The politics of Indonesia: a 1945 constitution rebuilt after Suharto

What the founding constitution still says

The text in force was drafted in mid-1945 under the Japanese occupation, by a committee whose creation the Japanese 16th Army announced on 1 March that year, and the new republic adopted it by the end of August 1945. A federal constitution replaced it in 1949 and a provisional parliamentary one in 1950. On 5 July 1959 Sukarno restored the 1945 text by decree, and it has been the basis of government ever since.

Its preamble carries Pancasila, the five principles Sukarno set out in a speech on 1 June 1945: belief in the one and only God, just and civilised humanity, the unity of Indonesia, democracy led by wisdom in deliberation among representatives, and social justice for all the people. The first principle was argued over before the ink was dry. The draft preamble of June 1945, known as the Jakarta Charter, followed belief in God with an obligation for Muslims to carry out Islamic law; on 18 August 1945 the Preparatory Committee for Indonesian Independence deleted the clause, and Wikipedia's article on Pancasila records the reason given as national unity. Article 29 keeps the compromise: the state is "based upon the belief in the One and Only God" and guarantees "all persons the freedom of worship, each according to his/her own religion or belief".

Article 1 defines the country as "a unitary state in the form of a republic" in which sovereignty is in the hands of the people. Article 25A calls it an archipelagic state.

Article 36 makes Indonesian the national language, Article 36A gives the coat of arms as the Garuda Pancasila with the motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, unity in diversity, and Article 33 places "the land, the waters and the natural resources within" under the powers of the state, to be used "to the greatest benefit of the people".

How four amendments rebuilt the system

Under Sukarno's Guided Democracy and Suharto's New Order the same text supported strong presidential rule from 1959 to 1998: the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) elected the president every five years, and between 1971 and 1998 each parliamentary election was followed by Suharto's unopposed re-election. After Suharto resigned in May 1998 the assembly amended the constitution four times between 1999 and 2002, keeping the 1945 numbering and adding lettered articles.

What changed:

• The president is directly elected. The third amendment, enacted in 2001, provided for direct election, first held in 2004. Article 6A requires a ticket to win more than 50% of the national vote and at least 20% in more than half the provinces; otherwise the two leading tickets go to a run-off.
• Two terms only. Article 7 limits the president and vice-president to five years with one re-election.
• Removal runs through a court. Under Articles 7A and 7B the House of Representatives can propose dismissal for treason, corruption, bribery or another grave crime only after the Constitutional Court has ruled on its case; the MPR then decides.
• A Constitutional Court was established in 2003 with nine justices and the final word on reviewing laws against the constitution, on disputes between state institutions, on the dissolution of parties and on election results (Article 24C).
• The armed forces left the legislature. The military's "dual function" doctrine, which gave it a political role, ended in 2000, and by 2004 unelected military and police representation in parliament and the assembly had gone.

Article 37 sets the procedure for future changes: a third of the MPR must propose an amendment, two-thirds must be present and a majority of the whole membership must agree. One provision may not be amended at all, the form of the unitary state. Indonesia was federal only once, from December 1949 to August 1950.

Who sits in the national legislature

The MPR is not a third chamber but the two elected houses sitting together. It amends the constitution, swears in the president and vice-president, and decides on removing them. Since 2004 it has been made up of:

• the House of Representatives (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, DPR), elected from multi-member districts by proportional representation in which voters can choose a party or an individual candidate. It holds the power to make laws, and every bill needs the joint approval of the House and the president.
• the Regional Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Daerah, DPD), elected from each province on a non-party ballot, with the same number of members for every province and a total that the constitution caps at a third of the House. The DPD can propose and discuss bills on regional autonomy, the regions' finances and natural resources, but it cannot pass them.

Britannica's fact box, as read on 2 October 2026, gives 580 seats in the House and 152 in the DPD; Wikipedia's politics article, read the same day, gives 575 for the House. All legislators serve five-year terms, and the General Elections Commission, which Article 22E makes "national, permanent and independent", runs the votes. Citizens may vote from 17, or younger if married, according to Britannica, and stand from 21.

How power was pushed out to the regions

The amendments kept the unitary state and gave much of its work away. Regional autonomy after 1998 transferred substantial powers to provinces, regencies and cities, each with an elected head and an elected council. Below the provinces come regencies and cities, then districts, then villages; at the bottom of the structure, Britannica notes, the neighbourhood associations elect their own chairs. The number of provinces has grown with the policy. Banten was split from West Java in 2000, Gorontalo, Bangka Belitung, the Riau Islands and West Sulawesi followed, North Kalimantan was carved out of East Kalimantan in 2012, and Papua has been divided several times. Wikipedia's main article on the country, read on 2 October 2026, gives 38 provinces.

Article 18B allows "special and distinct" regional authorities, and nine provinces have them. Aceh may apply aspects of Islamic law; it received special autonomy in the early 2000s, and the Helsinki accords that followed the 2004 tsunami added local political parties. The six provinces of Papua have special autonomy. Yogyakarta keeps a hereditary sultanate, a recognition of the sultan's support for the republic during the revolution, when the city served as its capital. Jakarta has its own status as the capital, which is where the present uncertainty begins.

Where the capital is under the law

A move out of Jakarta was first proposed under Sukarno, who inaugurated Palangka Raya in Kalimantan as a future capital in 1957. The present plan dates from August 2019, when the government announced the move to Kalimantan; the site chosen lies in East Kalimantan, beside Balikpapan. The reasons it gave were Jakarta's overcrowding and the sinking of its land, along with a wish to shift development away from Java.

What the laws and the court say

The legal position rests on three instruments and one ruling:

• Law No. 3/2022 on the State Capital designated Nusantara as the capital. Its Article 39(1) keeps the "position, function and role" of the capital in Jakarta until the president issues a decree transferring it.
• Law No. 2/2024 on the Jakarta Special Region was argued in 2026 to have already removed Jakarta's capital status. The Constitutional Court held that its Article 2(1) must be read with Article 73, under which the law takes effect only once that presidential decree has been issued.
• Presidential Regulation No. 79/2025, issued in 2025, updated the government work plan and set the aim of making Nusantara the "political capital" by 2028, with buildings for all three branches of government. A cabinet minister said in September 2025 that the term did not mean dividing the country into political and economic capitals.
• On 13 May 2026 the Constitutional Court unanimously rejected a petition against the 2022 law in ruling No. 71/PUU-XXIV/2026. Justice Adies Kadir said that "as long as the presidential decree concerning the transfer of the capital from Jakarta to Nusantara has not been issued, the state capital remains in Jakarta".

On the court's reading, Jakarta is the capital in law and Nusantara is the designated capital without the decree that would make it one. None of the sources consulted for this article, the latest of them dated August 2026, reports that the decree has been issued.

The Jakarta Globe reported in May 2026 that from 2028 the plan is for Jakarta to remain the legal capital and economic centre under the 2024 law while Nusantara hosts the executive, legislature and judiciary.

How far the move has gone

The site has moved slowly. Independence Day was celebrated there for the first time on 17 August 2024, the date originally set for the transfer, which did not happen. Tempo reported Rp6 trillion from the 2026 state budget for the project, and the Jakarta Globe reported in July 2026 that parliament had approved the same amount for 2027. The vice-president's office was preparing to move in 2026, and Wikipedia's article on Nusantara records a plan to relocate between 1,700 and 4,100 civil servants there within the year. The question has a constitutional edge as well: Article 2 requires the MPR to meet "in the capital of the State", and in October 2024 the president expressed the hope that the assembly's 2028 session would sit in Nusantara.

How parties and elections have changed

The New Order allowed three electoral vehicles: the government-backed Golkar and two parties formed by forced mergers in 1973. Golkar won every election from 1971 until 1999. After 1998 the restrictions on forming parties were lifted, the civil service was allowed to support parties other than Golkar and the military was barred from taking sides. The election of June 1999 was the first independently monitored one; the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle took 34% of the vote and Golkar 22%.

Since then the president, both houses and the regional councils have been elected every five years, in 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019 and 2024. Wikipedia's politics article describes the result as a multi-party system in which parties share power widely and join governing coalitions regardless of ideology, and it records that international monitors have judged the elections free and fair. The same article reports the assessments that hold back from calling the democracy consolidated: the Economist Intelligence Unit rated Indonesia a "flawed democracy" in 2023, and Freedom House cites corruption in the courts and weak due process.

Where Indonesia stands among other states

Indonesia's foreign policy doctrine is bebas aktif, "independent and active", formulated by Mohammad Hatta in 1948. It has meant non-alignment: Indonesia hosted the Asian-African Conference at Bandung in 1955, belongs to the Non-Aligned Movement, and on the competition between China and the United States has avoided alliances and argued for an approach led by ASEAN. Indonesia was a founder of ASEAN in 1967 and places it at the centre of its regional diplomacy. It has been a member of the United Nations since 1950, apart from its withdrawal in January 1965 over Malaysia's seat on the Security Council and its return the following year. It joined APEC in 1989, belongs to the G20 and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and in January 2025 became a member of BRICS. It has sent military and police personnel to UN peacekeeping missions since 1957, and after decades of receiving aid it has given development assistance since 2015, through its own agency since 2019.