Indonesia’s New Military Law and the Ghost of Consensus-Based Constitutional Transition

Abdurrachman Satrio

Abdurrachman Satrio is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Law Universitas Trisakti, Indonesia.

On 20 March 2025, the Indonesian House of Representatives (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, DPR) passed a controversial amendment to Law No. 34 of 2004 concerning the Indonesian National Military (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, TNI). This amendment, which expands the scope for active-duty military officers to occupy civilian positions without resigning from military service, has sparked mass protests, particularly among university students in major cities across the country.

The controversy surrounding this new Military Law is twofold. Substantively, it marks a serious erosion of post-authoritarian norms regarding the separation of civilian and military spheres. Procedurally, the law was enacted behind closed doors, with minimal transparency and no meaningful public participation. Deliberations were held not in the Parliamentary complex but in a heavily guarded private hotel—raising alarm about both the form and content of democratic governance in Indonesia today.

This situation, coupled with Indonesia’s struggle to produce a stable liberal-democratic constitutionalism after more than two decades since the transition to democracy in 1998, has made many observers believe that Indonesia is currently on the course of heading back to the situation before 1998 when it had not yet transitioned to democracy. At that time, Indonesia implemented the doctrine of dual function (popularly known in Indonesia as dwifungsi), which allowed the military to exercise sweeping political influence in the civilian sphere, and this doctrine has become the beacon of General Soeharto’s autocratic New Order regime.

In this brief post, I argue that the recent enactment of the new Military Law cannot be explained solely by President Prabowo Subianto’s alleged personal ambition in broadening the role of the military in civilian governance. Rather, it must also be understood as a consequence of Indonesia’s consensus-based democratic transition undertaken between 1999 and 2002, which contributed to the emergence of the structural problems within the military institution itself.

The Consensus-Based Transition

Indonesia’s transition to democracy was triggered by Soeharto’s resignation in May 1998, after 32 years as President, amidst a nationwide political and economic crisis. This sudden fall of Soeharto led to demands from the public to amend the 1945 Constitution, which provided “the framework for the authoritarian states created by both Soeharto and his predecessor, Soekarno, the nation's first President.” This gave rise to sweeping constitutional reform between 1999 and 2002. Rather than discarding the 1945 Constitution outright, the reformers opted for a process of gradual, consensus-driven amendment. This mode of transition—described by Donald Horowitz as a “processual deviation”—favored incremental change and elite bargaining over rupture or revolutionary discontinuity.

The reason for this was that the constitutional reform process emphasized the achievement of consensus among every camp involved in the transition, including members of the past regime. And there is a reasonable explanation for why Indonesia chose this path in its transition to democracy. During the late 1990s until the early 2000s, Indonesia's conditions were not conducive to being able to perform the transition. For example, at that time the opposition was very fragmented so there was an absence of “a single leader who could speak for the entire opposition”, and the position of the military as the main supporter of the previous authoritarian regime was still heavily entrenched in the political system.

Consequently, for the transition that began in 1998 to succeed, it had to proceed gradually through extensive negotiations among the various political factions, especially within the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the institution vested with constitutional amendment powers. At the time, the military still held reserved seats in the MPR so as to ensure its continued influence over the reform process.

Despite these constraints, the reform process succeeded in democratizing the substance of the 1945 Constitution. One of the most important results of this process was the agreement to abolish the military dual function, by enshrining the separation of military and police roles in Articles 30(2) and (4) of the amended Constitution. These provisions distinguish the military’s role in national defense from the police’s responsibility for maintaining internal security and public order. This agreement was made possible by the military caucus in the People’s Consultative Assembly, which approved the change in exchange for a critical concession: the future civilian government would refrain from intervening in the military internal affairs, including efforts to prosecute military personnel for past human rights violations. This bargain was reinforced in Article 28(1) of the amended Constitution, which guarantees “the right to not be prosecuted under a retroactive law.” It is this constitutional compromise that now resurfaces as a central obstacle to democratic consolidation.

The Spectre of the Past

One of the reasons that prompted the enactment of the new Military Law was a structural imbalance within the Military (TNI): an overabundance of middle- and high-ranking officers (perwira tinggi dan menengah) with no corresponding operational roles. This situation stems from recruitment patterns under the New Order, when excess officer intake was justified by the military’s wide-ranging civilian roles under dwifungsi. Following the transition, as those civilian roles were curtailed, many officers found themselves without clear placements—a phenomenon now referred to as non-job status.

This consequence was not felt at the beginning when Indonesia transitioned to democracy because early in their careers when they were still low-ranking officers, there were many positions with a clear role within the military that these officers could occupy. However, it was a ticking time bomb, because once these officers started to climb the ranking ladder providing a position became much more difficult, due to the structure of the military which has a smaller number of positions for officers with a higher rank. This is the reason why the military is eager to re-establish their dual function role like in the past.

So far, the attitude of the Indonesian government and the civilian politicians after the transition was to avoid a direct conflict with the military—ie, continuing with the consensus approach used during the constitutional reform process. Such an approach, however, also entailed the absence of a solution to the organizational problem within the military. Nonetheless, most of Indonesia's Presidents after the transition to democracy to some extent were able to reject the military’s demand to re-occupy civilian positions. This is, however, not the case for the current President, Prabowo Subianto. Subianto is unlikely to resist this pressure, because of his strong ties to the military as a former general who led the army’s elite unit. Furthermore, he is also one of the figures who benefited the most from the consensus-based approach that resulted in the refusal to intervene in the military internal problems, including prosecuting its past human rights abuses—ie, Subianto himself was suspected of being involved in serious crimes, notably the kidnapping of pro-democracy activists during the New Order era.

Moreover, Subiato’s leadership style—characterized by political accommodation—is rooted in Javanese priyayi etiquette that privileges consensus and the maintenance of harmony over contestation. His formation of a broad, inclusive cabinet following the 2024 election (which included rivals and former opponents) reflects this cultural-political orientation. But such an approach, while stabilizing in the short term, has left him vulnerable to institutional pressures—particularly from his former colleagues in the military.

It is within this context that the new Military Law must be understood: not simply as an authoritarian relapse, but as a manifestation of structural tensions left unresolved by a transition that prioritized elite consensus over institutional rupture. The consensus model that once ensured a peaceful exit from dictatorship now appears to be enabling the quiet return of military influence in civilian affairs.

This illustrates how the legacies of a consensus-based constitutional transition can produce unintended and regressive consequences over time. What was once a pragmatic compromise—necessary to shepherd Indonesia through a volatile post-authoritarian moment—has ossified into an institutional equilibrium that privileges elite stability over democratic deepening.

Abdurrachman Satrio is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Law Universitas Trisakti, Indonesia.

Suggested citation: Abdurrachman Satrio, ‘Indonesia’s New Military Law and the Ghost of Consensus-Based Constitutional Transition’ IACL-AIDC Blog (29 April 2025) Indonesia’s New Military Law and the Ghost of Consensus-Based Constitutional Transition — IACL-IADC Blog