Democracy According to Soekarno

Helloindonesia.id – In the view of the first President of the Republic of Indonesia, Soekarno, Indonesian democracy is a democracy born of the will to fight for independence, that means Indonesian democracy according to Soekarno put its embryo on resistance to imperialism and colonialism, it was written by Soekarno in his book, Indonesia Sues and Under the Flag The revolution, which was explicitly inspired by the independence movement carried out in various parts of the world, from the struggle of a Muhammad, Jesus Christ, William de Oranje, Mahatma Gandhi, Mustafa Kemal Attaturk, and figures of independence of nations throughout the world. [8]

According to Soekarno, democracy is a “people’s government”. Furthermore, for Soekarno, democracy is a way of forming a government that gives the rakayat the right to participate in the government process. However, the democracy desired and conceptualized by Soekarno did not want to “imitate” modern democracy born from the French Revolution, because according to Soekarno, democracy was produced by the French Revolution, a democracy which only benefited the bourgeoisie and became the place of capitalism growth. [9] Therefore, then Sukarno conceptualized his own democracy which he thought was suitable for Indonesia.

More specifically, Sukarno’s conception of democracy was contained in his concept of thought, namely marhaenism. Marhaenisme, which was the thought of Soekarno when he was still studying in Bandung, was essentially a knife for social, political and economic analysis in Indonesia. Marhaenism consists of three points, which are called “Trisila”, namely: [10] [11]

Socio-nationalism, which means that Indonesian nationalism desired by Soekarno is nationalism that has social character by placing human values ​​in nationalism itself, so it is not chauvinist nationalism. Socio-democracy, which means that the democracy that Soekarno wants is not merely political democracy, but also economic democracy, and democracy that departs from the values ​​of local wisdom of Indonesian culture, namely consensus deliberation. Godhead the One, which means that Soekarno wanted every Indonesian people to be human beings who recognized the existence of God (theis), whatever their religion.

Among the three precepts, Soekarno’s thoughts and conception of democracy were in the second principle in Trisilla Marhaenism, namely socio-democracy. Socio-democracy according to Soekarno is a democratic system rooted in social values. The socio-democracy desired by Soekarno was when democracy itself underlies its values ​​to the whole society, not only to some people, in this case Sukarno criticized French democracy and US democracy which according to Soekarno only emphasized some groups of people, namely the bourgeoisie or simply, Sukarno wants Indonesian democracy not only political democracy, but also economic democracy. [12]

Still in the book Under the Revolution Flag, Soekarno then elaborated further on the concept of socio-democracy, namely by conceptualizing the values ​​of political democracy and also economic democracy. Political democracy according to Soekarno is a democracy that applies in post-French Revolution Europe, namely democracy which is a system of representational democracy in a parliamentary institution, – Soekarno calls it parliamentary democratie and democratic democracy – Soekarno sees that democratic values ​​are indeed applied during elections members of parliament, but for Soekarno European political democracy only stopped at parliament alone, while in the economic field there were no democratic values, which caused a lot of poverty – and for economic problems Soekarno blamed political democracy which actually supported the development of capitalism. [13 ]

Soekarno then made a formula, so that democracy became more balanced, meaning that the democracy that Soekarno wanted was not only political democracy, but also economic democracy. According to Soekarno, economic democracy is a democracy that requires the giving of economic rights to all levels of society, so as to create equality. Sukarno’s intended equality was not economic equality in the system of communism which eliminated private property rights, [14] but an equality in which all private property rights – Soekarno spread it as privaatbezit – all the people were guaranteed by the state, in this case the parliament was a result of democracy politics plays a role in providing protection for the rights of private ownership of all people through the making of rules or laws that are fair to all the people without exception, both from the bourgeoisie or proletariat – including classes of people who have little property or what Soekarno calls marhaen. [15]

Then, in subsequent developments, especially during the formulation of the basic state of Indonesia which was held on June 1, 1945 at the BPUPKI Preparatory Meeting of the Business Investigation Agency, Sukarno offered a basic conception of the country for Independent Indonesia, namely Pancasila – although Soekarno himself refused to be called the inventor of Pancasila , because of that, Sukarno preferred to be referred to as the “Pancasila digger”. In his speech on June 1, 1945, Soekarno said that the consensus of the democracy that Soekarno offered was as follows: [16]

“Principle number 4, I now propose. I have not listened to this principle in three days, namely the principle of welfare, the principle that there will be no poverty in Independent Indonesia. I said earlier; the principle of San Min Chu is Mintsu, Min Chuan, Min Sheng (which means): Nationalism, Democracy, Socialism. So our principle must be (based on what?): Do we want Independent Indonesia, whose capital is rampant or that all its people are prosperous, all people eat enough, have enough clothes, live in prosperity, I feel like I have been taken by the motherland who has enough food and clothing for her? Which one do we choose, Brothers? Do not think that if the House of Representatives already exists, we have already achieved this prosperity. We have seen it in European countries. is the Representative Body, is parliamentary democracy. But is it not in Europe that the capitalists are rampant? “[17]

In this principle, Soekarno explicitly asked for a democratic political system that not only had its politics experienced democratization, but also its economy, by making “populist” as its main foundation and carried out with the principles of “wisdom of wisdom in representative deliberation”. Seokarno did not want Indonesia to be a liberal democracy like in the West, whose capitalistic society, Sukarno wanted Indonesia to become a democratic country with a socialistic society, meaning that democracy was not only in political freedom, such as free speech, freedom of choice, and freedom of association in any organization. but also democracy that is able to allocate all economic resources to all the people or simply people’s power over the economy and resistance to poverty. [18]

Soekarno also had a conception of democracy which was put forward on February 21, 1957. The conception contained his rejection of the parliamentary democratic system which was then applied in Indonesia, because Soekarno considered parliamentary democracy a disappointing Western democracy. In addition, Soekarno’s conception of democracy was later known as Guided Democracy or Mutual Cooperation with centralized and integralistic leadership. [19]