Provisional Senate of East Indonesia

The State of East Indonesia was formed in the Great East, the area of the Dutch East Indies that the Dutch were able to reassert control over following the Japanese surrender and the Indonesian declaration of independence in August 1945.[1] From 18–24 December 1946, a conference in Denpasar was held to work out the specifics of the state, including producing a provisional constitution, the Denpasar Regulation, which included provision for a senate with unspecified powers. Two years later, at the Second Malino Conference, representatives of the self-governing regions in the State of East Indonesia met and proposed a law establishing the senate. The law was enacted in February 1949.[2] The senate was later formed based on this 1949 Provisional Senate Act.[3][4]

This provisional Senate had the duty to approve, but not the right to amend, the draft constitution drawn up by the special body formed to write it following its approval by the Provisional Representative Body. After the planned constitution was enacted, the senate would have been dissolved, to make way for a definitive Senate, to be put together in accordance with the rules laid down in the constitution. The definitive senate would then give its opinion on the Constitution in a second reading.[5] The senate duly considered the proposed constitution from August to November 1949, and approved it on 30 November.[6]

Under the proposed definitive constitution, the Senate would have had the power to delay legislation for up to a year, although this could be overruled by a two-thirds vote in the Representative Assembly. It would act as an advisory body to the government, which would have to consult it on proposed legislation related to the self-governing areas, which the Senate could veto. However work on the new constitution stopped in early 1950 as it became apparent that East Indonesia was to be dissolved into the Republic of Indonesia.[6][7]

Members of the Provisional Senate of East Indonesia.

There were 13 seats in the Senate, with one seat for each region of East Indonesia. Senate elections were completed in May 1949, with members elected by the ruling bodies in each region. Ten of the thirteen members were local rulers, all of whom who had binding contracts with the Dutch, which obliged them to swear loyalty to the Dutch sovereign and to abide by regulations drawn up by the Dutch. Aristocratic rulers governed 70 percent of the total area of East Indonesia, so the Senate as formed allowed these rulers to retain the powers they had had under Dutch role, while allowing the Dutch to exercise political control over the state. The body was officially inaugurated by the President of East Indonesia, Tjokorda Gde Raka Soekawati, on 28 May 1949.[8][9][10][11][12]

• Bastiaans, W. Ch. J. (1950), Personalia Van Staatkundige Eenheden (Regering en Volksvertegenwoordiging) in Indonesie (per 1 Sept. 1949) (PDF), Jakarta{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Ide Anak Agung Gde Agung (1996) [1995]. From the Formation of the State of East Indonesia Towards the Establishment of the United States of Indonesia. Translated by Owens, Linda. Yayasan Obor. ISBN 979-461-216-2.
• Kahin, George McTurnan (1952). Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
• Ricklefs, M.C. (2001) [1981]. A History of Modern Indonesia Since c.1300 (3rd ed.). Palgrave. ISBN 978-0-230-54685-1.
• Schiller, A. Arthur (1955). The Formation of Federal Indonesia. W. van Hoeve Ltd.
• State of East Indonesia Information Ministry (nd). Pendidikan Politik Rakyat [Public Political Education] (PDF) (in Indonesian). Vol. 1. Makassar: State of East Indonesia Information Ministry.