President Abdurrahman Wahid’s Efforts to Consolidate the Democratic Transition from the Soeharto Authoritarian Regime

Abstract

Abdurrahman Wahid was appointed by MPR (the Indonesian People’s Representative Assembly) as the President of the Republic of Indonesia because of his idea of democracy, convincing the prevailing two opposing groups, namely the nationalist groups and Islamist groups (it is well- known as Poros Tengah/ the Central Axis). Indeed, he was able to adapt democracy to the Islamic tradition by employing the fiqh-plus paradigm to the relationship between Islam and the state. He made uses of the presidential office to consolidate the democratic transition such as by supporting civil society, establishing civil supremacy and establishing law enforcement. From beginning it was not easy for him to socialise his fiqh-plus paradigm to other Islamic groups. Moreover, Central Axis, the determining force contributing to the win of Wahid’s presidential election, felt upset with Wahid’s policies which did not align with their interests. The nationalist groups were also anxious about occupying the presidential office for themself. Last but not the least, the military also agreed with the idea of impeachment of President Wahid in order to save their political interests.DOI: 10.15408/insaniyat.v1i2.5473

Full text

99
INSANIYAT
Journal of Islam and Humanities, Vol. 1(2), Mei 2017
President Abdurrahman Wahid’s Efforts to Consolidate
the Democratic Transition from the Soeharto
Authoritarian Regime
Saefur Rochmat
Department of History Education, Faculty of Social Sciences, Yogyakarta State University
email: rochmat@yahoo.com
Abstract
Abdurrahman Wahid was appointed by MPR (the Indonesian People’s Representative Assembly)
as the President of the Republic of Indonesia because of his idea of democracy, convincing the
prevailing two opposing groups, namely the nationalist groups and Islamist groups (it is well-
known as Poros Tengah/ the Central Axis). Indeed, he was able to adapt democracy to the Islamic
tradition by employing the qh-plus paradigm to the relationship between Islam and the state. He
made uses of the presidential ofce to consolidate the democratic transition such as by supporting
civil society, establishing civil supremacy and establishing law enforcement. From beginning it was
not easy for him to socialise his qh-plus paradigm to other Islamic groups. Moreover, Central
Axis, the determining force contributing to the win of Wahid’s presidential election, felt upset with
Wahid’s policies which did not align with their interests. The nationalist groups were also anxious
about occupying the presidential ofce for themself. Last but not the least, the military also
agreed with the idea of impeachment of President Wahid in order to save their political interests.
Keywords: Abdurrahman Wahid, president, qh paradigm, democracy, central axis.
A. Introduction
Abdurrahman Wahid’s achievement of being
president was due to his track record as well
as people’s perception of him being a capable
gure for mediating conicting ideas between
the supporters of the secular and the Islamic
paradigms in post-Soeharto era. Indeed, Wahid
was a politician as he tried to create opinion,
especially about the relationship between Islam
and state, which would inuence the public,
but at rst he did not engage with the formal
political system. In 1987 he became the member
of Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat (the
Indonesian People’s Representative Assembly)
to represent Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) where he
was general leader of NU, but it was only a short
while for him in MPR as he considered that he
had done his job as member of MPR. Then, he
became more critical of the Soeharto regime
and, in fact, his political inuence as the leader
of NU was greater that of the leaders of political
parties (Rochmat, 2003) because he was able to
provide a counter discourse to the monolithic
interpretation of Pancasila by the Soeharto
regime in 1990s. This was due to his capabilities
in employing democracy as a tool for criticizing
the regime (Schwarz, 1994: 188-200).
What directed Wahid to play such political role
was his religious paradigm that religion, namely
Islam, as a source of values should direct the
course of societal life. However, he did not
consider that Islam and politic are identical.
Accordingly, he does not agree with the Islamists
who develop a legal formal approach that the
state is to implement an Islamic law (Shari’a)
or at least to interpret Pancasila by an Islamic
law (Shari’a). In this regard, Wahid develops a
political approach within the context of the Fiqh

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paradigm that Islam and the state should develop
mutual legitimacy by means of democracy. In
so doing, Muslims would support the national
political system as well as would be critical of
autocratic regimes (Wahid, 1999a: 53-54).
Wahid’s ultimate thought was democracy such
as manifest in his inauguration of president on
20 October 1999. At that time he gave a speech
entitled ‘Membangun Demokrasi Bukan Tugas
yang Ringan’ [Establish Democracy is not an
Easy Job] (Abdurrahman Wahid, 1999b: 107-
111). He believed that democracy is the key
for the development of freedom of speech, the
equality by the law, and law enforcement, which,
then, direct towards the establishment of justice
and welfare (Abdurrahman Wahid, 1999b: 100-
110). Based on his presidential inauguration
speech, I would like to discuss his efforts at
consolidating democracy in Indonesia which
extended until his removal from presidential
ofce. I would like to highlight some issues
that are curbing the inuence of Islam politics,
creating a civil supremacy in government,
fostering law enforcement, and supporting the
establishment of a strong civil society.
B. Method
This research uses historical method that follows
the procedure of heuristic, resources critics,
interpretation, and historiography. The rst step,
heuristic, I collect the data and information
related to the Abdurrahman Wahid in order to
nd some facts. The next step, I verify the facts
in order to know the validity of their contents. At
the third step I try to nd the relationship amongst
the facts as well as to know their meanings. This
study poses primary research question how
Abdurrahman Wahid consolidate the transition
of democracy at post Soeharto era based on the
Fiqh paradigm.
C. Result and Discussion
It is very often to confuse qh with Shari’ah as
both mean Islamic religious law, but both are
quite different. Fiqh is dened as the clerics’
understanding or interpretation of Shari’ah,
meanwhile Shari’ah is an Islamic religious
law as such, so that qh implies a pluralistic
character of Islamic religious law. Conversely,
Shari’ah is often claimed by the Islamists as
meaning monolithic Islamic religious law.
The traditionalist Muslims believe that Fiqh
governs the Muslims on their daily life and
accordingly represents the Islamic world view
which intertwines between secular and religious
matters. A qh approach implies a socio-cultural
approach as it tries to synthesise between ‘the
normative’ of religion and ‘particular’ of culture
such as Indonesian culture. In line with this
Wahid supported the existence of the Republic of
Indonesia with its national ideology of Pancasila.
In this regard he did not agree with the idea of the
legal formal Shari’ah as he advocated the idea of
the substantial Shari’ah focusing on the universal
Islamic values. In other words, he did not agree
with Islamic ideological paradigm obsessed with
the ideas of an Islamic state or of interpreting
Pancasila with the Shari’ah. By so doing, Wahid
tried to consolidate democracy in pursuit to a
modern nation state. Through out this article
you will nd that Wahid confronted with some
supporters of an Islamic ideological paradigm.
C.1. Abdurrahman Wahid’s Presidential
Candidacy and His Idea of Avoiding Violence
The late period of the reign of Soeharto, especially
upon the coming of the general election in 1997,
was a time of the most widespread violence in
the history of Soeharto’s era. Vertical conict
between people and the government apparatus
increased dramatically as President Soeharto
was willing to see the election run successfully,
in terms of the absolute win of Golkar, which
served for his political legitimacy. For that
purpose, the government apparatus often
employed intimidation methods and as a result,
the general election was not useful for absorbing
the socio-political aspirations of the people.
Moreover, the government tried to plug the
political channels such as political parties, mass
media, and mass organisations for the purpose of
political stability. However, this did not create
political stability when it encountered a nancial
crisis starting in July 1997 and it, then, developed
into a multi-sector crisis which triggered social
chaos. Accordingly, the foreign investors
withdrew their capital for Indonesia and some
Chinese ethnic entrepreneurs moved their money
to foreign countries so that the crisis worsened.
In this regard, the student demonstrations spread
in some big cities demanding for Soeharto to
step down as his economic legitimacy was no

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Journal of Islam and Humanities, Vol. 1(2), Mei 2017
longer valid. The military hesitated to crush
the massive demonstrations because of internal
fragmentation as well as international pressure
for violating human rights. Soeharto tried
to moderate the demand by promising some
political reformation, but no one supported
his government so that Soeharto returned its
mandate to MPR and accordingly, B.J. Habibie
was in charge as the president.
This period was called the Reformation era and
Habibie popularized the concept of Masyarakat
Madani, a concept comparable to civil society.
For that purpose, he issued Presidential decree
Number 198 in 27 February 1999 as the basis for
the forming a team which would formulate and
socialise the concept of Masyarakat Madani. This
concept was to replace the Soeharto paradigm of
political stability. By so doing, President Habibie
tried to attract the popular support of the people
for his presidential candidacy in the next general
election. In this regard, he had strong support
from ICMI as well as some Islamists, such as
those who associated with DDII, which upheld
the idea of an Islamic state. This concept of
masyarakat madani was ICMI’s understanding
of the concept of civil society which was slightly
different from its original ideas about this. In
this way, President Habibie tried to obtain the
support of the Muslims as well as to promote
the establishment of a good government (Saefur
Rochmat, 2003).
President B.J. Habibie did not have strong
legitimacy to make any drastic political changes
as he was not elected through general election. His
government was a transitional one with the task
of preparing and holding a general election. In
this transitional period tension appeared amongst
different socio-political groups competing for
the control of power. This also related to the
interpretation of Pancasila whose status as an
open ideology was multi-interpretable. There
were at least three paradigms competing with
each other for control of the power. It was not
surprising that there appeared no less than 100
political parties, of which 48 competed in the
general election.
There were very signicant political parties
based on Islamic ideology so that Gus Dur
was compelled to establish a political party
which would counter Islamic ideology in the
Parliament. On 23 July 1998 Gus Dur facilitated
the establishment of PKB (Partai Kebangkitan
Bangsa) with the aim of guarding the existence
of the Republic of Indonesia based on its original
modus vivendi of the founding fathers (Mahfudz
MD, 2010: 107-08). Wahid noticed that there
were three types of Muslim response to the issue
of Islam and the state, which were: integration,
facultative, and confrontation. Wahid advocated
the rst type in which Islam leaves its formal
relationship with the state. When people become
good Muslims it is not because of the state,
but because of their cultural and educational
backgrounds. The Muslim modernists advocated
the second type as they were willingly to create
Islamic regulations if they had enough power in
the parliament. Meanwhile the fundamentalist
Muslims opposed any “un-Islamic concepts”
such as the secular nation state (Abdurrahman
Wahid, 1998: 23). Responding to the coming
Indonesian Muslim Congress in 1998, Wahid
was pessimistic about any positive result given
the naive statement of its organizers that the
Muslims should set aside their differences for the
common objective of praising God. This implied
that they did not tolerate different manifestations
of Islam and their Islamic missionaries were still
at the state of the establishment of the faith, not
yet handling the problems of human beings in the
modern era (Abdurrahman Wahid, 1998: 20-21).
Upon the general election there arose some
violence in some NU based areas which Wahid
considered as the way to neutralize the political
inuence of the NU followers and he noticed
the involvement of some military actors with
personal political interest (Abdurrahman Wahid,
1997b: 72-74). To respond to this unconducive
situation, Wahid wrote an article titled “Dimensi
Kehalusan Budi dan Rasa (The dimension of the
true heart and the true feeling).” (Abdurrahman
Wahid, 1997a: 79-82). This article focuses on the
important role of the heart which would create
meaningful human beings, namely in the form of
living in harmony. This article was to criticize
those who value highly the role of ideologies
and who, accordingly, consider life based on
the formal truth of ideologies. As a result, life
was full of conicts. In the view of ideology, life
would be full of regulations and just based on
mathematical calculation, which would cause a
decit in the meaning of life. This kind of thought
tended to value highly the role of reason for
solving the problems of human beings. In fact,

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President Abdurrahman Wahid’s Eorts to Consolidate ...
some modern sciences and technologies are not
able to handle all the problems of human beings
and very often, they have a negative impact on
society. Accordingly, people should take into
their consideration the principle of harmony
without which life would be unbalanced as it
ignores the true heart (Abdurrahman Wahid,
1997a). For Wahid, life was not only directed by
the certainty of the formal ideological truth: in
fact, there are some aspects of human life which
should be taken into consideration such as the
feeling of uncertainty and of emptiness which
would sharpen human beings’ sense of feeling.
This would direct people to the consciousness of
God, the only certain and absolute (Abdurrahman
Wahid, 1997a). This writing implies that all
ideologies should develop the principle of
mutual give and take for their relevancy in
the contemporary era to solve the problems of
human beings.
Islamic parties lost in the general election on 7
June 1999 and none of them passed the electoral
threshold, except PPP, the old party which
campaigned on the basis of Shari’a (Suhelmi,
1999: 122). Furthermore, electoral gain of
Islamic parties as well as Muslim based parties,
namely PKB and PAN, was less that than that of
their voice in the general election of 1955. This
implies that the political dichotomy between
the secular paradigm and the Islamic paradigm
had subsided so some Muslim leaders were also
represented in the secular parties, especially
Golkar. Accordingly, it was not relevant to assume
that the role of Islamic leaders had decreased as
they were able to manoeuvre to challenge the
candidacy of Megawati as president from PDI-P
the rst rank in the general election.
Based on the principle of the state of balancing
(Abdurrahman Wahid, 2004: vii-x), Wahid felt
free to accept the offer of presidential candidacy
by the coalition of Muslim parties called the
Centre Axis because it enabled him to take the
role of mediating the conicting interests of
the secular nationalists and those of Muslim
nationalists. In line with this, PKB, the political
wing of NU under the auspices of Wahid’s
leadership, formally proposed Wahid as the
candidate for president. It looked like Wahid
acted undemocratically as he did not support
the right of Megawati of PDIP as the winner
of the rst general election in 1999 in the post-
Soeharto regime. Personally, Wahid supported
the right of Megawati to be the next Indonesian
president in the next general assembly of MPR,
but she did not make enough efforts to convince
Islamic parties that she would pursue policies
in favour of Muslim interests. Indeed, PDIP
had signicant support from non-Muslim and
the secular Muslims, but it was not true to state
that PDIP did not pay attention to the interest of
Muslims as some of its legislatures were devoted
Muslims. I can understand the worry of Islamic
parties that Megawati as the general leader of
PDIP would not make any political deal with
them related to the governmental affairs. It was
common in the Indonesian presidential system
to accommodate the representatives of quite
signicantly different socio-political groups to
run the country. Moreover, these political parties
were worried about the ability of Megawati to
solve the issues of Muslim affairs as she did not
develop good communication with some Islamic
groups.
Wahid evaluated that the general election just
provided an instrumental tool for establishing
democracy, such as: to make radical changes to
some regulations about operational mechanisms
for running government; to regulate properly
the relationship as well as the authority of
central government and provincial and local
governments; to create professional military
apparatus; and to arrange some governmental
institutions in order to run effectively (Iskandar,
2004: 3-4). However, it did not guarantee to
avoid any outbreak of violence in the society.
In the case of the 1999 general election, it did
not result in the majority win of PDIP and
accordingly, PDIP had to share power with
other parties. Moreover, this general election
was only to choose representatives of people
from political parties; meanwhile MPR, whose
duty is to elect the president, recognized the
representatives of different social groups. In this
regard, Megawati was not able to convince the
majority members of MPR to choose her to hold
the ofce of president so that she was overrun by
Wahid, another candidate for president. Wahid
was an alternative candidate to the modernist
Muslims who had supported President B.J.
Habibie to rule Indonesia for the next ve years.
President Habibie did not continue his ambition
of becoming the presidential candidate following
his failure to obtain approval for his presidential
report by MPR. President Habibie also had been

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portrayed by his opponents as the right hand of
the authoritarian Soeharto so that some Muslims
considered it was not good to support the B.J.
Habibie as president candidate. His electability
also decreased signicantly with the separation
of East Timor from Indonesia. Accordingly,
Wahid was the best choice for the major members
of MPR to moderate the conict between the
supporters of Megawati and those of President
B.J. Habibie. On the next day, Wahid’s party PKB
persuaded other parties to choose Megawati as
the vice-president with the purpose of avoiding
an outbreak of anarchy by Megawati’s followers,
as further violence would be detrimental to the
prospect of democracy in Indonesia. It was likely
that Megawati would lose in the vote for vice-
president as her party failed to make alliances
with other parties.
C.2. Abdurrahman Wahid’s Presidential Ofce
as a Tool for Consolidating Democracy
The willingness of Wahid to be president
candidate was related to his concern about
resurging sectarian politics (Muhaimin Iskandar,
2004: 3) and Wahid did not want to see the
destruction of the Republic of Indonesian
because of ideological conicts (Sinta Nuriyah
Rahman, 2000: 298-299). Upon the amendment
of the Constitution of 1945 by the Special
Session of MPR, there arose ideological debates
in newspaper about the relationship between
religion, especially Islam, and state. At that
time, Wahid was very busy with his political
manoeuvres related to his presidential candidacy
and his followers responded to this issue, the
new generation of NU, such as Rumadi. This
polemic started with the article in Kompas
titled “Status Quo atau Politik Sekuler” (Status
Quo or the Secular Politic) written by Denny
J.A. of the camp of the secular paradigm. This
article was responded by H.A. Sumargono, the
follower of Natsir, who wrote an article titled
“Isu Agama dan Sekulerisme Politik” (Religious
Issue and the Secular Politic). The main issue of
the polemic was, in essence, still the same with
that of Soekarno and Natsir; the only differences
were related to the facts used to support their
arguments (Suhelmi, 1999: 123-4).
The fact of Wahid’s upbringing in the Islamic
tradition and of his being well versed in modern
thought contributed to his role of mediating the
interest of the secularists and that of the Islamists.
In this regard, Wahid offered the Fiqh-plus
paradigm to solve the tension between secularists
and Islamists, as this paradigm recognizes both
the concept of secular state and Islam as the
source of values. In so doing, the secular state
was not detrimental to the development of
religion, especially Islam, but to what extent was
this model useful for unifying Muslims to build a
modern Indonesian state? Indeed, Muslims were
divided into three different paradigms that were
the secular, the Islamic ideological, and the Fiqh
paradigms. However, this paper will focus on
the response of the Fiqh paradigm to the Islamic
ideological paradigm, as the secular paradigm
was not able to develop solid arguments to
counter the issues developed by the Islamists.
Most Muslims accepted Pancasila as the
foundation of the state, but some of them tried to
interpret Pancasila with Shari’a. We can call the
latter the supporters of Islamic ideology and those
who did not want to do so were the supporters of
the Fiqh paradigm, concerned with the cultural
approach of Islam. In this regard, although
President Habibie had a strong connection with
the late Soeharto because both were tied to the
national ideology of Pancasila, he, as the leader
of ICMI, experienced a strong opposition from
the followers of the secular paradigm. Indeed, he
represented the interest from the supporters of
ideological Islam which tried to use the state to
support the cause of Islam. On other hand, Wahid
tried to interpret Pancasila based on the theory of
the secular state which recognizes the separation
between religious affairs and political affairs. In
this regard, he supported Soeharto’s legacy of
de-ideologization (Abdurrahman Wahid, 1997b:
71-72).
In fact the trend of political Islam in the form of
the dominant role of Islam in the public sphere
continued increasing. Its supporters persisted
in seeing Pancasila as an open ideology which
should be lled with Shari’a, so they struggled
to reinstall the seven words of Jakarta Charter
in the next amendment of the Constitution. This
became the agendas of the Islamic parties, PPP
(Partai Persatuan Pembangunan, the United
Development Party) and PBB (Partai Bulan
Bintang, the Crescent and Star Party), in the
Special Session within the Annual Assembly of
MPR in August 2000. In this regard, the Islamic
party PK (Partai Keadilan, Justice Party) did not
propose this agenda just for tactical purposes as

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Saefur Rochmat :
President Abdurrahman Wahid’s Eorts to Consolidate ...
it did not pass the electoral threshold. I feel sure
that PK would have the same mission with other
Islamic parties of implementing Shari’a if it had
strong voices in parliament. By so doing, PK
tried to build a party with the positive image of
an open party of youth Muslims with the slogans
of being professional, clean and free from
corruption, and dedicated to good government.
Indeed, the majority of parliament members
refused the inclusion of the seven words which
would open the possibility for the politicization
of religion by the ruling party. Of course, this
inclusion of these seven words violated the
principle of democracy which recognizes the
rights of all citizens of having equality before
the law. Wahid believed that individual devotion
to the religion was an individual right free from
any intervention, including the state. Once the
state intervenes into this private matter, people
lose their independence in the most personal
dimension of life. On other hand, this may direct
towards the sacralisation of politics.
The drive of Islamic ideology was still strong,
such as manifest in parliament’s decisions at
its special assembly on 10-13 November 1999
which enabled holding a referendum to replace
the national ideology of Pancasila as well as to
put an end to the policy of Pancasila becoming
the only organisational foundation for political
parties and mass organisations. In this regard,
Wahid considered that the ofce of president
was very important to uphold the Constitution of
1945 and Pancasila as the foundation for building
democratic state. He viewed his presidential post
as a tool for realizing the goal of establishing a
democratic state. For that purpose, he believed
that Pancasila should be interpreted following
the theory of secularization in the view of the
Fiqh paradigm. By so doing he tried to moderate
the ideological tension between those who aspire
to the secular paradigm and those to the Islamic
ideology paradigm (Rochmat, 2014: 310-11).
As soon as he was elected as the president, in the
celebration of Nuzulul Qur’an in Istiqlal mosque
in Jakarta in 24 December 1999, Wahid stated
that the government did not want to monopolize
the denition of religion, and on the other hand,
no religion had the right to monopolize the course
of the government. The follow up of this speech
was the issuance of President Decree Number
6 Year 2000 in 19 January 2000 to stop the
effect of President Order Number 14 Year 1967
which mentions only 5 religions recognized by
the government. Of course, the Islamic radical
groups protested about this President Decree
(Muhamin Iskandar, 2004: 163).
It was likely that President Wahid did not want
to follow the Central Axis’s political agendas
and just committed to the Constitution and
Pancasila. Three days following his appointment
of president at the event of “Indonesia Next”
in Jimbaran, Bali, he expressed his intention
of opening a trade relationship with Israel
(Muhaimin Iskandar, 2004: 14-17). Moreover,
on 29 March 2000 at the 19th graduation and
anniversary ceremony of Islamic University of
Malang (Universitas Islam Malang, Unisma) he
also expressed his idea of the annulations of Tap
MPRS Number XXV Year 1966 which banned
Communism. However, this regulation had
been used by the Seoharto regime to execute,
improperly, political exclusion of the members
and followers of Indonesian Communist Party
(PKI) as well as their families, so as to void of
their rights to being civil servants (Muhaimin
Iskandar, 2004: 32-37). By doing so, Wahid did
not have opportunities to socialize the Fiqh-plus
paradigm to other Muslims outside of NU as he
attracted strong attacks from those who aspired
for the dominant role of Islam in public life.
The rst shot at Wahid was their accusation that
Wahid did not want to help the Muslims being
attacked by Christians in Ambon, Tobelo, Buru,
Ternate and Tidore. In Parliament, Islamists
coordinated their effort through the caucus of
the Central Axis which formerly supported
Wahid as the president and they also held some
demonstrations (Muhaimin Iskandar, 2004: 123).
C.3. President Wahid’s Further
Efforts to Consolidate the
Indonesian Transition to Democracy.
C.3.a. Supporting Civil Society
President Wahid wanted to develop civil society
as the consequence of his advocacy of the Fiqh
paradigm that does not want to set Islam as
political ideology, but is just concerned with a
democratic state. The consolidation of democracy
required a strong support of civil society. In line
with this, he tried to create a political balance
between the state and society. For that purpose,
he dissolved the ministries of social affairs and

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information. It was not due to the previous
malpractice of these two departments, but also
reected the direction of the future relationship
between the state and society which would
reduce the role of the state and enlarge the role
of society. Wahid convinced that social and
information affairs should be handled by society
in the pursuance of a strong civil society. Up
to that time, the existence of the department of
social affairs had caused people to be dependent
on the government and accordingly, it halted the
empowerment of society. Wahid evaluated that
the state should not intervene in people’ societal
affairs and should limit its role to just being a
facilitator. Accordingly, society should handle
social affairs themselves in order to play the role
of civil society (Muhaimin Iskandar, 2004: 8-9).
Wahid dissolved the department of information
with the aim of developing democratic
tradition, namely a free public sphere, such as
by institutionalizing free mass media. During
Soeharto regime, this department represented
an apparatus of the state to maintain the status
quo. It had censored, controlled, and intimidated
mass media for the purpose of fullling the
interest of the government. It also functioned
as “moral watch dog” which denes what
kind of information morally acceptable by the
government (Muhaimin Iskandar, 2004: 10). It
was not easy for Gus Dur to execute this policy
as some politicians in the parliament opposed
this idea as being a premature policy. Indeed,
it was not popular policy in the short term, but
in the long run, it is useful for the development
of civil society. Wahid aspired to the idea that
the mass media could have the role of educating
people.
In the regard of dissolvent of the departments
of information and of social, I evaluate that
President Wahid was very obsessed by his ideas
of the separation between state and civil society.
He did not calculate the political danger for
dissolving both departments. These policies will
enable both the upper and lower ranks of civil
services to unify challenging his presidential
ofce. I would advice that he resisted his
willingness of dissolving these two departments
and, on other side, he just needed to replace
the upper rank of the civil services with the
new ones. The dissolvent of two departments
had become political turbulences which had
fastened his downfall from presidential ofce.
C.3.b. Establishing Civil Supremacy
President Wahid tried to consolidate democracy
by continuing the previous government’s policy
of civil supremacy, where the military institution
is not allowed to be involved in political affairs.
This policy was introduced, rstly, by President
B.J. Habibie, following the fall of the Soeharto
military regime. For that purpose, following
liberal democracy, President B.J. Habibie
separated the ministry of defence and security
from the military institution under a commander
in chief and he appointed a civilian, Prof Yuwono
Sudarsono, to occupy the ofce of the ministry.
Then, President Wahid replaced Prof Juwono
Sudarsono with Prof Mahfud MD, and he gave
him a task of preparing the draft of the Defence
Act to replace the existing Act of 20, 1982
(Muhaimin Iskandar, 2004: 50-52). The concept
of civil supremacy is to create professionalism
both in the governmental system and the military
institution. Accordingly, the military should be
separated from the police, in which the former
is dealing with security in terms of military and
the latter is dealing with security in civil affairs.
During the new order era, the police did not
perform as a partners of the people in handling
security in civil affairs because its actions were
more militaristic (Muhaimin Iskandar, 2004: 47).
Another policy pursued by President Wahid
to consolidate the civil supremacy was to
dissolve Lembaga Penelitian Khusus (Special
Investigation/ Litsus) and Badan Koordinasi
Bantuan Pemantapan Stabilitas Nasional
(Coordinating Agency for National Stability/
Bakorstanas), established by the Soeharto
regime in 1990 and 1998 respectively. This
policy was issued by President Decree No.
38/2000 which annulled President Decree No.
29/1998 on Bakorstanas and President Decree
No. 16/1990 on Litsus. This policy was to treat
the military professionally as well as to dismantle
the repressive system which controlled the
individual freedom. It was worth mentioning
that Bakorstanas was a continuing institution
of Komando Operasi Pemulihan Keamanan
dan Ketertiban (Operational Command for the
Restoration of Security and Order/ Kopkamtib)
which was under the leadership of General
Soedomo. In this regard, Soedomo agreed
with the idea of dissolving Bakorstanas as he
considered it had departed from the original
intention of Kopkamtib. During the reign of

106
Saefur Rochmat :
President Abdurrahman Wahid’s Eorts to Consolidate ...
Soeharto, these two institutions were used to
silence people’s criticism of the regime and their
bureaucracy spread down to the district level.
Last but not least, the control of the individual
freedom also reached the village level as military
personnel established Bintara Pembina Desa
(village supervisory non-commissioned ofcers/
Babinsa) which recruited its members from the
people (Muhaimin Iskandar, 2004: 42-43).
These two institutions played an important
role of identifying all non-government powers
considered as challenging the regime and they
spied on all activities of the people. Moreover,
police also participated in this autocratic regime as
they required people to get their permission in the
case of gathering people, not related to the issue
of security protection, but to silence the people.
These two institutions were in charge of the
arrest of pro-democracy activists by discrediting
them: as left extremists for the followers of
socialism and Marxism; as right extremists for
the followers of religious aspirations, especially
Islamic ones. Accordingly, dismantling these two
institutions was to establish the supremacy of
law which requires the court mechanism to judge
people as being guilty or not guilty (Muhaimin
Iskandar, 2004: 42-45).
President Wahid considered the civil supremacy
was not a kind of domination of civil over military
as a personal member of the army was eligible to
participate in political affairs, with the condition
of leaving his/her military status; besides he/she
should pursue his/her political interest through a
democratic mechanism. Indeed, it was not easy
for him to implement this idea of civil supremacy
as the military had strong political power as it
controlled the strategic civil positions. Moreover,
the civil power, especially the politicians, did
not have a common platform useful to limit the
involvement of the military in politics. It was so
naive that some politicians asked for the help
of the military to support their narrow minded
political agendas and accordingly, the military
made use of this civil political fragmentation
to regain its military inuence (Muhaimin
Iskandar, 2004: 31). Some politicians of the
caucus of the Central Axis cooperated with the
military to remove Wahid from his presidential
ofce. Accordingly, President Wahid failed to
put the general in chief under the control of the
minister of defence and security (Muhaimin
Iskandar, 2004: 52). Indeed, the military still
had real political power so that it could play a
crucial role behind the political manoeuvres of
the Central Axis (Ahmad Suaedy, 2010: xvii).
The political inuence of the military manifested
clearly in Tap MPR Number VI and VII Year
2000 which recognizes a general in chief and the
head of police as having equivalent rank to the
ministry. These Taps blocked President Wahid’s
effort of positioning the military and the police
under civil control (Mahfud MD, 2010: 17).
C.3.c. Establishing Law Enforcement
It is law enforcement which would support the
establishment of democracy as it would provide
justice and welfare to people. Injustice and social
disparities happen because law enforcement
does not run properly, which implies democracy
does not prevail. Therefore, President Wahid
employed some strategies to improve the service
as well as the protection of law for the people.
For that purpose, he established the National
Law Commission (Komisi Hukum Nasional,
KHN) on February 18, 2000 in the form of the
Presidential Regulation No. 15 Year 2000 with
the aim of preparing the daft on law reformation
favourable to the law supremacy and human
rights. For this, he appointed Prof J.E. Sahetapy,
who, rstly, would like to reform the bureaucracy
of the law institutions (Muhaimin Iskandar,
2004: 57).
President Wahid also established another
institution for establishing law enforcement,
namely the National Commission of Ombudsmen
(Komisi Ombudsman Nasional), on March 20,
2000 by the Presidential Decree No. 44 Year 2000,
and appointed Anton Sujata SH as its head ofcer.
This institution was to endorse law enforcement
which did not run smoothly, so that it was not
overlapping with the existing law institutions.
This is due to this institution not dealing with
the technical procedures, just concerned with
the people’s complaints, however, having rights
of having clarication from the government and
judicial institutions apparatus. The focus of this
institution is the institutions of police, judicial
affairs, and public prosecutor. Wahid endorsed
the people to monitor the implementation of the
law enforcement which constitutes an important
part of the implementation of democracy.
Hopefully this would minimize misuses of power
and authority by the state apparatus (Muhaimin

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Journal of Islam and Humanities, Vol. 1(2), Mei 2017
Iskandar, 2004: 55-58).
President Wahid had planned to create a
Constitution Court (Mahkamah Konstitusi,
MK), but his plan did not materialize as he
was removed from his presidency. This plan is
implicitly expressed in his article below:
“Accordingly, it is unconstitutional for
the state apparatus to violate law or
neglect the people’s rights by means of
the ofcer’s regulation or the series of
the constitutional regulations. However,
what institution would evaluation
the validity of decree, policy, and
regulation?” (Syaiful Arif, 2009: 269).
4. Conclusion
Abdurrahman Wahid became the President of the
Republic of Indonesia because of his inspiring
ideas of democracy, not the support of his
political party PKB (the Awakening Party of the
Nation). These ideas of democracy were able to
mediate the tension between the two opposing
groups, namely the nationalist groups and the
Islamist groups (Poros Tengah, the Central Axis).
It was due to his ideas of democracy already
adapted to the Islamic tradition and he himself
also came from Islamic group, namely Nahdlatul
Ulama. Indeed, he already tried to unify the
modern system of knowledge to the Islamic one
by employing the qh-plus paradigm. In doing
so, he did not develop a legal formal approach to
the relationship between Islam and the state, but
pursued a political approach, enabling Muslim to
participate fully in the national political system.
By so doing, Muslim just concern with the
universal values such as democracy, toleration,
justice, freedom, and equality by the law, so
that they are able to develop cooperation with
the followers of other religions. In line with
this, religious groups play a role of civil society,
which would provide checks and balances to the
state, as the requirement for the development of
democracy.
Abdurrahman Wahid made uses of his
presidential ofce to consolidate the transition
of democracy from the Soeharto authoritarian
regime. He had done some big efforts, such as
by supporting civil society, establishing civil
supremacy, and law enforcement. For that
purposes, he was very brave to gambling with
his ofce of President as he did not have enough
political support from his party PKB. In doing
so, he got some challenges from some groups,
previously supporting him to be President. First,
he got strong challenges from the Central Axis,
the main group contribute to his winning of the
presidential election. He did not want to give some
privileges to them as these would contravene the
principles of democracy. Secondly, his efforts of
establishing civil supremacy radically got strong
challenges from the elites of the military. Last but
not the least, he was also challenged by his rival at
the presidential election, namely vice-President
Megawati Soekarno Puteri of the nationalist group
PDI-P who still had ambition to be President.
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