The intervention of oligarchy in the Indonesian legislative process

Abstract

Contemporary scholarship suggests that in post-Soeharto Indonesia, politics have become more democratic, replacing a brutal military dictatorship with considerable autocratic governance that appears to value a democratic governance system. However, exactly why there has not been an actual change in democratic policy-making in the parliament remains poorly understood. Contemporary scholarship asserts that the Indonesian policy-making process is characterized by ‘empty ritual’ instead of a genuine political process, due to the oligarchic nature of Indonesian politics. Nonetheless, there are few explanations of how or to what extent oligarchy dictates the policy-making process at the legislative level; instead, we are left with an unclear picture of the current political process of policy-making in the parliament. This study aims to fill this gap and investigate how oligarchy has used cartel-like strategies to overcome the legislative process in the parliament. A literature review and analysis of secondary data sources were employed to answer these questions. The findings show that the persistence of oligarchic cartels is evident in the legislative process of the Election Act 7/2017. This suggests that Indonesian oligarchs have hijacked the parliament's democratic policy-making process, finding ways to achieve consensus in passing bills and thereby evading complex disputes to dictate policy to their economic and political benefit.