Tiarma Siboro and Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Aceh is set hold its first-ever gubernatorial elections sometime in August, with independent candidates expected to contest the polls, the government announced Thursday.
The Aceh administration is currently registering voters for the direct election. Data from central government shows nearly 2.6 million people of some four million people in Aceh are eligible to vote. "We expect to hold the election in August and hope there will be no more delays.
During the first step of preparations, we are now registering voters and providing them with new identity cards," Communications and Information Minister Sofyan Djalil said after a Cabinet meeting on political, legal and security affairs.
However, the meeting attended by incumbent Aceh governor Mustafa Abu Bakar did not set a date for the vote.
The election date was initially planned for April but was postponed after it became clear the House of Representatives would be unable to pass the Aceh governance bill into law by its March deadline. That date was mandated by a peace accord signed by the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in August last year.
Several contentious issues, including articles that allow the establishment of local political parties and independent candidates to contest the elections, have delayed the bill's passage.
However, the government and legislators have promised to finish deliberating the legislation later this month so elections can proceed in August.
Confident of the bill's eventual passage through the House, GAM is already promoting independent candidates in the election and is setting up a local political party for the 2009 national polls.
Separately, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democrat Party called on the government and the House on Thursday to accommodate gender issues into the Aceh governing bill to help empower Acehnese women.
Democrat members of a House special committee deliberating the bill, Teuku Riefke Harsya and Benny K. Harman, said gender equality should be accommodated in articles setting up local political parties, the Aceh Ulema Council (MPU) and the sharia courts.
"The committee could include in the bill a requirement for local parties to give 30 percent of official positions to women and the bill could also be improved to allow the representation of women in the MPU," Harsya said.
Benny said women should also be allowed to run for office in the province. "Despite the enforcement of sharia law (in the province), Aceh should respect gender equality in all fields." If this happened, it would make the province unique, he said.
Meanwhile, Aceh-Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR) chairman Kuntoro Mangkusubroto said Wednesday his office planned to set up 10 branch offices across Aceh and Nias to speed up its recovery programs.
The offices would be established in North and South Nias, Sigli, Aceh Besar, Calang, Meulaboh and Simeuleu, along with Lhokseumawe, Singkil and Takengon, he said.
Kuntoro said the BRR was building some 41,000 houses for tsunami survivors. The agency's progress was "acceptable" because "the national blueprint on public housing only required 71,000 houses for development a year," he said.
The BRR had received US$4.7 billion out of a total $7 billion in aid pledged by foreign countries to finance the post-tsunami reconstruction, Kuntoro said.