March 20, 2025
JAKARTA – Democracy activists and students are intensifying their opposition to a revision to the Indonesian Military (TNI) Law that would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs, as the House of Representatives plans to pass the controversial bill in an upcoming plenary session.
The legislature, controlled by parties supporting President Prabowo Subianto, is planning to pass the revision on Thursday, less than two months after the President formally requested an amendment to the legislation.
“God willing, [the bill] will be passed in the upcoming plenary session, which is currently scheduled for tomorrow,” said Golkar Party legislator Dave Laksono, who is deputy chair of House Commission I overseeing military, defense and foreign affairs, on Wednesday.
Commission I member TB Hasanuddin of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) confirmed to The Jakarta Post that the bill would be put up for passage at a plenary session on Thursday.
The plan came after lawmakers fast-tracked the bill’s deliberations, including by holding a series of closed-door meetings with government officials last weekend at a high-end hotel in Jakarta.
The move sparked an outcry from democracy activists and students, who feared that the revisions would expand the role of the TNI in civilian spheres, reviving the Soeharto-era dwifungsi (dual function) system, which allowed the armed forces to dominate public life and crush dissent.
Since taking office in October of last year, Prabowo, a former Army general, has been criticized for increasingly relying on the TNI to run large portions of his flagship free nutritious meals program and some national strategic projects, such as a food estate in Merauke, South Papua.
More civilian roles?
In a draft seen by the Post, the TNI Law revisions sought to increase the number of state institutions to which military officers could be appointed without having to retire early or resign from the service. The bill also aimed to expand the TNI’s noncombat operations and increase officers’ mandatory retirement age.
The current law only permits active military officers to take civilian positions in seven state institutions overseeing defense, security and intelligence, as well as the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) and the Supreme Court, which oversees military courts.
The draft revision sought to expand this to include five other state agencies, including the Attorney General’s Office, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), the Maritime Security Agency (Bakamla) and the National Agency for Border Management (BNPP).
Critics have also slammed a provision in the bill allowing the TNI to run noncombat operations based on orders in a government regulation or a presidential regulation. They say it will prevent the general public from participating in the process through their representatives in the legislature, as mandated by the prevailing version of the TNI Law.
Growing objections
Both lawmakers and government officials have downplayed public concerns that the revisions are a prelude to another authoritarian era. They note that they have added a provision requiring active-duty soldiers to retire early before assuming civilian posts in institutions not listed in the legislation.
But the reassurances have failed to squash concerns among rights activists that the TNI Law revision may blur the boundary between civilian and military affairs, which could erode civilian supremacy in the government.
“Since the beginning, we have repeatedly pushed that the revision holds no urgency,” said Annisa Yudha Apriliasari of human rights group Imparsial. “The final draft will still pave the way for the expansion of the military’s role in the civilian bureaucracy.”
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) concurred, saying its study of the bill’s deliberation found that the lawmakers had not conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the implementation of the prevailing TNI Law and therefore could not know whether there was any need to revise it.
The commission’s deputy chair, Abdul Haris Semendawai, added that the deliberations were carried out with little meaningful participation from civic groups.
“The revision process raises a risk of legislative practices that are against democratic governance based on the rule of law,” he said during a press briefing on Wednesday, before calling on the House to at least postpone the bill’s passage.
Opposition continued to grow a day before the scheduled plenary session, with students and scholars from various universities, including Gadjah Mada University and Indonesian Islamic University (UII) in Yogyakarta, urging lawmakers and the government to drop the plan to pass the bill into law.
Multiple student organizations under the umbrella of the National Association of University Student Executive Bodies (BEM SI) are planning to stage protests in front of the Senayan legislative complex in Jakarta on Thursday. They say the bill’s deliberation process has alienated the general public.
“The military bill will harm our democracy […] and betray the people’s mandate,” the student group wrote in a post published on its Instagram account.