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Sartono (5 August 1900 – 15 October 1968) was an Indonesian politician and lawyer who served as the first speaker of the House of Representatives (DPR) from 1950 until his resignation in 1960. He also served as acting president several times in his capacity as speaker following the resignation of Mohammad Hatta. Born into a Javanese people of Priyayi, Sartono studied law at Leiden University. During his studies, he joined the Perhimpoenan Indonesia association and became an advocate for Indonesian independence. After graduating, he opened a law practice and helped found the Indonesian National Party (PNI) in 1927. He unsuccessfully defended the party's leaders when they were arrested by the colonial government in 1929.
Following the arrests, the PNI disbanded and Sartono founded a new party, Partindo, which sought to achieve independence through non-cooperation. However, Partindo was dissolved in 1936. He then helped found another party, Gerindo, which advocated for the creation of an Indonesian parliament. In 1942, Japan invaded the colony and Sartono briefly left politics before returning as general-secretary of a Japan-founded labor organization, Putera, a year later. He also served in several positions during the Japanese occupation period, including as a member of the Central Advisory Council and Investigating Committee for Preparatory Work for Independence.
After the proclamation of independence in 1945, he was appointed a state minister in the Presidential Cabinet by President Sukarno. As minister, he was dispatched to the Yogyakarta Sultanate and Surakarta Sunanate to shore up support for the nationalist government. During the subsequent national revolution, he became a member of the Central Indonesian National Committee (KNIP), serving in the KNIP's working body which ran its day-to-day affairs. In 1949, he became an advisor to the Indonesian delegation of the Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference before being elected speaker of the DPR of the United States of Indonesia in February 1950.
Sartono would go on to serve as speaker throughout the entire liberal democracy period, being re-elected in August 1950, when the Provisional DPR was formed, and again in 1956, following the 1955 elections. In 1951, he was tasked with forming a new government following the fall of the Natsir Cabinet. He, however, failed to form a government after less than a month. In 1960, the DPR was suspended by Sukarno following its rejection of the government’s budget. Deeply embittered by the suspension, he resigned from the DPR and did not take public office for several years. In 1962, Sartono accepted an offer by Sukarno to serve as the deputy chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council (DPA). His time in the body "confused and irritated him," and he resigned from the DPA in 1968. He died in Jakarta, on 15 October 1968, and was buried at Astana Bibis Luhur, Surakarta.
At Rechts School, he joined the Tri Koro Dharmo organization, a youth organization of Budi Utomo, which later evolved into Jong Java. In 1921, he passed in his law examination, and received the title of " rechtskundige" (jurist). After graduating, he became a civil servant at the District Court in Surakarta for around six months. In September 1922, Sartono left his job as a civil servant, and departed to the Netherlands, to study for a doctorate in law at Leiden University, along with his former classmate Iwa Koesoemasoemantri. The pair departed from Surakarta to the port of Tanjung Priok, the main hub for transportation from the colony to Europe. They arrived in Genoa, Italy, before taking the train to the Netherlands. During his studies in Leiden, he joined the Perhimpoenan Indonesia association, and became the associations secretary from 1922 until 1925.
In 1930, the Dutch colonial government arrested four of the PNI's leaders, and later sentenced them to prison time. Sartono was not arrested, and instead he became one of Sukarno's defense lawyers during Sukarno's trials in Bandung. In 1931, Sartono founded the Partindo party, after the disbanding of the PNI. During his leadership of Partindo, he created a department for labor unions, which Sartono directly managed. Despite this, Sartono argued that labor unions should not engage in politics. Sartono led Partindo until 1933, when the released Sukarno was elected the party chief and Sartono became his deputy. Around the same period, the Swadeshi movement in British Raj began capturing the attention of the many politically active Indonesians. This included Sartono, who became an advocate for the movement, and also chaired a commission on the movement within Partindo.
After Sukarno's election as leader, however, Sukarno's view that labor unions should be associated with political parties became dominant – and in 1933, the party's official position became that labor unions must be based on political parties. Partindo was again disbanded in 1937, and Sartono further took part in the founding of another party, Gerindo, where he was deputy chief under Amir Syarifuddin. He also remained a lawyer, successfully defending another nationalist Kasman Singodimedjo in a 1940 case. Following the successful Japanese invasion of Indonesia, Sartono briefly left politics and handled rubber plantations in the Bogor region. He was also head of the organizational section of the Japan-founded labor organization Putera and a member of the Javanese Central Advisory Council, also set up the occupation government. In 1945, he was appointed as a member of the Investigating Committee for Preparatory Work for Independence. For some time, he was also the adviser to the Japanese Department of Internal Affairs between December 1944 until June 1945.
In December 1945, he became chief of the political department of a further restructured PNI. Sartono was a member of the KNIP and was part of its leadership until October 1945, when the leadership was replaced by a new group of younger members. Later, he would return to the leadership positions, becoming deputy chair of the body's Working Committee (which ran day-to-day affairs) by January 1947. He lost the position in an election in April 1947, but was voted back in July 1949. He left the body in 1949 as he joined the People's Representative Council of the United States of Indonesia (DPR-RIS). He had been appointed as the head of a good offices mission to the State of East Indonesia in December 1948, but the mission was cancelled. During the Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference, Sartono also served as a general adviser for the Indonesian delegation.
This was made worse by Sartono's unwillingness to become the prime minister or any cabinet minister. His failure led to him returning his mandate after less than a month on 18 April. The task was then assigned to Soekiman Wirjosandjojo and Sidik Djojosukarto – who managed to form the Sukiman Cabinet. During the Wilopo Cabinet period, Sartono called for the resignation of Hamengkubuwono IX as Defense Minister in the aftermath of the 17 October affair. Due to the government dysfunction caused by constant tensions between government and opposition parties in the parliament, Sartono went as far as to warn legislators in December 1953 that the parliament may be dissolved if tensions continued to increase. By 1955, the election saw highly divisive campaigning, and Sartono made a public statement asking political parties to "not forget good manners" when referring to one another.
Following the resignation of Mohammad Hatta from his post as vice president (leaving it vacant until 1973), Sartono was legally second in the presidential line of succession, and he conducted presidential duties for three brief periods during his tenure - in December 1957, between 6 January and 21 February 1959, and between 21 April and 2 July 1959. On 23 July 1959, following President Sukarno's 1959 Decree, and the return to the 1945 Constitution, Sartono was sworn again as the speaker of the further renewed DPR. The DPR was eventually suspended by Sukarno on 24 June 1960 (though it met last on 5 March), ending Sartono's tenure as speaker. After the DPR was suspended, Sartono did not take public office for several years. Allegedly, he refused all positions offered to him, though in one occasion he implied to Foreign Minister Subandrio that he would accept an ambassadorship for an African country – with the condition that Subandrio himself and Mohammad Yamin were both also assigned to similar positions.
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