Indonesia

On 21 May 1998 Indonesia’s President Suharto resigned, ending more than three decades of authoritarian rule known as the New Order. During Suharto’s New Order, parliament existed, but exercised little decision-making power. Indeed, few beyond a relatively small circle of men had any share in power. The military played a ‘dual role’ (dwi fungsi) that went beyond issues of national defence. The military had an institutional role in politics with 75 seats within the National Parliament reserved for unelected military officers. The military also played a lucrative role in the economy. The New Order regime placed great emphasis on national stability and economic growth. The price for national stability was the imposition of a national identity on a country made up of peoples with different histories, languages, cultures and religions. Indonesian national identity, as constructed by the New Order, was homogenous and highly gendered. Economic growth was the centrepiece of the New Order’s achievements. Indonesia was often presented as a show-case of good economic management. While the benefits of economic growth were not shared equally across the population, there were marked improvements in the quality of life during the New Order period. Education enrolment rates increased, with equal numbers of boys and girls enrolled in and completing primary school by the late 1980s. Access to health care improved and infant mortality rates and deaths from preventable diseases fell. Income per capita increased. In 1997 with the onset of the Asian economic crisis, the two pillars of President Suharto’s success – national stability and economic improvement – were shattered. The rupiah plunged against the United States dollar and the price of basic commodities increased dramatically. Both white collar and factory workers faced widespread retrenchments. As the nation faced economic devastation, national unity and stability began to fracture. In May 1998 massive student demonstrations were held across the country. On 12 May four students from Trisakti University in Jakarta were shot and killed by security forces. On 13 and 14 May riots broke out in Jakarta, destroying large areas of the city’s business precinct. Jakarta’s ethnic Chinese community was a primary target of the riots, which took on a highly gendered dimension with extreme sexual violence and gang rape against (primarily ethnic Chinese) women. Indonesia’s long awaited political transition was, as John McBeth pointed out in late 1998, seriously flawed (McBeth, 1999, p.23). Given the particular consequences of the economic crises for women and the gendered violence of the May riots, the transition

8 Sharing Power

appeared especially flawed for women. Upon Suharto’s resignation, Vice President Habibie stepped into the Presidency, in line with the nation’s Constitution. General elections, announced for June 1999, were duly held, and widely heralded as the first free and fair elections held in Indonesia since 1955. As part of the political transition that followed the resignation of Suharto, the Habibie administration introduced a wide range of political reforms including new electoral laws and a program of radical decentralisation, which was the antithesis of the heavily centralised and authoritarian state of the New Order. Within Indonesia, decentralisation was widely considered to be central to democratic consolidation. It is also an immensely ambitious task. The 1999 elections were held after rapid and extensive revision of the electoral system, whereby a complex hybrid of proportional representation and district quotas was agreed upon for the new elections. Under the 1999 regional autonomy laws, substantial responsibility for decision-making and service delivery – previously concentrated in the national government – will be devolved to district (kabupaten/kota) level. Thus, while the focus of this chapter is on the national parliament, the role of district level assemblies – and the extent to which women share in decision-making within those arenas – will become increasingly important in coming years. At the national level, the reforms undertaken following the resignation of Suharto gave rise to more active legislatures, with considerably greater scope to influence and indeed shape the political agenda than was possible during the New Order, when parliament was essentially the rubber stamp of the executive. Significantly, the early initiatives of the legislature following the 1999 elections sought to limit the power of the President, initially by placing two-term limits on the offices of both the President and Vice-President. Subsequent constitutional and legislative changes strengthened parliament’s powers to monitor and demand accountability from the executive. Initial steps were also taken towards ending the political role of the military, with the number of parliamentary seats reserved for military officers reduced from 75 under the New Order to 38 (just under eight per cent) following the 1999 elections. In 2003, all reserved seats for the military were abolished. Indonesia’s transition towards democracy in 1998 and the general elections of 1999 were welcomed by democrats around the world as significant for several reasons. First, with a population of some 210 million Indonesia is one of the world’s most populous nations. Second, prior to 1998 Indonesia’s leadership played an important role in the politics of Southeast Asia, particularly within ASEAN, and had long championed the Asian Values perspective that rejected the relevance of democracy and human rights discourses to Asia. Political transition in Indonesia was regarded by many as critical to the shift away from authoritarianism in Southeast Asia and the emergence of a liberal wing within ASEAN. Finally, as the world’s largest Muslim nation, Indonesia’s political transition provides a potential example of the compatibility between parliamentary democracy and Islam. For these reasons, Indonesia’s transition towards democracy received a great deal of attention from scholars, the media and donor agencies and governments. The problems that accompanied transition – including deep-rooted and ongoing corruption, severe communal violence, and questionable leadership – and Indonesia’s bold experiment

Indonesia 9

with decentralisation have all been the focus of detailed commentary and analysis. A critical question is whether political transformation will result in the establishment of a parliamentary process that is both accountable to and representative of the people. Throughout the nation’s independent history, parliament has not been genuinely representative, with the most obvious shortcoming being the very small numbers of women. In exploring the question of whether transition will open the way to greater numbers of women in parliament, this chapter examines the history of exclusion and the serious obstacles that remain.