Indonesia's Quiet Revolution

Lex Rieffel

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2004

Summary:  Beyond headlines dominated by terrorist cells and separatist insurgencies, the world's largest majority-Muslim country has undergone a profound transformation in recent years. Reformers have quietly but brilliantly overhauled the country's long-intractable political system. The government that takes office in October will be the people's choice more than ever before-and will have an unprecedented opportunity to set Indonesia on the road to good governance and economic prosperity.

Lex Rieffel is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The constitution of 1945 provided for the election of a national parliament (DPR), composed of party representatives, every five years. The DPR, together with a group of regional representatives, the military, and other "functional groups," formed the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the primary function of which was to choose the country's president. The president appointed the cabinet and governed largely by decree.

Suharto formed and manipulated the three parties that "competed" in the DPR elections held between 1977 and 1997 and controlled the selection of the other representatives who filled out the MPR. His favored party vehicle was Golkar, which evolved in the early 1970s out of an army-led anticommunist organization. The DPR routinely rubber-stamped legislation put forward by Suharto's cabinet, and the MPR dutifully reelected Suharto to the presidency every five years without opposition.

In addition to instituting the direct election of the president and vice president, the amendments adopted after 1998 eliminated the "functional" representatives in the MPR. These were replaced by a senate composed of 128 directly elected, nonpartisan members, four from each of Indonesia's 32 provinces. The MPR now consists of the DPR and the senate together, and its powers have been sharply curtailed to include only amending the constitution, swearing in the president and vice president, and dismissing them for specified violations. The amendments also created a constitutional court to review laws and resolve disputed results of general elections, provided for a "general election commission of a national, permanent, and independent character," and set forth basic human rights protections.

In 2001, Indonesia underwent one of the most radical decentralizations of power in the world. Bypassing the provinces, subnational authority is now concentrated in the country's 349 kabupaten (districts) and 91 kota (cities). Although it is too soon to say to what extent such institutional changes will contribute to better governance, they are the chief legacies of Reformasi and should improve the prospects for routine transfers of power while reducing the potential for a return to authoritarian rule.

The 1945 constitution was part of the deal Indonesia negotiated to win independence from the Dutch. In 1950, it was replaced by a federal constitution that instituted a parliamentary government with a titular president. The governments formed under the 1950 constitution, however, were fractious and short-lived; regional rebellions broke out, and the public became increasingly disaffected. In 1959, Sukarno restored the 1945 constitution by decree.

In his classic study of why the 1950 constitution was abandoned, the Australian political analyst Herbert Feith stressed the unintended consequences of the 1955 elections: "[They] served both to undermine faith in parliamentary democracy and to stay the hand of those who had an interest in its overthrow. Once the elections were over, the long-term factors working against the parliamentary system and its creed asserted themselves." These factors-especially tension among different social and ethnic groups across the archipelago-still exist and represent the principal challenge for the Reformasi system. The party structure is still in flux and may not settle into a viable pattern before voters' patience runs out.

Political analysts often link Indonesia's party structure to its social structure, through the concept of aliran, usually translated as "current." There are, according to such thinking, three "primordial" currents: the rural peasantry (abangan), the secular aristocracy (priyayi), and the Islamic clerics (santri). In the 1955 elections, the three currents were reflected in the rough parity among the Communist Party (PKI), the Nationalist Party (PNI), and the two parties that split the Muslim vote. (After a failed coup in 1965, the Communist Party leadership was exterminated and the party was banned.)

The most extraordinary result of the April and July elections was the success of S.B.Y despite his lack of a close identification with any one aliran. But even with his first-place finish in July, S.B.Y will be the underdog in the September runoff unless he is able to get the backing of Golkar. If Golkar instead throws its weight behind Megawati, he will be hard-pressed to build enough support from Islamic parties to prevail.

Sukarno's nationalist party, PNI, was recast as the PDI during Suharto's rule and then split in 1996 when Suharto tried to force Megawati out of politics. Her new party, PDI-P, garnered a third of the votes in the 1999 election on the strength of its deep roots and close association with the nationalist sentiment of the Sukarno era. The April 2004 election, however, was a catastrophe for the PDI-p that was only somewhat mitigated by Megawati's second-place finish in July. The party's future now rides on how Megawati fares in the September runoff. If she loses to S.B.Y, there is no obvious successor to pick up the pieces, and it will likely take more than a year for new leadership to emerge.

Under Suharto, Golkar prospered because of its use of patronage and its ability to deliver on campaign promises. Even after his downfall and disgrace, the strength of the Golkar machine enabled it to finish in second place in the 1999 elections, well ahead of the strongest Islamic party. In this year's parliamentary election, Golkar emerged on top, but only because of the poor showing of Megawati's party and the split in the Muslim vote. Golkar's future is hard to predict for several reasons, beginning with the surprising defeat of long-time party leader Akbar Tanjung as the party's nominee for president, followed by the poor showing of the man who defeated him, Wiranto, in the July election. Wiranto's failure to make the September runoff puts Tanjung back in command of the party machinery, and also in a good position to use the party's weight to decide who will be Indonesia's next president. An alliance with Megawati would be tempting, as it would perpetuate the implicit partnership of the past three years. However, such an alliance might also push S.B.Y's campaign into high gear and rally anti-Megawati and anti-Golkar sentiment enough to produce a humiliating defeat for the country's two largest parties.