Progress in Democratic Experiment in Indonesia

It would otherwise have been routine business just as it has been once every five years. The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) resulting from the general elections the year before would convene. It was the fourth in the period of the New Order since President Soeharto came to power. And as before, the outcome would have almost entirely been a foregone conclusion. President Soeharto's accountability report to the MPR would be approved. President Soeharto would be re-elected for another five-year term, his fifth. And, as before, a new Vice-President would be elected. Something, however, seems to have gone awry this time. Though aborted, there had been two candidates for the vice-presidency. It was unprecedented, and no one seemed quite prepared for the unexpected turn of events. Was there to be voting? What would happen to Pancasila democracy, usually conceived as a uniquely Indonesian democracy based on the state ideology of Pancasila, or the five principles of belief in God, humanity, national unity, democracy and social justice, which should adhere to the principle of unanimity? Was it a setback or progress in Indonesian democratic life? What does the future hold for Indonesian democracy? In such a light, the year 1988 was thus, in a sense, a turning point in Indonesia. It was a turning point in democratic experimentation. But the unprecedented development represented by the emergence of two candidates for the vice-presidency, important though it was in itself for the future of Indonesian democracy, may have been but an expression of expectations that permeated the atmosphere surrounding the sessions of the MPR. There were expectations that this time the MPR sessions would be more than routine business. It might be the onset of the long-awaited process of a peaceful generational change, the transfer of national leadership.1 That, indeed, was an issue of great significance for the future of the nation. But how was, and is, this generational change to proceed or to be effectuated in the context of Indonesian democracy? Does Pancasila democracy provide the necessary mechanism, while the country is yet to develop a tradition of peaceful change of leadership? Did the MPR sessions of 1988 provide any clues? How should Pancasila democracy develop in the face of such an unavoidable challenge? These are crucial issues to which Indonesians should squarely address themselves sooner or later, and perhaps better sooner than later, if the nation is to avoid a leadership change that would have to be triggered by another traumatic social and political upheaval that would be a serious

Democracy · Political science · Politics · Asian Studies and History · Law