Jakarta Globe, May 23, 2014
Jakarta.
The Alliance of the Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN) on Friday
officially announced that it would back Joko Widodo and Jusuf Kalla for the
country’s top posts, marking the first time the organization had formally
supported any presidential candidates.
“Joko is
the only candidate who has no controversies with indigenous peoples,” said
Abdon Nababan, AMAN’s deputy secretary general, at the Ibis Hotel in Menteng,
Central Jakarta.
Several
regional members of the alliance met for the event, dressed in full tribal
regalia and singing traditional songs to mark the occasion. Neither Joko nor
Kalla were not present, but People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) head and
senior campaign strategist Sidharto Danusubroto stood in.
AMAN’s
deputy for institutional development Mina Setra explained that AMAN had
carefully mulled over each of the choices for the presidency this year before
deciding to support Joko.
“We have a
process to deal with this,” she said. “We have an AMAN team conducting analysis
and assessments of all the presidential candidates, even when they weren’t
official yet.”
But on May
2, AMAN formally met with Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle DI-P)
candidate Joko Widodo to discuss the possibility of an endorsement. By then,
the wheels were already turning on the partnership.
The tipping
point for AMAN, though, was when Joko adopted the alliance’s platform into his
own: Joko has pledged to push for the 2011 bill on the Recognition and
Protection of Indigenous Peoples, a bill that was originally drafted by AMAN
and given to Joko’s party, as well as implement last year’s landmark ruling on
Indonesia’s Forestry Law, which guarantees the rights of indigenous communities
over their customary forests.
“All of our
members decided that Joko and Kalla were the best candidates for president and
vice president,” Mina added.
Abdon
echoed Mina’s sentiment, taking a subtle jab at Joko and Kalla’s rivals for the
July 9 contest — Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa.
“We have to
choose the better [candidates],” he said. “We came to the conclusion that Joko
is the cleanest.”
When asked
about Jusuf Kalla’s checkered past, however, Abdon conceded that although his
record on AMAN’s issues was not sterling — the former vice president has gained
notoriety recently for openly supporting paramilitary group Pancasila Youth
(PP) during a scene in 2012′s internationally-acclaimed documentary “The Act of
KIlling” — the group’s focus was on the president, not on the vice president.
“For us,
Joko is the most important,” he said. “With Jusuf Kalla, of course, there is a
record. But, Jusuf Kalla is a man who could bring dialogue to the front. For
indigenous peoples right now, what we need is the space to bring dialogue.”
AMAN, an
organization that represents 15 million indigenous peoples in over 2,000 of
Indonesia’s indigenous communities, has never thrown its support behind any
presidential candidate before. The alliance was founded in 1999 to ensure the
rights of indigenous peoples and provide a mouthpiece for the country’s often
disenfranchised customary communities.
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