The politics of clientelism in Indonesia during Joko Widodo presidency; an analysis of the weakening legislative oversight role the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR) 2014-2024

This research aims to analyse parliamentary oversight in Indonesia post-political reform. In particular, this study captures the relations between the president, party leaders, and members of parliament in shaping the decline of Indonesia’s parliamentary oversight. Parliamentary oversight is a key issue of Indonesia’s democratic politics in the post reform era. The 1945 amendment to Indonesia’s Constitution after political reform in 1998 brought about a significant shift for parliament in the post-Suharto body politic. There has been a significant institutional shift in power, away from the executive branch to parliament. This research adopts a case study model to analyse how the Indonesian Parliament (DPR-Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat) carried out its oversight of the President’s policies between 2014 and 2024 when the DPR’s level of oversight was at its lowest point. The 1999-2014 post-reform period indicated a trend where the DPR enhanced its oversight role and function. However, in the period between 2014 and 2024 this trend began to reverse with the DPR’s oversight role starting to decline. One argument attributed to this decline is the weakness of the DPR as a result of the coalition government formed by the president where majority parties in the DPR have shared seats in the cabinet. The president’s success in building a coalition-based government with power sharing among party leaders has in turn enabled him to enjoy more support at DPR. However, such an argument appears too general in nature and therefore this study attempts to go beyond the coalition government argument. Alternatively, the weakness of the DPR is in effect due to the exclusive relations between the president and party leaders that has encouraged party leaders to enforce party discipline which made the legislature’s oversight role less effective. This novelty of this research is in terms of the understanding of relations between the president, party leaders, and DPR members, that goes beyond existing institution-based justifications which may hamper the quality of check and balances between the DPR and the president.