The Changing Pattern of Indonesia's Representative Government

Abstract

In the new states of Southeast Asia the idea of parliamentary government has usually been closely linked with the struggle for national independence, yet with the latter a reality in most of the area, there has come a curious disillusionment with the actual values of the former. Thus, during the 1920's and 1930's in what was then called the Netherlands East Indies, nationalists agitated on behalf of “Indonesia berparlemèn” (a parliament for Indonesia), but today we find leading Indonesian public figures, such as President Sukarno, declaring that Western-style parliamentary government has failed in Indonesia, and that what the country needs is a governmental system “in harmony with the Indonesian soul,” that is, a “democracy with leadership,” or a “guided democracy.” The following pages will seek to suggest some of the causes of this disenchantment with the principle of representative government in Indonesia, by focusing on its historic origins and functions during these, Indonesia's first, years of national independence.When on August 17, 1945, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta, acting on behalf of “the people of Indonesia,” formally proclaimed the independence of their nation, they confronted a condition of widespread popular inexperience in the art of representative government. It was not until 1918 that a rudimentary parliamentary body for all of Indonesia (the so-called Volksraad, or People's Council) had been established, in line with the plans, in great variety and often confusingly contradictory, of the Dutch colonial policy-makers to give their East Indian possessions a greater degree of autonomy.