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Indonesia INDEPENDENCE: THE FIRST PHASES, 1950-65
Although Indonesia was finally independent and (with
the
exceptions of Dutch-ruled West New Guinea and
Portuguese-ruled East
Timor) formally unified, the society remained deeply
divided by
ethnic, regional, class, and religious differences. Its
unitary
political system, as defined by a provisional constitution
adopted
by the legislature on August 14, 1950, was a parliamentary
democracy: governments were responsible to a unicameral
House of
Representatives elected directly by the people. Sukarno
became
president under the new system. His powers, however, were
drastically reduced compared with those prescribed in the
1945
constitution. Elections were postponed for five years.
They were
postponed primarily because a substantial number of
Dutch-appointed
legislators from the RUSI system remained in the House of
Representatives, a compromise made with the Dutch-created
federal
states to induce them to join a unitary political system.
The
legislators knew a general election would most likely turn
them out
of office and tried to postpone one for as long as
possible.
There was little in the diverse cultures of Indonesia
or their
historical experience to prepare Indonesians for
democracy. The
Dutch had done practically nothing to prepare the colony
for selfgovernment . The Japanese had espoused an authoritarian
state, based
on collectivist and ethnic nationalist ideas, and these
ideas found
a ready reception in leaders like Sukarno. Sukarno also
was an
advocate of adopting Bahasa Indonesia as the national
language.
Outside of a small number of urban areas, the people still
lived in
a cultural milieu that stressed status hierarchies and
obedience to
authority, a pattern that was most widespread in Java but
not
limited to it. Powerful Islamic and leftist currents were
also far
from democratic. Conditions were exacerbated by economic
disruption, the wartime and postwar devastation of vital
industries, unabated population growth, and resultant food
shortages. By the mid-1950s, the country's prospects for
democratization were indeed grim.
Given its central role in the National Revolution, the
military
became deeply involved in politics. This emphasis was,
after all,
in line with what was later enunciated as its
dwifungsi, or
dual function, role of national defense and national
development
(see
The Armed Forces in the National Life
, ch. 5). The
military was
not, however, a unified force, reflecting instead the
fractures of
the society as a whole and its own historical experiences.
In the
early 1950s, the highest-ranking military officers, the
so-called
"technocratic" faction, planned to demobilize many of the
military's 200,000 men in order to promote better
discipline and
modernization. Most affected were less-educated veteran
officers of
Peta and other military units organized during the
Japanese and
revolutionary periods. The veterans sought, and gained,
the support
of parliamentary politicians. This support prompted senior
military
officers to organize demonstrations in Jakarta and to
pressure
Sukarno to dissolve parliament on October 17, 1952.
Sukarno
refused. Instead, he began encouraging war veterans to
oppose their
military superiors; and the army chief of staff, Sumatran
Colonel
Abdul Haris Nasution (born 1918), was obliged to resign in
a
Sukarno-induced shake-up of military commands.
Independent Indonesia's first general election took
place on
September 29, 1955. It involved a universal adult
franchise, and
almost 38 million people participated. Sukarno's PNI won a
slim
plurality with the largest number of votes, 22.3 percent,
and
fifty-seven seats in the House of Representatives.
Masyumi, which
operated as a political party during the parliamentary
era, won
20.9 percent of the vote and fifty-seven seats; the
Nahdatul Ulama,
which had split off from Masyumi in 1952, won 18.4 percent
of the
vote and forty-five seats. The PKI made an impressive
showing,
obtaining 16.4 percent of the vote and thirty-nine seats,
a result
that apparently reflected its appeal among the poorest
people; the
Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI) won 2 percent of the vote
and five
seats. The following December, the long-awaited
Constituent
Assembly was elected to draft a constitution to replace
the
provisional constitution of 1950. The membership was
largely the
same as the DPR. The assembly convened in November 1956
but became
deadlocked over issues such as the Pancasila as the state
ideology
and was dissolved in 1959.
The PNI, PKI, and Nahdatul Ulama were strongest among
Javanese
voters, whereas Masyumi gained its major support from
voters
outside Java. No single group, or stable coalition of
groups, was
strong enough to provide national leadership, however. The
result
was chronic instability, reflected in six cabinet changes
between
1950 and 1957, that eroded the foundations of the
parliamentary
system.
In the eastern archipelago and Sumatra, military
officers
established their own satrapies, often reaping large
profits from
smuggling. Nasution, reappointed and working in
cooperation with
Sukarno, issued an order in 1955 transferring these
officers out of
their localities. The result was an attempted coup d'état
launched
during October-November 1956. Although the coup failed,
the
instigators went underground, and military officers in
some parts
of Sumatra seized control of civilian governments in
defiance of
Jakarta. In March 1957, Lieutenant Colonel H.N.V. Sumual,
commander
of the East Indonesia Military Region based in
Ujungpandang, issued
a Universal Struggle Charter (Permesta) calling for
"completion of
the Indonesian revolution." Moreover, the Darul Islam
movement,
originally based in West Java, had spread to Aceh and
southern
Sulawesi. The Republic of Indonesia was falling apart,
testimony in
the eyes of Sukarno and Nasution that the parliamentary
system was
unworkable.
Data as of November 1992
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