The World's Third Most Populous Democracy: Indonesia

Indonesia is a presidential representative democratic republic where the President hold both the chief of state and the head of government. President and vice president are elected for 5-year terms and eligible for a second term by direct vote of the citizen, meanwhile the cabinet is appointed by the president. People’s Consultative Assembly is the upper house of Indonesia’s legislative branch. It consists of the members of House of Representatives and House of Regional Representatives. The mandated role of People’s Consultative Assembly is not formulating national policy. Instead, their function is to inaugurate and impeach the president as well as amending the constitution. At the national level, legislation is formulated and passed by House of Representatives. The role of House of Regional Representatives includes providing legislative input to House of Representatives on regional issues. The country is divided into 33 provinces and each of them is led by a governor. Two of provinces are entitled special region, they are Aceh and Yogyakarta. And as a capital city, Jakarta is entitled special capital city district. Following the implementation of decentralization beginning on 1 January 2001, regencies and municipalities have become the key administrative units responsible for providing most of government services.

Although known as the world's third most populous democracy, Indonesia’s democratic government has to deal with many problems after years of military dictatorship. Separatism occurred in Papua and Aceh was encouraged by the success of East Timor separation in 1999 after 25 years under the government of Indonesia. However, Indonesia and Aceh reached a peace agreement in 2005 followed by a democratic election in 2006. In other part of the country, Indonesia still have to face low intensity of separatism by Papua armed separatists (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka). Religious matter also becomes more and more sensitive recently. Militant Islamic groups have become active from past few years and religious conflict occurred in some regions. The island of Bali suffered terrorist bombing in 2002 and 2004 and killed hundreds of people where most of them were tourists. One year after the second bombing in Bali, a devastating Indian Ocean tsunami hit several regions in Indonesia and killed more than 200 thousand people.

The judicial system in Indonesia is not fully independent and remains susceptible to the influence of politic. Irrelevancy, distortion, and discrimination also often happen on the implementation of law. Bureaucracy which is slow and inefficient and widespread corruption especially on the regional level make it difficult to implement effective policies.