Politics of Indonesia

Politics of Indonesia

Indonesia is a constitutional democracy. After the fall of president Suharto's prolonged authoritarian New Order regime in 1998 various constitutional amendments were made in order to reduce effective power of the country's executive branch, thus making a new dictatorship almost impossible.

Indonesia is now characterized by popular sovereignty manifested in parliamentary and presidential elections every five years. Starting from the fall of Suharto's New Order, which marked the beginning of the Reformation period, every election in Indonesia is regarded to be free and fair. However, the nation is not free from corruption, nepotism, collusion as well as money-politics through which power or political positions can be bought. For example, the poorer segments of Indonesian society are 'encouraged' to vote for a specific presidential candidate on election day by being handed some small money at the ballot box. Such strategies persist and are used by all involved sides (which - in some respects - makes it a fair battle and thus different from the New Order era).

 We consider such issues to be part of Indonesia's growing process towards becoming a full democracy (currently - based on the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index - the nation is still regarded as a flawed democracy). It needs to be emphasized here that Indonesia constitutes a young democracy and therefore experiences growing pains.

 Political conditions are important for those who seek to invest or engage in business relations with Indonesia. In this section we present an overview of Indonesia's current political composition as well as overviews of the key chapters in the country's political history.