There is no position akin to a prime minister as in a pure parliamentary system.
The president is not accountable directly to the parliament. The president,
however, was not, prior to 2004 , elected directly by the citizenry, as is typical of
pure presidential systems, but rather indirectly by the the People’s Consultative
Assembly (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat – MPR). An indirectly elected presi-
dent has less legitimacy and is often also easier to remove from office, as in the
case of President Abdurrahman Wahid.^8
In this context, during the 2001 session, the MPR amended the 1945 constitution
to provide for direct presidential and vice-presidential elections. In 2002 the
MPR approved the Fourth Amendment, which requires presidential and vice-
presidential candidates to run together on a single ticket. The amendment provides
for a second round of direct voting if no one candidate gets a clear majority of
votes cast, as well as at least 20 per cent of the vote in at least half of the provinces.
Direct election will strengthen the presidency for two reasons. First, it will raise
the democratic legitimacy of the presidency to be on a par with that of the People’s
Representative Assembly (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat – DPR). Second, an amend-
ment for direct election will have to be accompanied by changes in the presidential
impeachment procedures, which will most likely make it harder to remove the
president mid-term than under earlier procedures. Direct election is seen as more
democratic and as fostering greater accountability of the president to the people, as
well as reducing the possibility of vote-buying in the presidential election process.
The 1999 – 2002 amendments made the president and the vice-president directly
accountable to constituents.
One of the most significant amendments is the revised Article 2 ( 1 ),
which stipulates that the MPR is composed of DPR members and DPD (the House
of Regional Representatives) members, who are all elected in the general elections.
Unlike in the Soeharto era, the MPR has no appointed members who are regional
representatives, organisational representatives or military representatives.
All members of the MPR are elected directly by the people. Institutionally,
(^8) See Kevin O’Rourke,Reformasi: The Struggle for Power in Post-Soeharto Indonesia
(Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2002 ), p. 402. The experience of President Abdurrahman Wahid
gives weight to this caveat. Based on the accountability and removal procedures associated
with indirect election, he was removed by the MPR in July 2001 , when he lost the political
support of the vast majority of MPR members. Since the majority of the members of the
MPR were also members of the DPR, President Wahid alleged that in reality the DPR, not
the MPR, deposed the president, and that this was against the Constitution. Wahid then
issued his presidential decree to dismiss the MPR and called for new legislative elections.
Although consistent with the parliamentary logic under which he was being removed,
under the existing rules of the political game in Indonesia these actions were illegal.
Unlike Soekarno’s presidential decree in 1959 , Wahid’s decree was not supported by the
military, leading to his removal from office. This threat of removal meant that the
Indonesian president was not as free to make use of his or her extensive powers as a
directly elected president with those same powers.