Aboeprijadi Santoso, Banda Aceh – The imminent victory of the Irwandi-Nazar ticket in the Aceh gubernatorial election is a GAM (Free Aceh Movement) victory despite the fact that the former rebel movement is split as it transforms itself into a political party. It's a promise of a new Aceh, and should provide a lesson for all involved.
It is the right to run as independents – that is, unaffiliated to any political party – that has triggered the easy victory of the GAM candidates. Following Irwandi and Nazar's victory at the provincial level, at least five other "GAM" candidates are poised to be elected as local chief executives.
The Irwandi faction has, from the outset, opposed any alliance with those who ruled Aceh in the past, reflecting a deep-seated distrust shared by a large part of Acehnese society. This key element was consistently manifested during Irwandi's campaign. "Long Live Irwandi Yusuf, Long Live Muhammad Nazar, Long Live the Nation of Acheh, Long Live the Independents!". The word "independent" here has nothing to do with GAM's previous aim of a separate state.
It refers to GAM's independent candidates, as distinct from the H2O (Humam-Hasbi Okay) alliance, which another GAM hopeful, Hasbi Abdullah, entered into with Acehnese scholar Humam Hamid on behalf of a national party, the United Development Party (PPP). Any association with Jakarta-based parties or figures that were part of previous local administrations was categorically ruled out during the Irwandi-Nazar campaign.
The slogans recounted above were attempts to stress the Irwandi-Nazar ticket's legitimacy as the "GAM ticket", since the Sweden-based senior GAM leaders strongly supported the H2O alliance, while the Aceh Transition Commission (KPA) of former GAM commanders and the younger generation supported the Irwandi-Nazar ticket. This reflected the split in GAM as Aceh held its first-ever direct election of local leaders.
Irwandi Yusuf, 46, a veterinary surgeon turned GAM intelligence chief, who was "liberated" from the Keudah prison by the tsunami and sent as a delegate to the Helsinki peace talks, is a man with an amazingly wide network. In the towns and villages, he is known simply by the common Acehnese name, "Tgk. Agam". He got along well with local GAM fighters and linked them to the outside world. Beyond Aceh, he was recognized as the man behind a Japanese code name who disseminated information on Aceh worldwide.
The code name, which translated as "what are you doing there while our homeland is at war?" was an obvious call to his fellow Acehnese and the outside world to join in the struggle for Aceh. Irwandi's partner, Muhammad Nazar, was the organizer of an historic mass petition for a referendum in late 1999.
It is a partnership reflecting the consciousness of the Acehnese generation of the 1980s, who saw Aceh sufferings, the war and poverty as a consequence of Indonesian oppression. Irwandi espouses the view, popular among the Acehnese, that Indonesia has for too long closed off Aceh from the world, and that it is time to open up Aceh for the benefit of the Acehnese.
"We will win! If not, and if it is not fair, the people of Aceh will take action," Irwandi said in his last campaign speech in Blang Padang, Banda Aceh, last week. His campaign has been invariably populist, attended by enthusiast young militants and people from the countryside. "I don't know where they came from. All I know is we didn't pay them." Indeed, his rallies were not marked, as is the norm in Indonesian elections, by hordes of paid "supporters" bused in for the occasion.
Irwandi's rise as a gubernatorial candidate was, ironically, made possible by the fact that a GAM conference in Banda Aceh last May failed to decide on who would be the GAM candidates. After GAM's Sweden-based leader Malik Mahmud issued a strong endorsement of the H2O, a forged letter, purportedly written by the same Malik, supporting the Irwandi-Nazar ticket came to the surface. A rift developed as the older exiled leaders and key figures like Tgk. Muhammad Usman Lampoh Awe and Tgk. Ilyas Abed were challenged by the younger group led by Irwandi, who received strong support from other exiles and, more importantly, from many former commanders. The old guard wanted the H2O to smooth the transition process. "Humam is the best 'mango' among non-GAMs," said Tgk. Muhammad only last week.
But the younger generation and former commanders pointed to the need to consolidate GAM's popular support. The confusion was finally resolved after the KPA, the body that represents the interests of former combatants, adopted a neutral stand – GAM supporters are thus free to vote for either the H2O or Irwandi-Nazar ticket – which enabled them to vote as they wished without betraying GAM. This, one GAM insider argued, "led to Irwandi's landslide victory".
Irwandi first public act amid the euphoria at the Swiss-Bell Hotel last Monday was, perhaps, typical. He put a GAM symbol on his shirt and at the same time indicated his willingness to cooperate with the established political parties to build a new Aceh. The was a sign of the need to reunite GAM and the KPA for the tasks ahead.
Long-time exiled leaders tend to be more attuned to history than to contemporary conditions on the ground. In the tragic case of East Timor, the ex-Mozambique based Fretilin elite has even imposed a foreign language that most of the new state's people do not understand, and ignored the contribution of the younger generation of resistance fighters at home and in Indonesia. The IRA guerrillas of Northern Ireland – another example of an armed guerrilla movement turning to a politics – has also had a difficult time uniting its civilian and military components.
The challenges, thus, remain great. "GAM," as European monitoring team chief Glynn Ford noted, "has achieved a lot more in 14 days (of campaigning) than in 25 years of war." But only three of the eight pairings competing for the top Aceh jobs – the H2O, Irwandi and Ghazali Abbas Adan tickets – seem serious about implementing the Helsinki pact to the full. So GAM needs to create a consensus among the current local elite, while at the same time reuniting its forces. Basically, the Old Guard and the Irwandi-KPA faction agree that what is most important is not this election, but the 2009 election for the Aceh legislature. However, according to KPA council chairman, Tgku. Muhammad, "The KPA is not GAM. It is intended to civilianize the ex-military men (i.e. the former combatants). The KPA should listen to the GAM Council."
In a sense, the GAM victory can be seen as a belated victory for the movement. This should provide an important lesson for Jakarta, particularly for the Army. Decades of harsh military repression in the name of maintaining the unitary state have resulted in something that was, perhaps, never envisaged. For the second time, Indonesia has seen one of its conflicts resolved at the ballot box; the first, a UN-held vote for East Timor in 1999, was answered by a shameful military-sponsored pogrom, the second, the vote organized by the central government in Aceh last week, should result in home rule for Aceh. Thanks to the Helsinki pact, all sides have responded to the outcome, so far, with dignity.
[The writer is a journalist with Radio Netherlands.]