Page 188 - BUKU A CENTURY OF PARLIAMENTARY LIFE IN INDONESIA

THE NEW FACE OF INDONESIAN PARLIAMENT
(1959-1966)

SIMPLIFICATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES

The idea or desire to simplify political parties was first put forward by President

Soekarno in his Youth Pledge speech in Yogyakarta in 1956.

SOEKARNO stated that Decree X of the Government issued in No-
vember 1945 regarding the recommendation to form political parties
could be said to be a mistake. He considered this to encourage pri-
oritization of interests of the political parties as a consequence of the
policy of the multi-party system. This call was related to the planned
general election in January 1946, when the Central National Commit-
tee was formed.

The realization of political party simplification by President Soekarno was
accelerated when he witnessed the results of the 1955 General Election,
which showed the behavior of political parties putting themselves first by
imposing the interests of their political parties rather than prioritizing the
interests of the electorate and the state.

As an illustration of the number of participants in the 1955 General
Election and the characteristics of the results, there were 118 partici-
pants in the election for DPR members consisting of 36 political parties,
34 community organizations, and 48 individuals. Meanwhile, the elec-
tion for the Constitutional Assembly was followed by 91 participants
consisting of 39 political parties, 23 community organizations, and 29
individuals.

Meanwhile, according to the results of the 1955 election for members
of the Constitutional Assembly, which was held on 15 December 1955,
the number of seats for the members of the Constitutional Assembly
that were elected was 520, but in West Irian, which had 6 seats, there
were no elections. Therefore, the number of available seats was only 514.
The results of the election for members of the Constitutional Assembly
showed that there was an increasing support for PNI, NU, and PKI, while
the number of votes for Masyumi, although still the second winner, fell by
114,267 compared to the votes obtained in the election for members of
the House of Representatives.

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