Jan Lepeltak – On Jan. 1, two people were shot dead by five gunmen on motorcycles in a village in North Aceh, a day after gunmen shot dead three workers from state-owned telecommunications company Telkom in Bireuen district.
A day earlier a man in Banda Aceh was shot dead at point-blank range. At least four of the victims were Javanese, fueling rumors that the shootings were politically motivated.
While the identity of the killers remains unclear, the shootings are certain to have woken up Jakarta to the deteriorating security conditions in the province.
Aceh, which experienced 29 years of separatist conflict that claimed some 15,000 lives until a peace agreement was reached in 2005, has scheduled simultaneous elections for a new governor and 16 local leaders on Feb. 16.
The Aceh Party has registered candidates for the polls, but has threatened to boycott the elections if independent candidates are allowed. The Aceh Elections Commission said it had approved the participation of Irwandi Yusuf, an independent candidate and the incumbent governor, and his running mate, Muhyan Yunan, in the gubernatorial election following a Constitutional Court ruling allowing independent candidates to participate in Aceh's polls.
Irwandi and Muhyan will run against the current deputy governor, Muhammad Nazar, and his running mate, Nova Iriansyah, backed by the ruling Democratic Party and the United Development Party (PPP), and independent candidates Ahmad Tajuddin, Suriansyah, Darni Daud and Ahmad Fauzi.
The previously very popular Aceh Party, founded by former guerrillas from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), now sees itself being pushed to the sidelines of Aceh's most important elections.
Insiders fear the elections will become the bloody climax of a growing feud between Irwandi and his former GAM compatriots who now control the Aceh Party. The tensions started in 2007 when Irwandi won an overwhelming victory in the gubernatorial election.
Irwandi has proven to be a clever politician, cementing a close relationship with the central government, the armed forces and the police, and using his budget powers to consolidate his position among the Acehnese administration and population. His assertive and independent political maneuvering increasingly left his former supporters in the Aceh Party disenchanted.
The feud in recent months has grown to an alarming level with supporters of Irwandi reportedly afraid to enter areas dominated by Aceh Party supporters such as Peurulak, Lhokseumawe and Langsa. Various violent incidents have occurred targeting Irwandi and his supporters, including the burning down of a house owned by Irwandi in 2011.
Early in December, three people were injured in a grenade attack on a boarding house used by local representatives of the Coordinating Ministry for Political, Legal and Security Affairs in the capital, Banda Aceh. The boarding house 2as located about 100 meters away from an office belonging to the campaign team of Irwandi, which was targeted in a grenade attack a few days earlier. No casualties were reported in either incident.
With just over a month before the scheduled elections, there are no signs that the local authorities or Jakarta want to postpone the elections, after having done so a number of times before.
On Wednesday, Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi said the polls would go ahead despite the shootings. He was speaking following a high-level meeting on the issue attended by Irwandi and the speaker of the Aceh provincial legislative council (DPRD), Hasbi Abdullah.
Many now believe the show must go on, but fears are growing at what cost elections will take place.
If people in the Aceh Party feel they will totally miss out on the deal, former GAM members within the party are believed likely to resort to old methods of the sort employed during the conflict between GAM and the Indonesian state.
One increasing concern is the possibility of political assassinations aimed at frustrating the political process. Irwandi himself is always tightly protected by bodyguards.
The Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) and the police are believed to prefer that he continue his governorship for a number of different reasons. For one, they still harbor suspicions toward the leaders of the Aceh Party, all former GAM leaders and commanders.
While for now boycotting the gubernatorial election, the Aceh Party had previously nominated the former GAM commander in chief, Muzakkir Manaf, as its candidate for deputy governor. For the Army and the police, it is difficult to accept the possibility of a guerilla leader responsible for the deaths of many soldiers and police officers becoming the second most powerful civilian leader in the province.
Second, the business interests of the security forces are being accommodated by Irwandi, who has frequently visited Jakarta to attract investors. He has reportedly discussed investment plans with business tycoon and the part-owner of the Artha Graha Group, Tomy Winata, who enjoys close ties with the TNI.
Irwandi has in recent years attracted most of the ire of former GAM soldiers in the Aceh Party. However, other gubernatorial and district candidates could potentially also be targeted by groups attempting to derail the planned election process, according to insiders.
The fact that innocent Javanese Telkom workers were brutally "sacrificed" for political purposes reflects the ruthlessness of the political game in Aceh.
Another element that makes Aceh a political powder keg is that firearms are still widely available in the province. Guns from the previous conflict remain hidden by their owners, former GAM rebels who have been suffering from great poverty since the peace accord.
Their commanders have grown rich from government projects, while they are left with empty promises from both the government and the Aceh Party. This has resulted in alarming crime rates in the eastern and northern parts of Aceh.
Furthermore, the impoverished former GAM rebels possess both fighting experience and connections abroad with the illegal arms trade in neighboring countries such as Burma, Thailand and Vietnam.
Allegedly, Acehnese fishermen regularly head north to these countries in boats loaded with marijuana hidden under boxes of rotten fish. The drugs are traded for firearms, which enter the black market in Aceh and may also be sold in other parts of Indonesia.
Unemployment makes it easy to enlist former GAM members in shootings and political violence. Amid their lives of poverty and disappointment, the current political conflict could offer the promise of a new opportunity for these disappointed guerillas.
Many of these former fighters are said to believe that it would be better to starve with a machine gun in the jungle than to starve in their villages during peacetime.
That makes them easy to manipulate by a political elite linked to GAM that feels it is not getting as much as it can out of the distribution of political power in Aceh.
While a new guerilla conflict between the TNI and GAM is very unlikely, Aceh is entering a new era of political terror, which is splitting Acehnese society. Jakarta is now under pressure to talk to all sides and provide political solutions to both the Aceh Party and the group around Irwandi.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is still widely popular in Aceh, is risking his political heritage as a peacemaker if he fails to stop the spiral of violence, a process in which the next six weeks will be critical.
In the meantime, nationalist hard-liners within the TNI and the government seem content that the current Acehnese in-fighting reduces any chance of separatist aspirations returning to become a strong political force in Indonesia's western-most province.
[Jan Lepeltak is a Jakarta-based analyst with Concord Consulting.]