(1901–1970), nationalist leader and Indonesia's first president. Sukarno emerged as a major figure in the nationalist movement in the second half of the 1920s, both for his spellbinding oratory and for his eclectic political philosophy, which emphasized unity amongst nationalists to counter Dutch power. After studying engineering in Bandung, Sukarno founded the Partai Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National Party) in 1927, and was jailed for sedition in 1929. He was released in 1932, but in 1933 he was exiled to Flores and from 1938 to Bengkulu. He was the most prominent nationalist figure to work with the Japanese occupation authorities after 1942, and heapplied his oratory both to supporting the Japanese war effort and to spreading covert nationalist messages. As a member of the independence preparatory body Badan Penyelidik Usaha Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia, he formulated the Pancasila in June 1945 as a statement of the moral and philosophical principles that united the otherwise disparate nationalist movement.
A choir performs beneath a huge portrait of Sukarno in Blitar on 20 June 2001 to mark the 31st anniversary of his death. (AFP/CORBIS)
As the nationalist figure with broadest national standing, he was chosen president after the declaration of independence in August 1945, but his past collaboration with the Japanese was a liability in international negotiations and he was largely excluded from executive power. During the parliamentary period (1950–1957), his role remained ceremonial but he became increasingly vocal in criticizing the parliamentary system as divisive and ineffective. From 1957 he made cabinets answer to him, rather than to Parliament, and in 1959 he restored the short-lived 1945 constitution, which gave him enormous executive power. He called his political system "Guided Democracy," and emphasized its alleged roots in traditional Indonesian practice. He particularly praised musyawarah (thorough consultation) and mufakat (consensus as expressed by community leaders) as a system preferable to majority rule. In 1963 he was declared president-for-life.
As executive president, he paid little attention to administration but focused instead on nation-building, developing a unifying national ideology (NASAKOM, nationalism-religion-communism), recovering West Irian (West New Guinea), which remained under Dutch rule, and generally combatting Western imperialism. Infrastructure and administration crumbled during the early 1960s, leading to great hardship. Tension between the army and the Communist Party over the likely successor to Sukarno became enormous by 1965, culminating in an ambiguous abortive leftist coup in October 1965, which enabled General Suharto to begin pushing Sukarno from power. Sukarno ceded his executive powers to Suharto in March 1966 and was stripped of the presidency in March 1967. He died in 1970 under house arrest.
Further Reading
Dahm, Bernhard. (1969) Sukarno and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press
Legge, J. D. (1984) Sukarno: A Political Bibliography. 2nd ed. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
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