Page 18 - BUKU A CENTURY OF PARLIAMENTARY LIFE IN INDONESIA

FROM VOLKSRAAD TO THE CENTRAL INDONESIAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
(1917–1949)

Volksraad assembly kick-off
situation in 1918.
(Source: KITLV 4513)
As the RR gave so much power to the governor-general, power dy-
namics in the Dutch East Indies became unbalanced, disadvanta-
geous particularly for the bumiputra (indigenous population). The
power imbalance was acknowledged by a small portion of the elite
population in the Netherlands. They then proposed several regula- April 1, 1905:
tory and systematic changes be applied in the Dutch East Indies. The
change proposal was meant to counterweigh the governor general’s City councils
power. In 1894, through Minister of Colonial Affairs Willem van De were established
dem, there had been a plan to form a representative body alongside in three cities
the governor-general and a Raad van Indie or an East Indies council in West Java,
as advisors to the governor-general. including

Gemeente
As an update to the RR, Decentralisatie Wetgeving or the Laws of De- Batavia, Meester
centralization was released on July 23, 1903. The Staten Generaal in the Cornelis
Netherlands had passed the law. The Staten Generaal is the bicameral (Jatinegara),
supreme legislature of the Netherlands with state budget rights in all
Dutch colonies, including the Dutch East Indies, until 1942. The laws, and Buitenzorg
published on the Nederlandsche Staatsblad number 219.10, opened (Bogor).
up the prospect of decentralization in the government, making way
for autonomous regions, including gewest (region) and gedeelte van
gewest (part of region).

Decentralization was the main aim of the Political Ethics supporters,
who sought distribution of power from Den Haag to Batavia, from
Batavia to other regions, and from the Dutch to the bumiputra. The de-
centralization implementation would be followed by forming councils
in the local regions.

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