedSuharto.htm

• http://www.famousmuslims.com/Sukarno.htm

Summary in German / Zusammenfassung __________________________________________________________________________________

98

Institutionelles Design und Demokratisierung in Indonesia

Indonesia ist ein Staat mit mehr als 1000 verschieden ethnischen Gruppierungen und

sechs Religion, die sich untereinander stark differenzieren. 1949, direkt nach der Unab-

hängigkeit von der niederländischen Kolonialmacht, wurde in Indonesien der Versuch un-

ternommen, demokratische Strukturen einzuführen. Dieser Demokratisierungsprozess er-

wies sich aber als nicht kräftig und nachhaltig genug, um sich gegen autoritäre Strömun-

gen innerhalb der indonesischen Gesellschaft durchzusetzen. Auf dem Papier wurden

zwar Institutionen, die charakteristisch für Demokratien sind, geschaffen, im Ergebnis

bildete sich aber ein Regime heraus, das seine Herrschaft militärisch und nicht demokra-

tisch legitimierte.

Ende der 90er Jahre wurde die Stabilität des Regimes von der Wirtschaftskrise in Asien

erschüttert. Die Schwäche des Regimes nutzten daraufhin mehreren Akteuren aus, um ih-

ren individuellen Einfluss zu erhöhen. Ethnische und religiöse Konflikte waren die Folge.

Schnell bildeten sich Separatistenbewegungen, die nach Unabhängigkeit von Indonesien

strebten, währenddessen andere Teile der politischen Eliten zusammen mit Studentenbe-

wegungen den Rücktritt des zweiten Präsidenten Suharto und die Einführung der Demo-

kratie forderten. Die Situation 1998 bedrohte die Einheit von Indonesien; ein Staatszerfall

ähnlich wie in Jugoslawien und der Sowjetunion schien immanent, wenn die Krise nicht

rechtzeitig entschärft würde.

In der politikwissenschaftlichen Literatur gibt es zwei führende Konzeptionen und Emp-

fehlungen zum institutionellen Aufbau politischer Systeme in ethnisch heterogenen und

konfliktgeladenen Gesellschaften. Sowohl der „Konkordanzansatzes“ als auch der „An-

reizansatzes“ gehen davon aus, dass die Einheit und politische Stabilität eines Landes mit

segmentierter Gesellschaft herbeigeführt werden kann, wenn die politischen Eliten unter

Einbeziehung der gesellschaftlichen Subkulturen zu einer Politik der gütlichen Einigung

bereit sind.

Der Konkordanzansatzes, der von Arend Lijphart 1969 entwickelt wurde,281 ist ein Typus

der Volksherrschaft, der darauf abzielt, eine möglichst große Zahl von Akteuren (Parteien,

Verbände, ethnische Minoritäten) in den politischen Prozess einzubeziehen und Entschei-

dungen im Konsens zu treffen. Die Eigenschaften der Konkordanzdemokratie sind (1) ge-

genseitige Vetomöglichkeiten bei Entscheidungen, die mehr als eine bestimmte Volks- 281 Arend Lijphart, Consociational Democracy, World Politics, Vol. 21, No. 2 (January 1969), pp. 207-225


99

gruppe betreffen; (2) segmentäre Autonomie im Form von ethnischem Föderalismus; (3)

ein großes Koalitionskabinett aus möglichst allen ethnischen Parteien und (4) Proportiona-

lität, sowohl im Wahlsystem als auch bei Fragen der Ressourcenverteilung. Es ist wichtig

zu wissen, dass nach dem Konkordanz Prinzip die politischen Parteien als Einflussmittel

von gesellschaftlichen Gruppen auf den politischen Prozess verstanden wird,282 daher ist

es erwünscht, dass jede politische Partei auf einer ethnischen Gruppe basiert. Lijphart

glaubte daran, dass nur dadurch sich die Eliten verpflichtet fühlen, im Konsens zu handeln

und so gesellschaftliche Stabilität verwirklicht wird.283

Das alternative Modell von Donald Horowitz ist der „Anreizansatzes“, der den Ansatz

verfolgt, Anreize an die Eliten zur inter-ethnischen Kooperation zu schaffen.284 Wie beim

Konkordanzansatzes, besitz der Ansatz Von Horowitz ebenfalls vier Eigenschaften. (1)

Bezüglich des Wahlsystems empfiehlt Horowitz die Einführung von „Alternative Vote“

(AV), bei dem die Repräsentative nach Präferenzen eingeordnet werden sollen. Dieses

System soll Anreiz an Kandidaten schaffen, nicht nur für die Stimme ihrer Parteianhänger

zu werben sondern auch Unterstützung aus anderen ethnischen Gruppen dazu zu gewin-

nen. Nur diejenigen, die am moderatesten eine Kampagne führen und möglichst diverse

Unterstützung erhalten, können dann die Wahl gewinnen. Der Anreizansatz fördert so die

Formation multi-ethnische Parteien. (2) Diese politischen Parteien werden dann eine Ka-

binettkoalition formen, die Horowitz als „Cabinet of Commitment“ beschreibt. (3) Die fa-

vorisierte Regierungsform ist der Präsidentialismus, mit der Bedingung, dass der gewählte

Präsident auch die Unterstützung (Stimmen) anderer Gruppierungen erhalten muss. (4)

Die letzte Eigenschaft ist der Föderalismus, der nicht nur auf bestimmte ethnische Gruppe

beschränkt ist, sondern für alle Gruppierungen die gleichen Rechte und Pflichten bedeutet.

Der Konkordanzansatzes von Lijphart bevorzugt demnach eine strikte Teilung der Bevöl-

kerung in homogene Segmente, während der Anreizansatzes von Horowitz die Bildung

von multi-ethnischen Koalition anstrebt.

Anhand der beiden Modelle wurde 1999 in Indonesien ein institutioneller Reformprozess

begonnen. Hauptziele dieser Reformen sind die Vermeidung inter-ethnischer Konflikte,

die Konsolidierung des Demokratieprozesses, politische Stabilität, die Förderung eines

kohärenten Parteiensystems sowie eine gesamtgesellschaftlich legitimierte Legislative. In

Folge dessen wurde die Verfassung zwischen 1999-2002 in vier Phase geändert. Der

282 Lijphart 1977. 283 Lijphart 2002, p. 96. 284 Reilly 2001, p. 151.


100

Zweck ist zu einen, die Macht des Präsidenten zu beschränken und zum anderen, eine kla-

re Machteilung zwischen Exekutive und Legislative zu sichern.

Diese Arbeit stellt die politischen Institutionen in der Vergangenheit und in der Gegen-

wart dar. Ziel der Diplomarbeit ist es, den Misserfolg des Demokratisierungsprozesses der

50er Jahren zu erklären und die Auswahl der implementierten Institutionen seit 1999 so-

wie ihre Entwicklung nachzuvollziehen.

Die Vielfältigkeit der indonesischen Gesellschaft ist ohne Zweifel die größte Herausforde-

rung für die Demokratie, Stabilität zu erreichen. Aber sie ist weder die Ursache des Schei-

terns der Demokratiebewegung in den 50er, noch hat sie die gewaltsamen inter-ethnische

Konflikte verursacht. Es war eher die Unfähigkeit und der Unwillen der indonesischen

Regierung, die Vielfalt der Gesellschaft bei der Schaffung von politischen Institutionen zu

berücksichtigen und den Demokratisierungsprozess angemessen zu unterstützen. Ent-

scheidung in der Vergangenheit wirkt auf die Zukunft. Im Laufe der Zeit, schafften die

autoritären Institutionen eine Situation, in der die ethnischen Minderheiten zwar anerkannt

aber diskriminiert wurden. Diese Situation verschärften die Spannungen zwischen den

einzelnen Gruppierungen und führten so zu gewaltsamen internen Konflikten.285

Vier Dinge wurden am Anfang der Übergangszeit zwischen 1998-1999 bei der Gestaltung

der neuen demokratischen Institutionen betrachtet. Ersten, die Pluralität der Gesellschaft,

die Konfliktanfällig ist. Zweiten, die starke zentralisierte Staatssystem seit 1949. Drittens,

die Dominanz der Exekutive. Vierten, die Zersplitterung der Parteienlandschaft, die nur

eine sehr beschränkte, selektive Unterstützung (Support) bestimmter Gruppen bewirkte.286

Mit proportionaler Repräsentation als Wahlsystem scheint es, dass Indonesien das Kon-

zept der Konkordanzdemokratie adoptiert hat. In der Tat hat Indonesien zwar das Model

des „Anreizansatzes“ implementiert, es aber mit Elementen der proportionalen Repräsen-

tation als Wahlsystem modifiziert, um so zu sichern, dass so viele verschiedene Gruppen

wie möglich im Parlament repräsentiert sind. Anhand dieses institutionellen Designs gibt

Indonesien eine guten Beispiel dafür, dass keine der beiden Konzepten genau eins-zu-eins

importiert werden sollten. Die entwickelten Modelle sollten nur als Muster gesehen wer-

den, die nach Bedarf modifiziert werden müssen. Demokratieprozesse in einigen Ländern

stehen vor demselben Problem, nämlich einer gespaltenen Gesellschaft, die es zusammen-

zuführen gilt. Jedoch besitzt jedes Land eigene, originäre Eigenschaften, die nicht verall-

gemeinert werden können und sollten. Es ist zu empfehlen, dass das Design der demokra-

tischen Institutionen individuell an die Situation im Land selbe angepasst werden, wie 285 Bertrand 2004. 286 Liddle 2001, p. 4.


101

zum Beispiel an das Bildungsniveau der Bevölkerung sowie die Verhaltensweisen der

Gruppen.

Seit dem ersten Reformpaket von 1999 wird in Indonesien die neue Demokratie, meiner

Meinung nach, zunehmend stabiler und erfährt steigende gesellschaftliche Akzeptanz. In-

donesien hat den Übergang von einem autoritären Regime zur Demokratie unter schwieri-

ge Kondition überstanden. In den letzten zehn Jahren wurden sechs nationale Wahlen (3

Legislative Wahlen, 3 Präsidentschaftswahl) durchgeführt bei den – unabhängig vom

Ausgang –am wichtigsten ist, dass die Ergebnisse der jeweiligen Wahlen von allen teil-

nehmenden Parteien akzeptiert wurden.

Die Indonesier genießen jetzt politische Freiheiten, die vor Beginn des Reformprozesses

unvorstellbar waren, zum Beispiel allgemeine Bürgerrechte, Meinungsfreiheit und

Rechtssicherheit. Anhand dieser positiven Fortschritte, würde ich sagen, dass die Demo-

kratie in Indonesien auf dem richtigen Weg ist, zum Dauerzustand zu werden. Jedoch ist

Kontrolle immer noch nötig, um sicherzustellen, dass die Demokratie sich nicht selbst

aushebelt.

Eidesstattliche Erklärung __________________________________________________________________________________

102

EIDESSTATTLICHE ERKLÄRUNG Ich erkläre an Eides Statt, dass ich die vorliegende Diplomarbeit „Institutional Design and

Democratization in Indonesia“ selbstständig und ohne fremde Hilfe verfasst, andere als die

angegebenen Quellen nicht benutzt und die aus den verwendeten Quellen wörtlich oder in-

haltlich übernommenen Stellen als solche kenntlich gemacht habe.

Mir ist bekannt, dass bei der Verwendung von Inhalten aus dem Internet diese zu kennzeich-

nen und mit dem Datum sowie der Internetadresse (URL) in die Arbeit aufzunehmen sind.

Diese Arbeit hat in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form noch an keiner anderen Prüfungsbehörde

vorgelegen.

Berlin, 30. Dezember 2009-12-31 Janty Jie

Seeking Democratic Stabiliy in Divided Society: Institutional Design and Democratization in Indonesia

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