Indonesia 1955
- Location
- Das Böse ist immer und überall
- Pronouns
- he/him
The 1955 DPR (People's Representative Council) election was the only proper legislative election held during Sukarno's twenty years as President, and had been preceded by five years of back-and-forth wrangling between the different factions that made up the appointed Provisional DPR. The Provisional Constitution of 1950 envisioned a parliamentary system with a legislature elected by the people in free, secret and direct elections, tempered by the presidential power to dissolve the DPR and call early elections if the machinery of government failed. Every cabinet since then had been formally committed to holding these free elections, but bickering over the details as well as the general instability of the Indonesian government meant it took until spring 1953 for the Provisional DPR to pass an electoral law. This was a relatively progressive document giving the vote to all Indonesians aged 18 or higher and establishing a proportional electoral system with one representative in the DPR for every 150,000 inhabitants in a province. There was some concern that pure representation by population would give Java too much power vis-a-vis the rest of the country, but this was nonetheless the law that was adopted, and preparations were carried out slowly and methodically over 1954 before finally holding the vote on 29 September 1955.
The hope was that an elected DPR would have a mandate to produce a stable, effective democratic government, but this would not come to pass. In large part, this was because of the incredible social divisions within the country, which was after all based on the borders of the Dutch East Indies (though still without West Papua) and included wildly different nationalities and religious groups. President Sukarno had formulated an official state ideology called the Pancasila (from the Sanskrit for "five principles") based on patriotism, altruistic internationalism, consensus-based democracy, social welfare and monotheism (comparisons with the Six Arrows of Kemalism are both apt and welcome), which he hoped would be able to serve as a unifying force to bring all these disparate people together. The party founded by Sukarno, the Indonesian National Party (Partai Nasional Indonesia, PNI), was naturally the most pro-Pancasila organisation, but most non-Islamic parties signed up to it to some degree. The PNI also combined it with something they called "Marhaenism", after a Sundanese peasant named Marhaen whom Sukarno had met in the 1930s, who had a small plot of land that fed his family but still suffered from economic exploitation and scarcity of modern farming tools. Sukarno formed Marhaenism as an ideology that would free the "Marhaens" of Indonesia to live dignified lives, mixing elements of Marxism, economic nationalism and anti-imperialism.
The other most powerful force in Indonesian politics was political Islam, whose principal organisation was a political coalition dubbed the Assembly of Indonesian Muslim Associations (Majelis Syuro Muslimin Indonesia, Masyumi), originally set up during the war as an Islamic support organisation for the Japanese occupation, but who carried on into the post-war era to bring Islamic principles into the political life of independent Indonesia. The Masyumi were the biggest party in the Provisional DPR, and they had ruled in a grand coalition with the PNI until 1953, at which point a PNI-led coalition took over. The electoral campaign would be dominated by mutual sniping between the two, with the Masyumi accusing the PNI of opposing Islamic principles and the PNI accusing the Masyumi of wanting to establish a sharia-based state.
But of course, there was a third bloc - the Communist Party of Indonesia (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI). The Communists weren't really a thing outside of Java, but in Java they mounted a spirited campaign aimed less at securing voters for the election and more at securing sympathisers for the inevitable class struggle they foresaw after the election. The campaign had been carried out since 1949, and was proving successful beyond their wildest dreams, with the party reaching a million members shortly after the election. In the late 50s, the PKI would become the world's third-largest communist party, with only those of the Soviet Union and China boasting higher memberships. They were aided in their growth by their support for Sukarno's domestic policy, which they saw as a vastly preferable alternative to either foreign capitalist domination or the Masyumi's Islamist vision.
And then there were the Christians. Though Java, Sumatra and most of Borneo were solidly Muslim, missionaries during the Dutch period had been successful in evangelising the native populations on a lot of the smaller islands, particularly so in the east. Being the products of Dutch influence, these Christians were quite sharply divided between Protestants and Catholics, who had separate identities, social structures and political parties - the boringly-named Christian Party of Indonesia (Partai Kristen Indonesia, Parkindo) for the Protestants and the even more boringly-named Catholic Party (Partai Katolik) for the Catholics.
Beside these four blocs, three more parties represented in the Provisional DPR merit mention - the Indonesian Socialist Party (Partai Sosialis Indonesia, PSI), the Unity Party of Greater Indonesia (Partai Parsatuan Indonesia Raya, PIR), and the Common People's Conference (Musyawarah Rakyat Banyak, Murba). The PSI was a fairly generic social-democratic party which had been one of the big players in the independence struggle, but whose leadership now seemed stuck between the PKI and PNI with little room to stake out their own ideological path. The PIR was a right-wing splinter from the PNI that supported the Pancasila and the independence struggle but rejected Sukarno's more radical ideas. The Murba, finally, was one of those syncretic former resistants' parties, sort of a mix of the Italian Action Party and the Iranian Tudeh Party - their ideology mixed fierce nationalism with socialist economics, and they and the PKI continued to view one another as a mortal rival even as the PKI came to greatly outnumber the Murba.
Both the PSI and the PIR were significant blocs in the Provisional DPR, and both would be utterly mauled in the elections - the PSI only retained any kind of strength in Bali, and the PIR split into two factions which each won only a single seat, thus not even making it into the key of the map. The Murba also underperformed expectations, winning only two seats, and the Masyumi saw their hopes of becoming Indonesia's leading party dashed as the PNI came to exactly equal them in seat share. In large part, this was because of a factor no one had really reckoned with - the growth of the Nahdlatul Ulama, whom we've already discussed above, as a more cohesive Islamic organisation to challenge the Masyumi. The NU did particularly well in east Java, where they became the largest party, and also captured significant support across the rest of Java as well as Borneo.
The PKI, meanwhile, tripled its number of seats compared to the Provisional DPR, although it is worth noting that only four of their 39 seats came from off Java, all of those being Sumatran. Really, the only party to achieve a better result off Java than on it was the Masyumi, which was utterly dominant on Sumatra and generally did well among off-Java Muslims. The PNI did neither significantly better nor worse than expected, and although it became the largest party, the fact that the largest party got 22% of the vote was obviously not great for stability. All told, the new DPR would have 28 parties, 11 of which won at least four seats. If the goal of calling elections had been to secure a more effective parliamentary system, that was not likely to happen.
The Masyumi's Burhanuddin Harahap was able to put together a coalition with the NU, the Christian parties and the PSI - really, just about everyone except the PNI and PKI - which Sukarno assented to, but which fell as early as March 1956. The succeeding cabinets would all be led by the PNI, and the Masyumi and other Islamic groups became ever more disillusioned. In February 1958, a group of dissidents on Sumatra including Harahap went into rebellion, declaring themselves the "Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia". Sukarno's government sent in the army, newly outfitted with Soviet surplus materiel, and drove the rebels into the mountains by summer, though low-intensity fighting would carry on until 1961. By then, Sukarno had dismissed his last cabinet, declared himself Prime Minister as well as President, dissolved the DPR, restored the 1945 constitution (which gave the President significantly more power) and instituted what he called a system of "guided democracy" - essentially enlightened absolutism for the 20th century. Things would not get better from there on out.
The hope was that an elected DPR would have a mandate to produce a stable, effective democratic government, but this would not come to pass. In large part, this was because of the incredible social divisions within the country, which was after all based on the borders of the Dutch East Indies (though still without West Papua) and included wildly different nationalities and religious groups. President Sukarno had formulated an official state ideology called the Pancasila (from the Sanskrit for "five principles") based on patriotism, altruistic internationalism, consensus-based democracy, social welfare and monotheism (comparisons with the Six Arrows of Kemalism are both apt and welcome), which he hoped would be able to serve as a unifying force to bring all these disparate people together. The party founded by Sukarno, the Indonesian National Party (Partai Nasional Indonesia, PNI), was naturally the most pro-Pancasila organisation, but most non-Islamic parties signed up to it to some degree. The PNI also combined it with something they called "Marhaenism", after a Sundanese peasant named Marhaen whom Sukarno had met in the 1930s, who had a small plot of land that fed his family but still suffered from economic exploitation and scarcity of modern farming tools. Sukarno formed Marhaenism as an ideology that would free the "Marhaens" of Indonesia to live dignified lives, mixing elements of Marxism, economic nationalism and anti-imperialism.
The other most powerful force in Indonesian politics was political Islam, whose principal organisation was a political coalition dubbed the Assembly of Indonesian Muslim Associations (Majelis Syuro Muslimin Indonesia, Masyumi), originally set up during the war as an Islamic support organisation for the Japanese occupation, but who carried on into the post-war era to bring Islamic principles into the political life of independent Indonesia. The Masyumi were the biggest party in the Provisional DPR, and they had ruled in a grand coalition with the PNI until 1953, at which point a PNI-led coalition took over. The electoral campaign would be dominated by mutual sniping between the two, with the Masyumi accusing the PNI of opposing Islamic principles and the PNI accusing the Masyumi of wanting to establish a sharia-based state.
But of course, there was a third bloc - the Communist Party of Indonesia (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI). The Communists weren't really a thing outside of Java, but in Java they mounted a spirited campaign aimed less at securing voters for the election and more at securing sympathisers for the inevitable class struggle they foresaw after the election. The campaign had been carried out since 1949, and was proving successful beyond their wildest dreams, with the party reaching a million members shortly after the election. In the late 50s, the PKI would become the world's third-largest communist party, with only those of the Soviet Union and China boasting higher memberships. They were aided in their growth by their support for Sukarno's domestic policy, which they saw as a vastly preferable alternative to either foreign capitalist domination or the Masyumi's Islamist vision.
And then there were the Christians. Though Java, Sumatra and most of Borneo were solidly Muslim, missionaries during the Dutch period had been successful in evangelising the native populations on a lot of the smaller islands, particularly so in the east. Being the products of Dutch influence, these Christians were quite sharply divided between Protestants and Catholics, who had separate identities, social structures and political parties - the boringly-named Christian Party of Indonesia (Partai Kristen Indonesia, Parkindo) for the Protestants and the even more boringly-named Catholic Party (Partai Katolik) for the Catholics.
Beside these four blocs, three more parties represented in the Provisional DPR merit mention - the Indonesian Socialist Party (Partai Sosialis Indonesia, PSI), the Unity Party of Greater Indonesia (Partai Parsatuan Indonesia Raya, PIR), and the Common People's Conference (Musyawarah Rakyat Banyak, Murba). The PSI was a fairly generic social-democratic party which had been one of the big players in the independence struggle, but whose leadership now seemed stuck between the PKI and PNI with little room to stake out their own ideological path. The PIR was a right-wing splinter from the PNI that supported the Pancasila and the independence struggle but rejected Sukarno's more radical ideas. The Murba, finally, was one of those syncretic former resistants' parties, sort of a mix of the Italian Action Party and the Iranian Tudeh Party - their ideology mixed fierce nationalism with socialist economics, and they and the PKI continued to view one another as a mortal rival even as the PKI came to greatly outnumber the Murba.
Both the PSI and the PIR were significant blocs in the Provisional DPR, and both would be utterly mauled in the elections - the PSI only retained any kind of strength in Bali, and the PIR split into two factions which each won only a single seat, thus not even making it into the key of the map. The Murba also underperformed expectations, winning only two seats, and the Masyumi saw their hopes of becoming Indonesia's leading party dashed as the PNI came to exactly equal them in seat share. In large part, this was because of a factor no one had really reckoned with - the growth of the Nahdlatul Ulama, whom we've already discussed above, as a more cohesive Islamic organisation to challenge the Masyumi. The NU did particularly well in east Java, where they became the largest party, and also captured significant support across the rest of Java as well as Borneo.
The PKI, meanwhile, tripled its number of seats compared to the Provisional DPR, although it is worth noting that only four of their 39 seats came from off Java, all of those being Sumatran. Really, the only party to achieve a better result off Java than on it was the Masyumi, which was utterly dominant on Sumatra and generally did well among off-Java Muslims. The PNI did neither significantly better nor worse than expected, and although it became the largest party, the fact that the largest party got 22% of the vote was obviously not great for stability. All told, the new DPR would have 28 parties, 11 of which won at least four seats. If the goal of calling elections had been to secure a more effective parliamentary system, that was not likely to happen.
The Masyumi's Burhanuddin Harahap was able to put together a coalition with the NU, the Christian parties and the PSI - really, just about everyone except the PNI and PKI - which Sukarno assented to, but which fell as early as March 1956. The succeeding cabinets would all be led by the PNI, and the Masyumi and other Islamic groups became ever more disillusioned. In February 1958, a group of dissidents on Sumatra including Harahap went into rebellion, declaring themselves the "Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia". Sukarno's government sent in the army, newly outfitted with Soviet surplus materiel, and drove the rebels into the mountains by summer, though low-intensity fighting would carry on until 1961. By then, Sukarno had dismissed his last cabinet, declared himself Prime Minister as well as President, dissolved the DPR, restored the 1945 constitution (which gave the President significantly more power) and instituted what he called a system of "guided democracy" - essentially enlightened absolutism for the 20th century. Things would not get better from there on out.