The President and State Policy Guidelines

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

Legislators take photos on the steps of the Nusantara Building in the Senayan legislative complex, Central Jakarta, on Wednesday (10/2/2019). One day after the inauguration of legislative members, they were not only busy attending meetings but also taking photos for various purposes, including with their families and supporters.

One of the issues that frequently trigger an objection to the determination of state policy guidelines (GBHN) by the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) concerns the accountability of the president. Many circles think that if the GBHN is established by the MPR, the president is required to be directly accountable to the MPR. In their view, if the president is directly elected by the people, what is the relevance of the direct accountability to the MPR? Such a thought is also haunted by the traumatic shadow of the past, when the president’s accountability to the MPR could open the doors to the impeachment of the president.

It should be emphasized here that in the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia (UUD 1945), even in its original version, there is no provision stipulating that the president shall be directly accountable to the MPR. It is true that the president is elected by the MPR (Article 6 Paragraph 2) but he or she holds the office for a period of five years (Article 7) and there is no provision stating that the MPR has the right to cancel it within the five-year term (Wolhoff, 1955).

In the elucidation of the Constitution, there is indeed the explanation that “the president installed by the assembly is subordinate and accountable to the assembly”. However, it does not specify the mechanism of the president’s accountability to the assembly. The president’s accountability mechanism is implicitly contained in the description that “the House of Representatives can always supervise the actions of the president and if the House considers the president to be in actual violation of the state policy already determined by the Constitution or the MPR, the assembly can be convened to hold a special session so as to demand the accountability of the president”.

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

President Joko Widodo

In other words, the mechanism of the president’s accountability to the assembly in implementing the GBHN is not direct in nature, but rather through the mechanism of regular supervision by the House. Even in the case of the president being considered in violation of the state policy, the MPR cannot demand the president’s accountability directly but rather through the mechanism of the House proposal.

In brief, based on the original 1945 Constitution, there are in fact two mandates of the MPR. The MPR mandate in the executive power is the president, while the MPR mandate in the legislative power is the House. As the MPR is only required to summon a session once in five years, the mechanism of the president’s accountability for running the government (implementing the state policy) on a daily basis is conducted through the House’s supervision.

Thanks to the concurrent membership of the House in the MPR, it obtains the supervisory authority over the president’s government execution pursuant to the 1945 Constitution in carrying out the GBHN (Abdulkadir Besar, 2002). The House’s supervisory mechanism in the context of the president’s accountability is stipulated in Articles 20-24 of the 1945 Constitution. According to Mr. Assaat (1951), the initiative right granted to the House carries the control right, “which is the power of the House to demand accountability from the government for the policy and course of action implemented in government execution”. He further stressed, "By this postulation, we can conclude that the House has the right to demand accountability from the government, although the right is not explicitly regulated in the Constitution of the Proclamation”.

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

Members of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) hold a Plenary Session at the Senayan legislative complex in Central Jakarta on Wednesday (2/10/2019). The Plenary Session was held with the agenda of ratifying a schedule of sessions and the formation of factions and groups of the House of Representatives.

Consequently, even if the GBHN is determined by the MPR and the president is directly elected by the people, the mechanism of the president’s accountability remains the same, which is conducted through regular supervision by the House. Besides, the president’s accountability to the MPR should not be feared to run toward impeachment. After the amendment of the constitution, the MPR cannot easily impeach the president because various intricate procedures have been laid down and the judicial mechanism through the Constitutional Court must be observed.

Therefore, the discussion should be more directed at the state policy that is appropriate for the transformation of the system of state management. As we are aware, although the Proclamation Constitution established the MPR’s authority to determine the GBHN, the permanent institution of the MPR as the people’s sovereignty holder was never realized until after the general elections of 1971, the beginning of the New Order government. It is only natural if the public association of the GBHN is mostly identical with that of the New Order version. In fact, the New Order GBHN was only one interpretation of the state policy, without ruling out any other versions.

It should be born in mind, though, that whatever our interpretation of the state policy will be, the design of the state management system cannot just be copy-pasted from the management system model of another country. Through an extensive comparative study, Clayton M. Christensen et. al. (2019) indicated the failure of many countries after amending their constitutions and “importing” the institution of democracy because they took no account of their respective historical experiences and cultural values.

KOMPAS/RADITYA HELABUMI

Yudi Latif

An effective management system, design should reflect core cultural values growing out of a nation’s long learning process. An MIT professor, Edgar Schein (1988), defined “culture” as “a method of cooperation to achieve a common goal that has proven to be successful and is recurrently followed by society, which makes most people even think of trying no other methods”.

After going through cross-cultural and multiperiod studies and learning, the nation’s founding fathers agreed that the core cultural values already proven to be effective in transforming the pluralist society were summed up as gotong royong (mutual cooperation), which in the political sphere is now manifested in consultative institution. Any institutional design and policymaking (including state policy guidelines) should be based on the spirit of consultation – both in the form of participation of diverse potencies in society and in the way of decision making of an inclusive nature.

Yudi Latif, Director of Pancasila School