Page 226 - BUKU A CENTURY OF PARLIAMENTARY LIFE IN INDONESIA

DPR-RI DURING THE NEW ORDER:
STRENGTHENING THE ROLE OF THE STATE (1967-1998)

Responding to the decision regarding the election, Soeharto’s group
came up with the following strategy:
1. Forming a new political grouping for the DPR consisting of non-
party politicians who were tied to the Gov-
ernment’s development program. Finally, the
urgent need to have a representative group
in the DPR and an election machine (both
needed in carrying out the constitutional
strategy) led the New Order leaders to use On 5 January 1973, the
the Golkar Secretariat and put their own United Development
people in leadership positions for the organi- Group with Islamic
zation. The decision to enter the Joint Secre-
tariat of Functional Groups was facilitated by aspirations became the
the agreement reached with political parties United Development
about the postponement of the general elec-
tion until 1971. Party (PPP), while

2. Encourage the creation of some kind of rep- on 10 January 1973,
resentation of corporate interests. The main the Development
purpose of corporatization was to control the
representation of interest groups in such a Democracy Group
way as to prevent social conflict or threaten became the Indonesian
government power. In addition, to comple-
ment the Government’s strategy in control- Democratic Party (PDI).
ling the bureaucracy and eliminating the
influence of political parties in it, the main tar-
get of corporatization during the New Order
was associations representing civil servants.

3. Simplifying political parties through grouping. The final strategy was
the control of political parties in Indonesia. The first step towards
simplification of political parties with Decree no. 22/1966 on the
rearrangement of the political structure. On 27 February 1970, Soe-
harto met with party leaders to discuss the Government’s plan to
reduce the number of parties by dividing them into two groups. The
meeting resulted in the formation of two coalition groups in the DPR
in March 1970:

a. The Development Democracy Group, consisting of the PNI, IPKI,
Murba, Partindo, and the Catholic Party.

b. The United Development Group, consisting of NU, Parmusi, PSII,
and Perti.

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