Regional Autonomy in Indonesia

In 1999, the year following that of the resignation of Soeharto, which had directed the Indonesia during more than 30 years, the government of the new president indonésien, Habibie, writes a whole of texts intended to promote the otonomi daerah , l'" autonomy régionale". Habibie thus wished to answer a growing request of more than autonomy on behalf of various areas, without counting the crisis of the Eastern Timor, whose population asked for independence straightforwardly. Two laws were thus ratified on April 21st, 1999: the law bearing No 22 regional autonomy and the law No 25 bearing distribution of the taxation between the gourvernement central one and regional governments.

One can think that these laws were especially intended to defuse the separatist tendencies that the government suspected behind these regional claims, while avoiding lending the side to charges of " Federalism " on behalf of an opinion for which the national unit is a nonnegotiable principle. In fact, these laws especially caused in the opinion the feeling which the government did not wish to start a true and democratic decentralization.

The memory of the Republic of the United States of Indonesia ( Negara Indonesia Serikat or LAUGH) created in 1949 within the framework of the Conférence of the Roundtable of $the Hague between the Republic of Indonesia proclaimed in 1945 and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which had until there refuses to recognize the independence of its old colony, indeed always haunts the opinion indonésienne.

These laws did not relate to the provinces of Aceh and Papua (old Irian Jaya), in which exist separatist movements (GAM in Aceh, CPM in Papua) and to which the authorities granted a " special autonomy " to answer the aspirations of the local populations.

In 2001, the government promulgated 2 laws: the law No 18 bearing " special autonomy for the province of the special territory of Aceh like province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam" and the law bearing No 21 " special autonomy for the province of Papua".

In 2004, considering that the law No 22 of 1999 was not in conformity any more with the new requirements of autonomy of the areas, the government promulgated the law No 32 bearing " government of the régions".

The law No 22 of 1999

Its Article First stipulates that the areas (provinces, departments and municipalities) will have full autonomy for " to control and manage the interests of the population locale" , within the framework of the " unit State of the Republic of Indonésie" ( Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia , or NKRI according to the devoted initials).

The same Article First stipulates as the village ( Desa ) will have authority to control and manage the population according to the local habit ( adat ). This clause put thus fine at the standardizing system that had imposes the Soeharto mode.

The law defines different the administrative divisions from Indonesia, stipulating that the provinces ( provinsi ) will be the major units. In fact, they are the kabupaten (Département S) and the kota (Ville S) which acquire the autonomy of government.

Kabupaten and kota does not have any more one hierarchical relation with the provincial governments and is from now on " authorized to control and manage the interests of the local population according to their own initiatives based on the aspirations of the population". The Bupati (prefects) and walikota (mayors) are responsible in front of the departmental and municipal assembled ( Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah or DPRD, " representative councils of the peuple" elected officials by the vote for all). The Governor S of province, them, continue to be responsible before the central government.

The law No 25 of 1999

The laws No 18 No 21 of 2001

The law No 32 of 2004

The law recalls that the unit State of the Republic of Indonesia is divided into areas consisting of (article 2, subparagraph 1):

Provinces
Kabupaten (departments) and Kota (cities), each unit having its regional government,

each area being equipped with a regional administration consisted the chief of the regional executive and the regional assembly (article 3, subparagraph 1).

She also recalls (article 10) that the fields concerned with the central government are:

the foreign politics
defense
safety
justice
the currency and the taxation
the religion.

“Regional autonomy” is defined as being “the right, the authority and the obligation for an autonomous region to regulate and manage itself the businesses of government and the interests of the local population according to its own initiative on the basis of aspiration of the population in the system of the unit State of the Republic of Indonesia” (article 1, subparagraph 6).

The areas have obligation to deal with on their level (article 13):

regional development
town and country planning
the public maintenance of law and order and peace
the installation of equipment and infrastructures public
health
education
the social questions
employment
the development of the co-operatives and SME
the environment
land questions
questions of population and the registry office
general administration.

The law recalls that the capacity regional executive is held by a " chief of région" ( kepala daerah , article 1, subparagraph 4):

a governor for the provinces,
a bupati for the kabupaten
a wali kota or mayor for the cities.

Each governor, bupati and mayor are respectively assisted by a vice-governor, vice-bupati and a vice-mayor. Each couple of governor and vice governor, vice-bupati bupati and mayor and vice-mayor, is elected by the direct suffrage (article 24).

The initiative of the dismissal of a chief of area or a vice-chief is allocated to the corresponding regional assembly, which gives an opinion after plenary session. The opinion of the aforesaid the regional representative assembly is submitted to the president of the Republic in the form of decision of the Supreme court (article 29).

The assembly régionalea a legislative, budgetary function and of monitoring. He votes regional regulations (article 41). The number of members, elected officials by the direct suffrage, goes from 45 to 75 for a kabupaten and from 20 to 35 for a city (article 51).

Source

Seymour, Richard and Sarah Turner, " Otonomi Daerah: Indonesia' S Experiment" decentralization; in New Zealand Newspaper off Asian Studies , 4, December 2nd, th and th 2002

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