3 - Full Time Politician and Outsider

Summary

Political Structure Reform Agenda

In the lead-up to the 1978 MPR General Assembly, as a full-time politician, I started pondering upon issues worth pursuing as an MP in order to make my presence in the DPR/MPR meaningful. Not championing any cause would have rendered my presence ineffectual.

To that end, my colleagues and I revisited the political ideas that had once been dissected in the 10th November Study Group since its inception in 1968. Some of the ideas emanating from the group had found their way into the 1966 MPRS General Assembly. One idea that stood out among the rest was on political restructuring, leading to the creation of new settings with which the New Order would differentiate itself from Soekarno's Guided Democracy.

High-ranking government officials often pontificated that, “The New Order isn't the Old Order minus PKI. Rather it is a regime that implements the 1945 Constitution and Pancasila in their pure and consistent form.” The agenda to reform our political structure arose from the search for that format. Discussion of this idea was not confined only to those of us from Bandung, but it was also widely debated among the ‘66 activists.

There were essentially two elements to the agenda: First, quantitative reform, which would ultimately empower sociopolitical forces with the largest representative basis so they could play their maximum roles. It would also act to limit the number of sociopolitical entities taking part in the General Election. Consequently, the political instability that a multiparty system tended to bring about could also be avoided.

Second, qualitative reform, to be carried out by entrenching Pancasila as the only ideological basis permitted in the public sphere. As a result, political rivalries could only be competition between programmes within the boundaries of pluralistic values as represented by Pancasila.

Rejection

These concepts found favour with the ‘66 community. But the question remained of how we would put them into action. The means with which we could restructure Indonesian politics was never going to be easy to find. That was why, after General Soeharto was sworn-in as President at the 1968 MPRS General Assembly, it was suggested that the plan should be an initiative by the executive.