Page 178 - BUKU A CENTURY OF PARLIAMENTARY LIFE IN INDONESIA

THE NEW FACE OF INDONESIAN PARLIAMENT
(1959-1966)

For Mohammad Hatta, the peculiarities in the government system had Formation and inauguration
ceremony of the People’s
weakened the function of the DPR as the people’s representatives, and Representative Council of Mutual
in the end gave birth to a dictatorship and a crisis of democracy. In this Assistance (DPR-GR).
system, the DPR’s duty was only to provide the legal basis for decisions
made by the Government based on considerations or suggestions from
the two institutions.

This way, in Soekarno’s opinion, all negotiations could take place quickly,
without being tedious as had happened in the previous House of Rep-
resentatives. The other two institutions, the Supreme Advisory Council
and the State Development Agency, because their composition was de-
termined by President Soekarno himself, could become pressure groups
against the DPR.

With the changes to the House of Representatives that took place at that
time, when all members were appointed by the President, the last rem-
nants of democracy disappeared.

During the inauguration ceremony of the DPR-GR, President Soekarno
gave a mandate that the duties of the DPR-GR were to carry out a Po-
litical Manifesto, to realize the Mandate of People’s Suffering (Ampera),

dpr.go.id 171