Indonesia

Indonesia is located in the Southeast Asia and borders the countries Malaysia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea. It also has got a coastline that borders Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Its official name is the Republic of Indonesia and is a sovereign state with a government. Its capital city is Jakarta. It is the fourth populous country in the world with a total population of about 255 million people. Indonesia is also ranked as the most populous country with the most populous country with the most people as Muslim. Most of the country is composed of islands. It is the country with the most number of islands in the world. Indonesia has been growing very fast in the past few years because of trade, and its economy is ranked number sixteen in the world concerning GDP. Its archipelago region has been a trade zone since the seventh century.

Government and Politics

Indonesia is richly endowed with the natural resources. Its famous trade regions also attracted a lot of interest from many super powers. It was colonized by the Dutch for three centuries and gained its independence after World War Two. It has however been shaky and has got a rich history because of its many challenges like the democratization processes, manslaughter, natural disasters, many periods of rapid economic change and corruption. After independence, they settled on a presidential system where the central government assumes most of the power. President Suharto, however, resigned in 1998 a situation that led to major government structure reforms. This led to the major reforms on the Indonesia Constitution. They now have a president elected by members of the public together to a legislature. The President has the power to appoint a council of ministers who must not be in the legislature. The president can only be elected back to power for a maximum of two consecutive terms of five years each he can, however, be impeached by the People’s Consultative Assembly, which is the national representative body. Those that sit in this body are elected for a five-year term. It is the same body that is responsible of passing legislations and monitoring the executive.

Administrative Divisions

Administration in Indonesia is according to provinces. It has thirty-four provinces each headed by a governor. They are all under the central government. However, five of these provinces enjoy some legislative privileges and have some degree of autonomy from the central government. The provinces are further subdivided to regencies or cities that are then subdivided to districts. The subdivision proceeds further up to village’s level. They handle the most of the matters concerning neighborhood and is thus the most influential level to citizens.