Details

In 2001, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung commissioned the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute in Freiburg/Germany to carry out a comparative study on five Asian parliaments.

Dr. Patrick Ziegenhain was responsible for the parts on Indonesia and - beside a thorough literature review - interviewed DPR members on the contribution of the national parliament to the ongoing democratisation process. Completed as PhD thesis, a book on this subject will be published soon.

In his presentation, Dr. Ziegenhain will analyse the performance of the Indonesian parliament in the era of reformasi since 1998. This period saw tremendous changes in the role of the Indonesian parliament in the political system. Once labeled a powerless rubber stamp, the parliament developed into a comprehensive and more representative body able to fulfill its functions more adequately. Parliament has both advanced and hindered democratization in Indonesia. After the 1999 election, it became one of Indonesia’s most powerful political actors, a (sometimes sputtering) motor for reform and center for power struggles. Many personal and structural deficits hinder the daily work of the DPR, they hamper the fulfillment of its parliamentary functions. Consequently, these weaknesses cannot be regarded as minor details, but as serious impediments to further democratization.

Dr. Ziegenhain will show in his presentation that

• Indonesia’s constitutional changes transformed the country’s government system from a quasi-parliamentary to a clear-cut presidential government system changing fundamentally the role of the DPR after the 2004 elections;
• the inclusiveness of the DPR is higher than in other Asian parliaments, but structural and personal deficits still hamper the effective fulfillment of its parliamentary functions;
• in a comparative perspective, the Indonesian parliament was more important for the democratization process than parliaments in other Asian countries, and
• in a comparative perspective, the often criticized performance of the DPR is typical for many other Asian parliaments, where similar problems prevail.