The acting presidency of Suharto followed the transition to the New Order in which Army General Suharto assumed presidential powers. The term lasted from 12 March 1967 until 27 March 1968, when Suharto was officially inaugurated as the second president of Indonesia.
Appointment to the acting presidency
By February 1967, President Sukarno, realizing that his political career was at an end, became concerned at cutting his losses. On 7 February, he sent a letter to Suharto saying that he was willing to hand over the running of the government to the general but also added that he would like to continue on as head of state. In the time between the arrival of that letter and the formulation of the reply, the People's Representative Council (DPR) passed a resolution which called for a special session of the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS). Suharto, accompanied by the commanders of the navy, air force, and police, met with Sukarno on 11 February to reject his offer and to wait instead for the result of the MPRS special session.
On 20 February 1967, Sukarno chose to relinquish all executive power to Suharto whilst still retaining his position as president. Sukarno's decision did not stop the DPR from insisting that the MPRS special session go ahead. Originally calling for an MPRS special session to be held for the purpose of reviewing Sukarno's performance as well as reaching a final decision on whether or not he was involved with the 30 September Movement (G30S), the DPR now asked that the MPRS special session add Suharto's appointment as acting president to the agenda.
The special session was opened on 7 March 1967, located in present-day Istora Gelora Bung Karno. On that day, Suharto delivered a speech absolving Sukarno of any involvement with the G30S. The special session now turned on the matter of the presidency. Such was the intensive debate surrounding this matter that the special session did not finish on 11 March 1967 as intended but had to go for another extra day. But when the decision was finally made, it was unanimous. On 12 March 1967, the MPRS agreed to withdraw its mandate from Sukarno and remove him as president. Suharto replaced Sukarno as acting president.
Cabinet Suharto retained the Ampera Cabinet, which had been formed by him in July 1966. He reshuffled this cabinet in October 1967 and created the Revised Ampera Cabinet.
Home affairs Legislative elections The 1966 MPRS General Session passed a resolution calling for legislative elections to be held no later than 5 July 1968 and this became one of the first matters that Suharto attempted to address during his acting presidency. In doing this, he would have to deal with political parties.The political parties were the Indonesian National Party (PNI), the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the Indonesian Islamic Union Party (PSII), the Islamic Education Movement (Perti), the Indonesian Christian Party (Parkindo), the Catholic Party, the League of Supporters of Indonesian Independence (IPKI), Murba Party, and the Joint Secretariat of Functional Groups (Sekber Golkar)
For the political parties, the main point of contention was whether the legislative election would use the district system or proportional representation. In the previous year, the armed forces had expressed interest in the district system and thus handed to the DPR an election bill which favors the district system. The bill was successfully blocked in the DPR, as the list of parties not wanting change to the district system included the Indonesian National Party (PNI) and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). With time running out, Suharto needed to hammer out a compromise.
Suharto held a series of meetings during the first three months of his acting presidency with the leadership of the political parties. To accommodate the political parties, Suharto backed out of the notion of a district system and began supporting proportional representation; the trade-off being that the Government would be able to appoint some of the DPR members. The breakthrough was made on 25 July 1967, when the political parties agreed that the legislative election would be held using proportional representation, that the government will appoint 100 MPs out of the 460 in the DPR, and that the government would appoint 1/3 of the deputies of the new People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).
Despite the breakthrough it quickly became clear that it would be difficult to meet the deadline set by the MPRS. The bill would have to be rewritten and would have to go through the proper procedures before it could be passed. The bill was resubmitted to the DPR on 16 December 1967 but by January 1968, Suharto reported to the chairman and vice-chairmen of the MPRS that it would be impossible to hold a Legislative Election in 1968.
Dealing with Sukarno The MPRS Resolution which appointed Suharto to the acting presidency also gave him the power to take legal action against Sukarno. Suharto chose not to take any legal action and instead, Sukarno was still allowed to reside at the Presidential Palace and enjoy his freedom. Suharto also continued to insist that Sukarno was still the Head of State. Speaking on 13 March 1967, Suharto insisted that Sukarno was still President and Head of State, although without the political power that came with the office. This state of affairs did not last long. By May, Suharto decided that Sukarno was no longer allowed to use the title of President of the Republic of Indonesia and placed the former president under house arrest at Bogor Palace.
Other policies During the course of 1967, Suharto confirmed that West Papua would be given a plebiscite concerning the matter of integration with Indonesia—the Act of Free Choice. On 12 September 1967, he signed a bill into a law which approved the formation of Bengkulu Province. Shortly thereafter, 1 October was declared Pancasila Sanctity Day on 27 September.
Foreign affairs
The idea of pooling together the nations of Southeast Asia into one organization came from Thanat Khoman the Thai minister of foreign affairs. He suggested the idea to Indonesia's minister of foreign affairs, Adam Malik who promised to bring it up with Suharto. Suharto was interested in the idea and sent Malik to a conference in Thailand in August 1967. The conference was also attended by the ministers of foreign affairs of Malaysia, Singapore, and Philippines. On 8 August 1967, the five foreign ministers signed the Bangkok Declaration, marking the formation of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The declaration called among other things for the cooperation to help accelerate economic growth and promote stability in the region.
The reversal of Sukarno's policy of confrontation with Malaysia was completed with the establishment of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and Malaysia in early September 1967. At the same time, diplomatic relations were also established with Singapore with the opening of an Indonesian Embassy there. Running contrary to these two diplomatic successes was the deterioration of Indonesia's relationship with the People's Republic of China. The perception of the Indonesian Government was that China had backed the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). The deterioration was not helped by the fact that the response to Indonesia's suspicion was the ideological zeal of China's Cultural Revolution. In October 1967, Indonesia announced that it was freezing diplomatic relations with China.
The emergence of Suharto as acting president was well received by the Western countries, who was keen to not only invest but give aid. Relationship with the Soviet Bloc cooled down, but Suharto would nevertheless work towards repaying the debt incurred during the Sukarno government.
Defense and security The first order of business for Suharto was to give official recognition to the non-military mission and roles of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia (ABRI) as commander in chief, minister of defense, and chief of staff of the army. Measures had been taken to create a doctrinal justification for the armed forces' interference in non-military matters, formulated as and by one of his immediate predecessors as defense minister, Abdul Haris Nasution. This culminated in August 1966 with the formulation of the Four Duties, One Function (, Cadek) Doctrine. The doctrine stated that in addition to its defense and security role, the ABRI will also take part and would serve in other fields outside of the aforementioned functions of defense and security, including politics, culture, education and economy. In a speech to the forces on 31 March 1967, Suharto called on the ABRI to adopt and implement the Cadek Doctrine as part of its official doctrinal basis.
The next step was to continue purging the armed forces and police of any remaining PKI and Sukarnoist elements. Within the army, the most intense purges happened in Central Java, East Java, and North Sumatra with the commanders of the 1st, 4th and 5th Regional Military Commands (Kodam) supervising the areas in question leading the purge. Outside of the army, the air force had been weakened enough by its alleged involvement in the 30 September Movement by its then chief of staff, Omar Dhani. The police tried to resist, but political pressure became too strong for them to overcome. Only the navy resisted, its chief of staff criticizing the purges as practice reminiscent of the Old Order.
Suharto also began reorganizing the command structure of the ABRI. The first step was taken by stripping the commanders of the army, navy, air force and police of their cabinet rank and ministries (the army, navy, air force, and police ministries, which were fused into the Ministry of Defense and Public Security) in August 1967, leaving only the minister of defense and security and the commander of the armed forces with cabinet memberships. Suharto's acting presidency also saw the establishment of the State Intelligence Coordinating Agency (BAKIN), another agency to ensure state security in addition to the Operational Command for the Restoration of Security and Order (Kopkamtib), whose commander was also a member of the cabinet. In addition to all this, Suharto issued a regulation regarding pay for all ABRI active serving personnel. The regulation provided provisions for pay, conditions for pay rise, and the various types of allowances for military personnel in active service and their families.
Beginning in July, Indonesia faced a security problem in the form of the North Kalimantan People's Forces (Paraku) and the People of Sarawak's Guerilla Forces (PGRS), two guerilla armies consisting of people of Chinese ethnicity, with communist leanings, and backed by Beijing. By the end of 1967, ABRI troops, working together with elements of the Malaysian Armed Forces, had made progress but it was unknown as to when the conflict could have been decisively ended.
Justice In an effort to help the government form policy in this field, law enforcement agencies (the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Justice, the Attorney General's Office, and the National Police) held a conference in Cibogo, West Java. The agencies issued a joint communique which called for: elongating working days for legal procedures, increasing the amount of facilities for legal procedures, maximizing the amount of manpower for legal procedures, improving facilities, and improving coordination between the courts, the attorneys, and the police.
In the months leading up to Suharto's assumption of the acting presidency, the trials of Old Order figures revealed that they had been very corrupt. To address this problem and to return any money that belonged to the state, Suharto formed the State Finance Supervision (Pekuneg) in April 1967. However, it would not be long before accusations of corruption were thrown at the new government. Suharto responded to this by forming the Abolition of Corruption Team (TPK) on 2 December 1967.