Wilopo

Wilopo (21 October 1909 – 20 January 1981) was an Indonesian statesman and lawyer who served as the prime minister of Indonesia from April 1952 to August 1953. He served in various other positions during his career, including as the speaker of the Constitutional Assembly and the chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council. He also held ministerial offices in several cabinets, including as the minister of labour, the minister of economic affairs, and the minister of defense.

Born into a Javanese family, Wilopo attended the Technische Hoogeschool in Bandung, before studying law at the Rechts Hogeschool in Batavia (now Jakarta) and becoming active in the nationalist movement. During the Japanese occupation, he became an official in the military government. After the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence in 1945, Wilopo helped found the Indonesian National Party (PNI) and joined the Republican government, becoming secretary-general of the labour ministry and later the junior minister of labour. During the subsequent Indonesian National Revolution, he was arrested by the Dutch following their offensive into Republican territory. Upon his release, Wilopo took part in the Round Table Conference which recognized the sovereignty of a federal Indonesia in 1949. He went on to become minister of labour in the federal cabinet that same year.

Following the dissolution of the federal system, Wilopo served as the minister of economic affairs in the Soekiman Cabinet until the cabinet collapsed over a foreign policy issue. He was then appointed as the formateur of a new cabinet. He opted to form a coalition government consisting of the PNI, the Masyumi Party, and several smaller parties. The resulting Wilopo Cabinet was a "business cabinet" composed of experts. His premiership saw a political realignment—as the Nahdlatul Ulama seceded from the Masyumi while the Indonesian Communist Party started supporting the PNI and President Sukarno—as well as a financial crisis, caused by a collapse in commodity prices following the end of the Korean War. As prime minister, Wilopo pursued a policy of austerity and import restrictions to solve the crisis. This included cuts to the military as part of a broad reorganization of the Indonesian Army. However, the reorganization was unpopular with regional officers, causing conflict between them and the central Army leadership which culminated in the 17 October affair.

The affair greatly weakened the Wilopo Cabinet, though it would lead to a renewed effort at passing an election law. However, before the bill could pass, a land dispute between squatting peasants and foreign-owned plantations in North Sumatra led to a clash that killed several peasants. Outrage over the incident brought about the resignation of the cabinet. After leaving the premiership, Wilopo became a member of the Constitutional Assembly, being elected speaker of the body in 1956. The Constitutional Assembly was unable to pass a new constitution, however, leading to the dissolution of the body—and the return of the 1945 Constitution—by presidential decree in 1959. Afterwards, Wilopo left public office, though he would remain active within the PNI. Following the turmoil of the mid-1960s, he was appointed to the Supreme Advisory Council by President Suharto in 1968, becoming chairman of the council until 1978. He would also serve as head of an anti-corruption commission in 1970. Wilopo died in Jakarta in 1981.