PAPER
POLITICAL SYSTEM IN INDONESIA
Group Assignment of South East Asia Studies
Lecturer: Aswin Ariyanto Aziz, S.IP., M.DevSt
By:
Department of International Relations English Class Program HI I-4
Arif Dwijatmiko ( 135120407121007)
Sabiella Maris Adiba ( 135120407121016)
Yoska Rini Dhara Anindhita ( 135120407121029)
Azib Muhammad B ( 135120407121040)
Department of International Relations Faculty of Social and Political Sciences
Political System in Indonesia
1The political system is a thing that must be owned by every country in the world. The
political system here indirectly as an personal identity of the State and for the sake of
ensuring the continuation of a country. It could be said here, that the political system is a
system that set things about the country and set about the establishment of a State. At its
core within a country, there has to be a system set up in it because in the political
system, there was talking about the Government situation, the existing structures in a country,
and something about the people who are in the country, who later became the founding a
State guarantee.
The political system that exist in Indonesia, in historical context of the
understanding about the political system prevailing in Indonesia, and the history of the nation
in Indonesia is formed, there are several factors that must be linked and can’t to be left out as an elements of history. Indonesia has unique history in the field of the political
system and Government, there are some systems that becoming a forerunner of the formation
in our country's political system, some of those systems is a system of Government, that have
a chance to the Reformation, the electoral system, as well as the system of higher institutions
of the country function such as Executive, legislative, and judicial branches, which
explains the political system in Indonesia from the Times Colonist to the old order and
then move toward the new order to Reformation system.
In the first days of the occupation, and the nature of the political system here is still
regional in nature, where the great kingdoms that existed in Indonesia held a system of
Government based on their respective regional councils controlled by the
Kingdom. While Indonesia experienced as a traditional system phase after the system
changeand get in on the era of colonialism. Where in this era of government system in this
era is the Commonwealth. This is because the system is derivative of the colonizers of
Indonesia namely the Netherlands, where here the existence of ethical political system is
implanted to Indonesia. Ethical politics became a forerunner of the formation of the
first Commonwealth system in Indonesia. Ethical politics itself has an argument Netherlands
became a helper country of Indonesia, and Indonesia has a debt of gratitude to
the Netherlands. In this era, Indonesia had an early system of Government of the
1
Commonwealth Secretariat is headed by the general point that exists in these areas and
spread all over Indonesia. After that phase there’s phase called the old order, soon replaced by the first President of Indonesia, Sukarno who applied a presidential political
system and parliamentary experience in exchange system.
There is a slight change when Seoharto became a president replacing Seokarno in
1966 symbolized the new order era. The dominance power lays on the Executive ( President
). The political system tends to become executive heavy which means that the power largely
lays upon the president and equipped with several constitutional rights called prerogatif
rights. The political systems anf government form was very authoritarian. Constitution gives
space for president to carry out legislative power (policy makers) and also the Executive
power (carry out the law), resulted in 32 years of “tangan besi” government lead by Seoharto
who orders must be followed without question, people were silenced, who objected
Seoharto’s order will be punished. President as a central authority, and in the legislative field
for example, president had large power in policy making whereas House of Representative
(DPR) roles just to agree to the law proposed by the president2.
After reformation in 1998 followed by the resignation of Seoharto, Indonesia has
made big achievement, one of them is The People’s Consulvative Assembly (MPR) succeed to give the Fourth Amendment of the 1945 Constitution, thus giving a chance for political
system to be rearrange and be more democratic with supremacy of law and sovereignity of
the people. Before the amandement The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) was
previously the highest state institution.
Now Indonesia conducts a type of governance that is a multiparty presidential
republic embracing the Democracy of Pancasila system. As in other democratic countries, the
Indonesian political system is based on the Trias Politica that recognizes the separation of the
legislative, executive and judicial powers. The legislative power is vested in the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR) that consists of two houses namely the House of
Representatives (DPR) - composed of representatives of political parties, and the Regional
Representatives Council (DPD) - composed of representatives from each province in
2
http://repository.usu.ac.id,(n.d.).[online]Availableat:
http://repository.usu.ac.id/bitstream/handle/123456789/18016/Chapter%20I.pdf;jsessioni [Accessed 18 Mar.
Indonesia. Each province is represented by 4 delegates that are elected by the people in the
respective region3.
The executive branch consist of the president, vice president, and the cabinet of
ministers. The cabinet in Indonesia is a presidential one, in which the ministers report to the
president and do not represent the political parties in the parliament. The judicial powers are
administered by the Supreme Court, the Judicial Commission, and the Constitutional Court,
including the administration of the judges.
In General democratic system has a sense that upholds the rights of freedom of its
citizens. Citizen’s freedoms listed here i.e. covering rights can determine his own life and the equality of rights between citizens, freedom of speech, and has the right to participate directly
or indirectly in the political system, the economy, the culture that exists in the country. The
system embraced by Indonesia at present is different from the democratic political system
embraced by other countries because in application on our country’s current democratic system, here in addition to upholding the freedom of people’s rights, our political system also upholds the principle of consensus discussion without an opposition.
The Role of Political Parties in Indonesia:
1. As a Political Communication
2. Parties as a deputy of political articulation
3. Political Parties as a aggregation step
4. As a Political Socialization
5. As the way to took a masses
6. As the way to controlized the government
Benefit of Indonesian Political System
1. The executive branch is more stable because it does not depend on the position of
parliament
2. Minister can not be voted down by the Parliament because minister report to the
president not the parliament.
3. The executive term of office is determined (5years)
3
Indonesia.go.id, (2010). Portal Nasional RI - Politics and Government. [online] Available at:
4. A sufficient human resources to compete, and has a strong character to get into the
legislature4
5. Direct election system, and the citizen can be free to vote and be involved in policy
making and politics through their representative.
6. System of government is set up in the constitution
7. Centralized bureaucratic system, which allows the president to make policy rapidly
8. Legislature may determine the admissibility of a policy
9. People are free to determine who is their representative
10.The President has a full rights as head of state and head of government
11.Every citizen has the freedom associated rights including the freedom of human
rights.
Disadvantages of Indonesian Political System
1. Mapping of political power in each region isn’t same or equal
2. Executive power beyond the direct control of the legislature so as to give rise to
absolute power
3. All policies and decisions depends by the central government
4. Not cause a sense of competition between regions, which could cause a slow progress
on political education
5. The ruling party has the most votes in the election, may be legislative authorities, and
could be a government opposition, if the President couldn’t a bearer party of the ruling party legislators. And such of failure is also feared in Latin American countries,
since the collapse of a government can be caused by a lack of Presidential power
itself.5
6. Accountability system isn’t clear
7. Making decisions / public policy generally results bargaining between the executive
and the legislative and also require a long time.
8. With the freedom of speech, risk on being negative and not paying attention to ethics .
4
Markus G. Jud, S. (n.d.). Systems of Democracy. [online] Democracy-building.info. Available at:
http://www.democracy-building.info/systems-democracy.html [Accessed 18 Mar. 2015].
5 Scott Mainwaring and Matthew S. Shugart (eds). 1997. Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America .
Political Issues in Indonesia nowdays
current political issues in Indonesia is the number of political parties in Indonesia,
which resulted in many and frequent change of Indonesia's political system from the old
order, the new order to the present order of reform. Often it makes political instability
situation in Indonesia. In addition, the new reform Indonesia organizes direct presidential
elections only three times untill now. Making the age of democracy in Indonesia is still quite
young. Many interests are taken by a political party and usually causing the clash of interests,
see the current issue of political issues between koalisi merah putih (KMP) supporting
prabowo and koalisi indonesia hebat (KIH) supporting Joko Widodo start from scratch for the
2014 -2019 presidential nomination to President Unmatched completed two camps remain
survive that to get into parliament.
Issue on both sides currently rise again when the turn of the general chairman of
Golkar party switched its support in KMP to KIH previously switched his support to the
camp, it is becoming chaotic that many issue in Indonesia due to the shift of the Golkar party
support changing and the political map and the map of support in parliament Because The
Golkar party is the party of big voters to two after the PDIP. Often dynamics that occur in
Indonesian politics is how the legal politics Often Becomes an important issue, how some
interest groups are pro law must collide with the political world that has a good variety of
individual and group interests. Like the case of lizard and crocodile are currently being
preached by many in the media, the case of KPK and POLRI. Also be political conditions in
it. The diversity tribe and culture in Indonesia is also often be one of the issues that cause
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