The legislation of RT/RW was completed in Jakarta in December 1966 by the “Jakarta Governor's Decision” or Keputusan Gubernur DKI Jakarta. This legislation reorganized the RT/RK of Jakarta, which was introduced during the Soekarno era. In addition, it could be said that the legislation signaled the beginning of RT/RW system in the New Order.
Soeharto's New Order was built on the physical disorganization of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). For Soeharto and his armed forces, or ABRI, the PKI was their greatest political enemy during the Soekarno era. In those days, the PKI entered society at the grass-roots level to obtain their political supporters by means of neighborhood organization, i. e., RT/RK.
Therefore, Soeharto had to destroy the PKI's power, which had been established through RT/RK.
On the other hand, when Ali Sadikin was appointed Jakarta's Governor in 1966 by Soeharto, there was a great deal of social confusion and problems caused by the physical disorganization of the PKI and a population expansion to Jakarta.
For this reason, Ali Sadikin required implementation of a new neighborhood association to resolve the confusion and problems. Accordingly, he made the decision to introduce the RT/RW system as an appropriate strategy.
As described above, we can conclude that the historical background of the legislation behind Jakarta's RT/RW in 1966 was to purge Indonesia of the influence of the PKI at the grass-roots level by means of RT/RK, and to resolve the confusion and problems of the time.