Republic of Indonesia

C

Judiciary

The judiciary is made up of many district courts, several courts of appeals, and the Supreme Court (Mahkamah Agung), which is the final court of appeal and sits in Jakarta. The Supreme Court was restructured in 1968 to conform with the 1945 constitution. It is made up of 51 members, nominated by the DPR and appointed by the president. Appeals are heard by high courts located in 14 major cities: Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Makassar, Banda Aceh, Padang, Palembang, Bandung, Semarang, Banjarmasin, Manado, Denpasar, Ambon, and Jayapura. Below the appellate courts are the district courts that try civil and criminal cases.

Criminal cases are tried under a unified code, but civil cases are tried under an uncodified, customary law known as adat. Under adat law, crimes against individuals are seen as crimes against the whole community. Westerners and Asians of foreign origin or ancestry are tried under a system based on continental European civil codes.

D

Local Government

For purposes of local government, Indonesia is divided into 32 provinces. Most provinces are headed by governors who are appointed by the president with the advice of the minister for home affairs and the provincial parliaments. However, the province of Aceh directly elects its governor and deputy governor under the provisions of a peace agreement reached in 2005 between Aceh secessionists and the Indonesian government. Provinces are further divided into regencies (kabupaten) and cities (kotamadya), each having a mayor and locally elected legislature.

E

Political Parties

Under Suharto, Indonesia’s dominant political organization was the Joint Secretariat of Functional Groups (Sekretariat Bersama Golongan Karya), known by its acronym, Golkar. An alliance of groups representing workers, farmers, youth, and other interest groups, Golkar had strong support from Suharto’s government and consistently secured a majority of seats in the largely advisory parliament.

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In the early 1970s Suharto’s government forced Indonesia’s Muslim opposition parties to merge into the United Development Party (Partai Persatuan Pembangunan, or PPP) and the rest of the opposition parties to merge into the Indonesian Democratic Party (Partai Demokrasi Indonesia, or PDI). Both the PPP and the PDI suffered from tight government control and from their artificial creation, which gave rise to factional conflicts. In 1993 Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of the late president Sukarno, was elected chair of the PDI. Her influence in Indonesian politics grew, to the alarm of her military-backed rivals in the PDI. In June 1996 her rivals ousted her, prompting riots in Jakarta. Megawati formed a faction party called the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

After Suharto resigned in 1998, the government repealed the ban on political parties. Since then more than 100 parties have formed. The most important are the PDI-P, headed by Megawati, who became vice president in 1999 and then president in 2001; the National Awakening Party (PKB), the party of former president Abdurrahman Wahid; the National Mandate Party (PAN), headed by Amien Rais; and the Democratic Party, a newly formed party led by a popular former security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Golkar remains a significant force but is weaker than it was during the Suharto years, and the PPP still has considerable support.

F

Social Services

In 1999 Indonesia was ranked 102nd of the 162 countries on the United Nations Development Program’s human development index, with 1st being best and 162nd being worst. Infant mortality rates in 2007 were 32 deaths per 1,000 live births, down from 90 per 1,000 in 1980. In 2004, 87 percent of the urban population and 69 percent of the rural population had access to safe water; 55 percent of the total population had access to adequate sanitation. Some 12 million people were malnourished.

The Ministry of Health has emphasized providing basic health care, chiefly by creating public health centers known as puskesmas. Supervised by a doctor, puskesmas are located in rural areas. Most doctors and hospitals are located in urban areas, and mobile health services are used to reach remote areas.

G

Defense

After Suharto came to power in 1967 the armed forces were unified and placed under the Ministry of Defense and Security. In 2004 the total strength of the armed forces was 302,000, including 233,000 in the army, 45,000 in the navy, and 24,000 in the air force. In addition, paramilitary forces have 174,000 police and 1.5 million members of peoples’ security units (Hansip), which operate at the village level. All citizens are required to serve two years in the armed forces, but because of limited job opportunities in the country volunteers fill the vast majority of military positions. Typically, the armed forces resort to drafting personnel only for required specialists such as doctors.

The military held considerable power in Indonesia during the Suharto years through its representatives to the House of Representatives and the People’s Consultative Assembly. The military remains powerful, but post-Suharto governments have tried to exercise greater control over it and reduce its role in domestic social affairs.

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