Quick questions on Guided Democracy under Sukarno 1957-1965: HSC Modern History National Study

The 1950 to 1957 period produced seven cabinets and no stable majority. The 1955 elections, the only free elections of Sukarno's rule, returned four roughly equal parties: PNI (22 per cent), Masjumi (21 per cent), NU (19 per cent), and PKI (16 per cent). The Constituent Assembly elected in December 1955 deadlocked over Pancasila versus an Islamic state.

Regional resentments at Javanese dominance and at Sukarno's leftward tilt produced an open revolt. On 15 February 1958 dissident colonels in Sumatra (PRRI) and Sulawesi (Permesta), supported by Masjumi politicians including Sjafruddin Prawiranegara and Mohammad Natsir, proclaimed a "Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia." The United States CIA covertly supplied B-26 bombers and arms.

Sukarno dissolved the Constituent Assembly by decree on 5 July 1959 and restored the 1945 Constitution by presidential decree. The decree was endorsed by the army. The cabinet reported to the President, not parliament. The DPR (parliament) was reconstituted as a DPR-GR with appointed members; Sukarno's Manifesto Politik (MANIPOL, 17 August 1959) became the official state ideology.

Sukarno's formula for political balance was NASAKOM: Nasionalisme (PNI), Agama (Religion, principally the Islamic NU), and Komunisme (PKI). The army was the unstated fourth pillar.

The Round Table Conference of 1949 had deferred West New Guinea's status; Dutch retention had become a permanent grievance. Sukarno announced the Tri Komando Rakyat (Trikora, "Three Peoples' Commands") on 19 December 1961: defeat the creation of a Dutch puppet state, raise the Indonesian flag in West Irian, and prepare for general mobilisation.

The British plan to combine Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore with Malaya in a federation of Malaysia (September 1963) was treated by Sukarno as "neo-colonial encirclement." The Ganyang Malaysia (Crush Malaysia) campaign ran from 1963 to 1966. Indonesian special forces and volunteers infiltrated Borneo; small raids reached the Malayan peninsula. Australia, Britain and New Zealand deployed forces in defence of Malaysia.

The price was paid in the rupiah. Inflation reached 27 per cent in 1961, 100 per cent in 1962, 130 per cent in 1963, 600 per cent in 1965. Foreign reserves collapsed. Foreign-owned enterprises (Dutch in 1957, British in 1963, US in 1965) were nationalised; many were captured by army officers as patronage assets.

M.C. Ricklefs (A History of Modern Indonesia) treats Guided Democracy as Sukarno's failed attempt to substitute personal charisma and balance for the institutions parliamentary democracy had not delivered.

It is a slogan system masking a balance-of-forces arrangement. The substance is the army-PKI-Sukarno triangle, not the speeches.

These (1958 to 1961) made the army indispensable to the central state and discredited the Masjumi.

Trikora (19 December 1961) launched the West Irian campaign. Dwikora (3 May 1964) launched the escalation of Konfrontasi.

Administrative transfer was 1 May 1963; the Act of Free Choice was 1969.