Suharto's New Order 1967 to 1998, including dwifungsi, GOLKAR, Pancasila as sole foundation (asas tunggal), the Berkeley Mafia and economic development, and the limits of pembangunan

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to explain the political and economic system that Suharto built between 1967 and 1998, the ideological framework (dwifungsi, Pancasila as asas tunggal), the electoral hegemony of GOLKAR, the technocrat-led economic transformation, and the corruption and repression that ran alongside. Strong answers integrate political, economic and social changes and weigh the development achievements against authoritarian costs.

The answer

Dwifungsi

The "dual function" of the armed forces was the founding political doctrine. ABRI (Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia, the Indonesian Armed Forces) had simultaneous defence and "sociopolitical" roles. The doctrine was formalised at the army's first seminar in Bandung (April 1965) and adopted across ABRI under General Maraden Panggabean in 1969.

In practice this meant active and retired officers held one-fifth of DPR seats (100 of 500 until 1999), governorships of most provinces (typically over half), and senior posts across the bureaucracy and state enterprises. Officers were rotated through territorial commands (KODAM, KOREM, KODIM, KORAMIL) that paralleled the civil hierarchy down to the village.

GOLKAR and the captive electorate

Suharto inherited GOLKAR (Sekber-GOLKAR, founded 1964) as an anti-Communist coalition of "functional groups." Under the New Order it became the regime's electoral machine. The 1971 election (the first under Suharto) gave GOLKAR 62.8 per cent of the vote against ten contesting parties.

The party system was then forcibly simplified. In 1973 the nine opposition parties were compelled to merge into two: the Islamic PPP and the nationalist/Christian PDI. Civil servants were placed under "monoloyalitas" doctrine (1975) obliging them to support GOLKAR. The KOPKAMTIB security command intervened in opposition campaigns.

GOLKAR won every election: 62.1 per cent (1977), 64.3 per cent (1982), 73.2 per cent (1987), 68.1 per cent (1992), 74.5 per cent (1997). The MPR (People's Consultative Assembly), composed of DPR members and appointees, "elected" Suharto unopposed every five years.

Pancasila as asas tunggal

The ideological framework was Pancasila, but reformulated as the sole permitted foundation. The 1985 Mass Organisations Law (UU 8/1985) required all political parties, mass organisations, religious bodies, and civil society groups to adopt Pancasila as their asas tunggal (sole foundation). Islamic organisations that resisted were banned.

The P4 indoctrination programme (Pedoman Penghayatan dan Pengamalan Pancasila, instituted 1978) gave compulsory courses on Pancasila to civil servants, students, and members of mass organisations. The MPR's "broad guidelines of state policy" (GBHN) governed five-year plans (Repelita I to VI from 1969).

Economic policy and the Berkeley Mafia

Suharto's economic policy reversed Sukarno's autarky. The technocrats around Widjojo Nitisastro, Ali Wardhana, Emil Salim and Mohammad Sadli (all trained at the University of California, Berkeley, hence the "Berkeley Mafia") were given control of finance, planning (BAPPENAS) and economic ministries.

Hyperinflation was broken by 1968 through a balanced budget rule. The Foreign Investment Law (PMA, 1 January 1967) and the Domestic Investment Law (PMDN, 1968) opened the economy. IGGI (Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia, chaired by the Netherlands from 1967, later CGI) coordinated Western aid.

The oil boom of 1973 to 1974 (price quadrupled after the Yom Kippur War) and the second oil shock of 1979 to 1980 transformed state finances. Pertamina, the state oil company under General Ibnu Sutowo, both fed and embarrassed the regime; its near-collapse in 1975 to 1976 required a $10 billion bailout.

Indonesia adopted the "trickle-down" growth model. GDP per capita rose from around $50 in 1967 to around$1,100 in 1996. Poverty headcount fell from around 60 per cent in 1970 to around 11 per cent in 1996 (World Bank measure). Rice self-sufficiency was achieved in 1984 through "Bimas" green-revolution programmes. Manufactured exports rose from below 5 per cent of total in 1980 to over 50 per cent by 1995.

Pembangunan and its costs

Pembangunan (development) was the New Order's signature word and its central legitimating claim. It produced real gains: primary school enrolment near-universal by 1990; infant mortality fell from 132 per 1,000 births (1970) to 50 (1995); life expectancy rose from 47 (1970) to 65 (1996).

The costs were equally real. The Transmigrasi programme moved around 2.5 million people from Java to the Outer Islands between 1969 and 1989, often onto disputed land in West Papua, Kalimantan, and Sulawesi, generating sustained conflict. Forest concessions to military-linked conglomerates devastated the rainforests of Kalimantan and Sumatra.

The Suharto family business empire

The President's children built one of Asia's largest informal business empires. Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana ("Tutut") controlled toll roads and television (TPI). Bambang Trihatmodjo controlled Bimantara Group (electronics, media). Hutomo Mandala Putra ("Tommy") controlled the national clove monopoly (BPPC) and a national car project (Timor 1996) given tax exemptions.

Bob Hasan ran Apkindo (the plywood marketing board); Liem Sioe Liong's Salim Group owned BCA (Bank Central Asia), Indofood, and around 500 other companies. Transparency International rated Indonesia among the most corrupt economies in the world; Time magazine estimated the family fortune at $15 billion in 1999.

Repression and human rights

The system rested on coercion. The KOPKAMTIB security command and later BAKORSTANAS ran extra-judicial detentions. The Petrus campaign of 1983 to 1985 (Penembakan Misterius, "mysterious shootings") executed an estimated 5,000 alleged criminals; Suharto later claimed authorship in his 1989 autobiography.

The Tanjung Priok massacre (12 September 1984) killed an unknown number of Islamic protestors (army figure 18; activist estimates several hundred) when troops fired on a crowd at a port mosque in Jakarta. The Lampung killings (Talangsari, 7 February 1989) killed an estimated 130 to 246 Islamic villagers.

The 27 July 1996 attack on PDI headquarters, organised by Suharto's son-in-law General Prabowo's faction to remove Megawati Sukarnoputri as PDI chair, triggered riots in Jakarta. From 1997 to early 1998 around 23 student activists were kidnapped by Kopassus Team Mawar; many were later released, around 13 remain missing.

Timeline

Historiography

Michael Vatikiotis (Indonesian Politics under Suharto, 1993) is the standard political account. He emphasises the dwifungsi-GOLKAR-Pancasila triad as a self-reinforcing political technology.

Hal Hill (The Indonesian Economy since 1966, 1996) is the canonical economic analysis. He treats the Berkeley Mafia as effective stabilisers and the family business empire as a corrupting overlay that distorted but did not destroy the development model.

Edward Aspinall (Opposing Suharto, 2005) traces the slow rebuilding of civil society from the late 1980s through the rise of an Islamic middle class, environmental NGOs, and student activism.

Geoffrey Robinson (The Killing Season, 2018) places the New Order in continuity with the 1965 to 1966 killings: founded on impunity for mass political violence.

Adrian Vickers (A History of Modern Indonesia, 2013) emphasises the human rights record and the Suharto family corruption as inseparable from the development model.

How to read a source on this topic

First, distinguish New Order achievement claims from independent evidence. Rice self-sufficiency, poverty reduction, and education gains are documented by World Bank, UNDP and FAO data and are real. Election results and ideological harmony are state-engineered and not.

Second, weigh dwifungsi and GOLKAR as a single system. Officers held parliamentary seats. GOLKAR votes were policed by territorial commands. Civil servants were under monoloyalitas. The civil-military distinction had little operational meaning.

Third, note the shift around 1990. As the Cold War ended and Suharto sought a softer image, he made the haj (1991), patronised Islamic groups (ICMI under Habibie, founded 1990), and tolerated more press freedom. The 1993 to 1996 period was the regime's most open. The 1996 PDI raid signalled retrenchment.

Common exam traps

Treating the economic record as autonomous. Growth was real, but it was state-directed (Repelita plans, Pertamina, BULOG, Bimas) and rested on suppressing labour costs (around $1 per day minimum wage in 1990s Java) and capturing rents.

Forgetting dwifungsi was formalised after 1965. The army's political role was a New Order innovation built on the foundation of the killings.

Confusing PPP, PDI, and GOLKAR. PPP is the merged Islamic opposition (1973). PDI is the merged nationalist-Christian opposition (1973). GOLKAR is the regime's vehicle.

Misdating asas tunggal. The Mass Organisations Law was 1985, not 1965 or 1968.

In one sentence

Suharto's New Order from 1967 to 1998 combined dwifungsi militarisation, GOLKAR electoral hegemony, Pancasila as asas tunggal, technocrat-led market reforms under the Berkeley Mafia, and Suharto family corruption to produce three decades of growth that lifted GDP per capita twenty-fold and cut poverty from 60 per cent to 11 per cent at the cost of pervasive authoritarianism and impunity for mass political violence.