Antje Moeljani

Yang Amat Berhormat (The Right Honourable) Antje Moeljani
انچعع مولياني
Antje Moeljani in 2019
Prime Minister of Hindia Belanda
Incumbent
Assumed office 2018
Monarch	Anne Charlotte
Governor General	Maryam Rahmadisoerja
Leader of the National Indies Party
Incumbent
Assumed office 2017
Deputy	Simoneta Daelman
Personal details
Born	Antje Moeljani (1963-03-16) 16 March 1963 Sembilanratu, Hindia Belanda
Political party	National Indies Party
Children	2
Residence(s)	Istana Nusantara, Jakarta
Alma mater	University of Jakarta

Antje Moeljani (Jawi: انچعع مولياني; Balinese: ᬎᬌᬕ ᬯᬣᬠᭊᬽᬭᬬ), is a Hindia Belandan politician and singer-songwriter who has been the 21st Prime Minister of Hindia Belanda since 2018. Moeljani has been a Member of Parliament for Serang North since 1993. She has also served as the leader of the National Indies Party since 2017, having replaced Djoewana Tjokrohadikartodjo.

Born in Sembilanratu, she read metaphysics and political science at the University of Jakarta in 1984 before moving to Koninstad to work briefly for the secretariat of the Royal Union as a policy analyst during the tenure of Secretary-General Aminah Amaluddin. There, she met and befriended Marcus Overstraten, the current Leader of the Opposition and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, who was also working for the Royal Union as a liaison officer between the organisation and the monarchy. In 1987, she joined the National Indies Party.

She led the National Indies party to power in the 2018 General Elections, ousting Marcus Overstraten and the decade-long rule of the Liberal Democratic Party. Moeljani and her cabinet appointments kneeled at Buitenzorg Palace, the principal residence of the Governor-General, and formed a government in a coalition with the Aliansi Merdeka.

Moeljani is an established singer-songwriter who has released five albums and an EP, but since pursuing a political career and especially after becoming Prime Minister she has been focussing less attention on her musical career, although she still gives impromptu performances and occasionally headlines music festivals.

Early life and education

Moeljani attended the Koning Willem School te Sembilanratoe, an elementary school in Sembilanratu

Born to a middle class Esoteric Shia Javanese Family on 1 February 1963, Antje Moeljani grew up in Sembilanratu, a coastal town of 3,000 in the province of Bali, where she attended the Koning Willem School te Sembilanratoe, a boarding school famous for being a former prison for republican activists in the early 1920s. Her father, Gema Moeljani, worked as an artisan whilst her mother, Maya Zahira-Moeljani, worked as a music teacher. She has an older sister, Novita Moeljani, a successful Hindia Belandan violinist who is currently the head of the Buitenzorg Conservatory. At the time of her birth, Moeljani's mother and father had just finished their university education at ages 21 and 22 respectively. Antje Moeljani's love of music started early in her childhood when she picked up the guitar and was taught to play by her mother. She started writing songs as early as 10 and was briefly a student at a conservatory in the Balinese resort town of Bandar Kunti. She did not finish her training at the conservatory, but has decribed her time there as a 'wonderful and transformative' experience where she learnt to play the piano and honed her musical skills.

Upon starting secondary school, she moved with her parents and sister to Jakarta and attended the prestigious Gymnasium Prinses Juliana, a senior secondary school, where she formed a band with her lifelong friends Pertiwi Notopoetri and Renaldi Assegaf. During her time at Gymnasium Prinses Juliana, she formed a school club that advocated against the systematic persecution of Melanesians in the province of Papoea and led a student march that drew almost 7,000 students, shutting down an avenue in Weltevreden, Jakarta, where government buildings are situated. For this reason, she has been popular amongst the Melanesians of Papoea who continue to call her with the Papoean term of endearment "Big Mama Antje". Her secondary school friends have all described her as 'royaal', an Indonesian term denoting a person generous enough with their wealth. As a teenager, she was known for hosting house parties at her parent's house in Rivas, Jakarta and it was at one of these parties that she met Budiwati Asang who now serves as one of her policy advisors in her current cabinet.

At 17, Moeljani earned her bakalaureat nasional and graduated from secondary school whereupon she spent six months travelling around Hindia Belanda and Lorecia. Her first experience in politics came in 1981 when she served as a junior intern at the office of Eliana Kaliahutapa, the-then Queen's Commissioner for Jakarta. Following her brief internship, she enrolled at the University of Jakarta and read metaphysics and political science. She has described her study of metaphysics as instrumental in helping her seek spirituality and comprehend "what it means to be human, a being who is worthy of addressing the divine and consequently being addressed to by it". She began to be involved with the Shia Convocation headquarters during her time at university, serving in one of the religious institution's sacred musical groups that provide musical accompaniments to religious rituals.

Early political career and musical breakthrough

Upon graduating from university with honours in 1985, Moeljani briefly worked for the Royal Union in Koninstad as a policy analyst. The year after, she joined the National Indies Party, initially serving a leadership role in the party's youth wing before going on to unsuccessfully contest the constituency of Jakarta 33 against the Liberal Democrat Farah Amali. When a writ of by-election to the Serang North constituency, a National Indies Party safe seat, was issued following the resignation of Julius Dremawan in 1987, she was selected as the party's candidate and ran successfully, becoming one of the youngest MPs in Hindia Belandan parliamentary history at 24. She has since been the MP for Serang North.

Moeljani performs at an impromptu concert in 2019.

Moeljani spent the first six years of her parliamentary career on the opposition backbench before being promoted to the frontbench by Hayat Arionotosoemarna, the-then Leader of the Opposition and leader of the National Indies Party, as the Shadow State Secretary for Rural Development. As an opposition frontbencher, she set aside time for her musical career which was then taking off. She released the single Don't Talk from an extended play of the same name in 1993 that charted in the Hindia Belandan top 100 for three years whilst serving as MP, a move which earned criticism from the government frontbench but propelled her popularity amongst the Hindia Belandan youth and creative community. The next year, Moeljani released an album entitled Langkah Kosong with titles sung in Indonesian, Dutch and English.

Discography

• Don't Talk (1993)
• Langkah Kosong (1994)
• The Emptiness Beneath My Feet (1996)
• But You're Not Here (1998)
• Living Sun (2001)
• Us After Us (2014)