EXPERIENCIAS NEGATIVAS

The Indonesian Parliament under the New Order has usually been described as uncritical.2 _{To typify their elected representatives the Indonesian public}

often used the expressions ‘5 D’s’ (datang,duduk,dengar,diam,duit) meaning thatMPs only came to Parliament, sat down, listened, kept their mouths shut and received money, and ‘tukang stempel’, meaning that they would agree to every bill proposed by the government without opposition.

One reason for this image was that at least two groups represented in Parliament –FKPandFABRI– intended to and in many cases did support the government in Parliament. After the 1987 elections3_{there were four groups}

in theDPR: the Golkar group,Fraksi Karya Pembangunan(abbr.FKP), that with 299MPs represented large parts of the bureaucracy and other so-called ‘social groups’,4_{the military group,Fraksi Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia(abbr.}

FABRI), with 100 appointedMPs,Fraksi Persatuan Pembangunan(abbr.FPP) with

63MPs representing the Islamic spectrum, andFraksi Partai Demokrasi Indonesia

(abbr.FPDI) with 38MPs representing the former nationalistic and Christian parties. This small number of groups was due to a forced fusion of Islamic parties into thePPP(Partai Persatuan Pembangunan) and thePDI(Partai Demokrasi

1 I borrow the term from Crenson (Crenson 1971).

2 See, for instance, Sanit 1992, Bourchier & Legge 1994, Schwarz 1994, Bourchier 1999,

Ismatullah 2001, Magenda 2001.

3 Elections under the New Order were officially called the ‘party of democracy’ (In.pesta

demokrasi). In reality, however, they were, at least partly, characterised by manipulation and fraud.

4 GOLKAR was founded by the Indonesian government in 1963 as an alternative to the

Western-style political parties (see, for instance, Hering 1989 and Reeve 1985). It was a political group for various functional groups, such as technocrats, civil servants, trade unions, youth groups, and women groups. Under the New Order it was a public secret that all government employees were obliged to vote for GOLKAR (cf. Liddle 1978, p. 183). After the introduction of the ‘floating mass’ policy in 1972 - according to the official rhetoric designed to enable villagers to concentrate on the material and spiritual improvement of their lives -, GOLKAR was also the only party that was allowed to organise itself at the village level, which increased its political influence. See for more information on this policy, for instance, Babari 1985, p. 136, Bourchier & Hadiz 2003, p. 45-48.

176 The ‘Un-politics’ in Indonesian lawmaking in 1990

Indonesia) that took place in 1973.5_{The close alliance of}

FKPandFABRIwith the government meant a potential opposition of about 20 %.

According to the Indonesian political scientist Sanit, one of the important factors determining theMPs’ performance was their educational background. After all, lawmaking is a rather technical activity that requires the intellectual capacity to think through the complexity of the matter under consideration. Between 1982-1987, 59,1% of the members of Parliament had a university degree, 17% a high school degree and 18,5% a military educational degree.6

We may assume that the percentages for the period of 1987-1991 stayed more or less the same.

In addition to educational background, the economic situation of theMPs

remained an issue of concern. Lawmaking requires thatMPs can concentrate on their work in Parliament without having to think about how to acquire additional income to fulfil their needs. In the early 1980s, however, the average monthly income ofIDR500.000 was considered hardly enough for a member of Parliament, especially for the about 30% full-time politicians. As Sanit notes, many of them, including those with an additional income from something like a pension or business, ‘very likely felt that [the low] income from theDPR

formed a problem for them to fully concentrate on their jobs asDPRmembers’.7

That lack of a full commitment certainly had a negative impact on the quality of debates.

Likewise the fact that the government could and did suspend critical members with the so-called ‘recall-mechanism’ potentially discouraged Mem- bers of Parliament to be too critical.8

However, it would be ‘unfair’9_{and wrong to see the Indonesian Parliament}

as no more than a machine that uncritically agreed with anything the govern- ment proposed.10 _{According to Sanit, although the system made the}

MPs dependent on the government, some of them were still very active and deter- mined to seriously fulfil their role. Both Sanit and Bedner have analysed the 1986 deliberations of the Bill on the Administrative Courts and both revealed

5 Sanit 1992, p. 11.

6 Sanit 1992, p. 9.

7 Sanit 1992, p. 11.

8 Pompe mentions art. 4 (g) jis. art. 13 (f) and art. 43 Act 16/1969 as amended by Act 15/1985

as the legal source for this practice Pompe 1999, p. 16. Apparently this right and practice was abolished from 1999 until 2003. Pompe describes that art. 38 (2) of Act 4/1999 explicitly abolished this right Pompe 1999, p. 16. Djadijono, on the other hand, reports that articles

85-87 of Act 22/2003 give the right to political parties, the council of honour (In.badan

kehormatan) and chairing committee (In.pimpinan) of the Parliament, the electory committee (In.komisi pemilihan umum) and the President to discharge and replace members of parlia- ment. Especially the fact that political parties can recall legislators is criticized at present. Sugiarto, for instance, fears that it makes legislators too dependent on the party and thus limits their concentration on realizing public aspirations (Sugiarto 2007, p. 366).

9 Sanit 1992, p. 3.

Chapter 18 177

that the people’s representatives put forward many problems to be discussed in the Special Committee. As Bedner notes in his analysis, surprisinglyABRI

was the most critical group.11

More than previous analyses of parliamentary debates under the New Order this discourse analysis will focus on the very dynamics of the debates. It will show that the process did not satisfy the good lawmaking standard requirements (see chapter 4), that lawmaking should be based on reason, informed by experience, and aim for substantive effectiveness. The analysis will lay bare the strong discursive structures of thepembangunandiscourse and the government’s strategies to discourage criticism and to quickly end controversies, and show that theMPs did not dare to trespass these unwritten

rules and lacked effective counter-strategies.