Autonomy has revived feudalism in Yogyakarta

Autonomy has revived feudalism in Yogyakarta

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

The implementation of Law No. 22/1999 on regional administrations
has brought many changes, particularly in Yogyakarta, including
some degree of transparency in both the provincial and district
administrations as well as in the local legislative council.

The changes are, to a great extent, due to people's increased
participation and vigilance in monitoring how local government
officials and legislative council members are carrying out their
duties.

The implementation of the law, also called the regional
autonomy law, however, has also sparked quite a bit of debate on
exactly which entity should make decisions -- the provincial
government level or regental administrations? Since the law
clearly stipulates that the autonomy rests on the regental
administrations, the special autonomy has created certain
problems for small provinces like Yogyakarta.

"In some cases, it creates conflicts and tension over the
authority of the provincial government and regental
administrations respectively," says regional autonomy expert Ari
Dwipayana of Gadjah Mada University.

According to Ari, a lack of a clear distribution of authority
between the district, provincial and central governments further
worsens the condition.

For Yogyakarta, the emergence of such conflicts can be seen,
especially in the management of certain assets and natural
resources like the Kaliurang holiday resort in Sleman regency or
a production forest in Gunungkidul regency. Regental
administrations and the provincial government have been at
loggerheads over precisely which administration is in charge of
those assets -- and of course who gets the profits.

Similar tensions also occur when regency administrations and
the provincial administration pass on the responsibility of
managing the so-called social houses -- which make no profit --
and then their is the uncertain fate of some 3,000 civil servants
who previously were taken care of by either the central or
provincial government offices but now have become employees of
the regency.

"It is in some ways fortunate that we have a cultural entity
that has the capability of preventing such tension from coming
out into the open," Ari explains, referring to the position of
the provincial government and Yogyakarta Palace in which the
Sultan is also the governor.

The Sultan still practices the custom of awarding a
traditional spear to each regent and mayor in his jurisdiction as
a symbol of authority. To some extent, in this particular case,
the governor/sultan helps reduce tension.

"Still, it doesn't mean that conflicts of authority do not
exist," Ari says, emphasizing the need for the central government
to provide a clear distribution of authority between the
provincial and regental governments.

There are of course other problems in implementing the law on
regional autonomy including possible conflicts between local
government officials and councillors both at the provincial and
regental levels.

The most obvious of all these is regarding the unclear
position of Yogyakarta's Special Status in the context of
regional autonomy.

There are at least three things that should be taken into
consideration when talking about the province's special status
and they are the district-based autonomy, the relationship
between the Palace as a traditional entity vis a vis the
provincial government and legislative councils, and the land
regulation especially regarding the so-called Sultan's Ground.

With regards to autonomy, Yogyakarta provincial councillors
are mostly in favor of placing the autonomy on the provincial
level regardless of the fact that the law on regional autonomy
stipulates a regency-based autonomy.

They argue that the fact that the province is relatively
small, concentrating the power at the regency level has the
potential of creating unhealthy competition among regental
governments. This is due to the fact that each regency has a
different starting point of development. Sleman regency and
Yogyakarta municipality are generally considered as more
developed than the other three regencies of Kulonprogo, Bantul,
and Gunungkidul.

"We believe that by concentrating the autonomy at the
provincial level, the wealth can be more evenly distributed among
the four regencies and municipality," councillor Imam Samroni of
the provincial legislature says.

In terms of the ideal relationship between the Palace and
modern political entities, Ari calls for the separation of the
Palace from the province's day-to-day politics to prevent a
possible power struggle between traditional politics and modern
politics, which, according to him, are manipulative and tend to
corrupt.

The special status, according to Ari, should not be defined
based on history but on what the people want for the future. The
essence of the special status, according to Ari, is not on the
fact that the governor is of the royal lineage of the Palace, but
rather on how the Palace contributes to modern politics.

Article 122 of Law No. 22/1999 stipulates that the Yogyakarta
governor and vice-governor are elected by taking into account the
lineage of the Yogyakarta Palace and the Pakualaman Principality.
The stipulation, however, created tension in the last
gubernatorial election that ended up with the governor being
appointed, instead of elected by the people.

For the sake of democracy, such a practice should not be
allowed to occur. Many would probably agree to consider the
present situation as a transitional phase. However, in the near
future a democratic election should be conducted while
accommodating the Palace's interest in symbolic forms to create a
meeting point between democratic and traditional values.

"The Palace can play a very important role in Yogyakarta's
politics, not in terms of day-to-day governance but in strategic
and influential functions. It's like the position of the
Thai King or British Queen," Ari says.

Regarding the status of the Sultan Ground, Ari suggests that
the Palace follow the example of the late Hamengkubuwono IX, who
agreed to abide by the agrarian law. The initiative for a change,
he says, is required not just from the people but also from the
Palace as well.

"People should be made aware of possible concentration of
power between the sultan, the governor, and the landlords. That's
why a distribution of power between the sultan on one hand and
the governor on the other has to be clearly defined, and so
should the regulation on the Sultan Ground," he says.

Unfortunately, such power distribution has not been
accommodated in the existing law on regional autonomy as well as
in its revised draft prepared by the Ministry of Home Affairs to
be deliberated by the House.

"The so-called keraton (palace) revival is emerging. They
establish the alliance of Nusantara (Indonesia) palaces and begin
to ask about the land formerly belonging to them. So, basically,
it's a national problem that the central government has to take
into consideration. The decentralization as a consequence of the
implementation of law on regional autonomy has made it possible
for the traditional political entities to be revived. In the name
of identity or indigenous nostalgia, they reclaim the local
political structure," he says.

According to Ari, the room for local cultural identity,
initially created by the law on regional autonomy to negate
centralization had been reclaimed by political entities of the
past, making it possible for the revival of a new feudalism.

"Decentralization is, therefore, a return to feudalism instead
of democracy," Ari says.