Against this background, Sukarno, resentful of his circumscribed position as figurehead president, began to move toward a greater interference with constitutional processes. In February 1957 he announced his own "Concept" for Indonesia. Criticizing Western liberal democracy as unsuited to Indonesian circumstances, he called for a political system of "democracy with guidance" based on indigenous procedures. The Indonesian way of deciding important questions, he argued, was by way of prolonged deliberation (musyawarah) designed to achieve a consensus (mufakat). This was the procedure at the village level, and it should be the model for the nation. He proposed a government based on the four main parties plus a national council representing not merely political parties but functional groups--workers, peasants, intelligentsia, national entrepreneurs, religious organizations, armed services, youth organizations, women's organizations, etc.--in which, under presidential guidance, a national consensus could express itself.

The next two years were a period of almost continuous crisis. The resignation of the second Ali government was followed by a proclamation of a "state of war and siege" and the formation of a nonpartisan government under Djuanda. At the end of 1957, in a series of direct actions across the country, Dutch property was seized as part of a campaign for the recovery of Irian Barat, and the government in due course took over responsibility for the running of these enterprises. The army itself was drawn into the management of estates, and military entrepreneurs came, in time, to play a continuing economic role.

Early in the following year leaders from western Sumatra launched a direct challenge to Jakarta in the form of an alternative government of the republic, the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia. The rebellion, supported by some senior Masyumi leaders, was backed also by the military commander of Sulawesi Utara (North Celebes) province. The central government acted swiftly and successfully to suppress the rebellion. In this changed situation, with the regions defeated, the parties discredited, and the army's prestige enhanced by its success against the rebels, Sukarno once more took up the idea of Guided Democracy. With the support of the army chief of staff, General A.H. Nasution, he proposed a return to the 1945 constitution, a presidential type of government within which he believed it would be possible to implement the principles of deliberation and consensus. When the Constituent Assembly (elected in 1955 to draft a permanent constitution) failed to agree to this proposal, Sukarno introduced it by presidential decree on July 5, 1959.