Achmad Sukarsono, Jakarta – Indonesia plans to hold the first direct elections in once-volatile Aceh province by December 10, a government minister said on Thursday.
Indonesia's parliament passed a landmark law last month giving Aceh limited self-rule, a move aimed at cementing a peace pact between the government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), signed last year in Helsinki.
The law paves the way for direct elections of local executives in the province, on the northwestern tip of Sumatra.
"In December, we hope by the 10th of December, we will have local elections," Information Minister Sofyan Djalil told reporters, adding executive posts in 19 regencies and cities across Aceh would be up for grabs besides the position of the province's governor.
The Helsinki accord marked the end of a separatist insurgency in which more than 15,000 people, mostly civilians, died in the conflict that went for nearly 30 years. The pact was the result of months of talks spurred by the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that left around 170,000 Acehnese dead or missing.
Djalil, who was speaking to foreign journalists in a panel discussion, said the elections would mark a fresh start in Aceh. "We hope these elections can be conducted smoothly and peacefully. Then, we start a new page of Aceh with greater autonomy and officials directly elected by the people," he said.
GAM officials have said they welcomed the new law but that some of its provisions must be amended because they were not in line with the peace agreement.
The truce required that future policies related to Aceh must receive consent from the region's legislature but the new laws had stopped short by only stipulating the local body would be consulted in such cases, GAM said.
"In the long term, I think popular dissatisfaction and the feeling of injustice, the feeling of being cheated yet once again would set in," Nur Djuli, a member of GAM's negotiation team for the Helsinki talks, told the forum.
The Indonesian Survey Circle, a leading pollster, said that its latest survey in Aceh showed public scepticism in the peace process might increase if economic woes, which sparked the rebellion, remain unresolved after the December polls.
The Helsinki agreement came after GAM dropped its demand for an independent Aceh state. Jakarta in turn promised to allow local political parties, including any group set up by GAM, to operate in Aceh, although that contradicts Indonesian laws.
Existing national laws require parties to have branches in more than half the country's 33 provinces and individuals to obtain party endorsements before they run in elections.