Campus life goes on as usual despite election campaigning

By Renata Arianingtyas and Ronas Tubagus Marnas

DEPOK, West Java (JP): Campus life is not significantly affected by the campaign, according to two political scientists at the University of Indonesia.

Amir Santoso and Maswadi Rauf, lecturers in the School of Social and Political Sciences, said Saturday that this did not mean that academics were ignorant of current politics.

Amir said the campus was unaffected because it was surrounded by woods in Depok, far from the heart of campaign activities. And the students there were "pragmatists" so they tended to ignore the increasingly violent political rallies.

Maswadi Rauf said the students were pragmatic because of the "campus depolitization" policy which discourages academics from active involvement in politics.

Just before campaigning started on April 27, Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro ordered that campuses had to be politically sterile.

Many rectors support the policy, but some university administrators and lecturers are still involved in practical politics.

For instance, Amir Santoso is a legislature candidate for Golkar and the rector of Semarang's Diponegoro University, Maladi, is a Golkar campaigner.

Both Amir and Maswadi said the students were not completely apathetic about the community and politics.

Amir and Maswadi support the campus depolitization policy. "Student years are not the appropriate time for political activities," Amir said. "Students should concentrate on their studies.

"We need many qualified experts to deal with stiff competition in the 21st century. We are already behind in human resources quality compared to our neighboring countries," he said.

"As students, they can make political contributions in written analyses on political events," Amir said.

Maswadi Rauf said students should not get involved in any campaign activities because they would be carrying the university's flag.

"I support the policy to ban political campaigning on campus," he said. Otherwise students would be divided into political groups and this would cause disputes and even violent clashes among them.

"Campus life would be unhealthy," he said.

University of Indonesia's rector, M.K. Tajuddin, shared their opinions. He has stopped the parties campaigning on campus, even though he is a Golkar campaigner.

Students

Some of the university's students said the campaign had not affected their lives on campus.

Ari A. Perdana from the School of Economics said the depoliticization policy was mainly responsible for students being apolitical.

Florencia Yuni, who has been studying anthropology since 1992 at the university's School of Letters, said that students were concerned about the political situation around them but did not know what to do.

"Many are afraid of being different. As you know, politically, we are not allowed to express different opinions from the mainstream," she said.

There are of course who "dare to be different" by doing political activities off campus.

Tito Imanda, another anthropology student, and Adi of the School of Social and Political Sciences have been involved in several campaign activities, but for different reasons.

Tito chose to join the United Development Party's (PPP) campaign because he wanted to see the minority party stand up against the dominant Golkar and the Armed Forces factions in the House of Representatives.

Adi said he had joined several campaign rallies because he "wanted to have fun". Besides, he said, he was in business selling campaign paraphernalia to rally participants.

Many University of Indonesia students said that street rallies should be completely banned. Yuni and Tito said campaigning should be a way to promote party policies.

Unfortunately, campaigning has become a legitimate way for people to vent their frustration at the way the government runs many aspects of their lives.

Ari and Primoko, of the School of Natural Sciences, said the campaign was merely free entertainment. Primoko said that even the election would have no effect on most people's lives because they "already know who's going to win anyway".

Ari said that because the government had a floating mass policy, which stopped the PPP and the Indonesian Democratic Party operating at local and subdistrict levels, rallies were the only way that the parties could meet their supporters.

Golkar, which is backed by the bureaucracy, has no problem communicating with the public through local and subdistrict government offices.

Besides, as Maswadi Rauf noted, the number of campaign participants does not reflect the real support of the campaigning party. Many are still underage and, therefore, cannot vote.

Yuni agreed. "In my neighborhood, people take part in the campaign rallies because they are paid to do so. So, today, they rally for one poll contestant, tomorrow they'll do it for the other contestant," she said.