Chusnul holds on to her ideals

Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Jakarta

"I prefer to give my information through written releases," Dr. Chusnul Mar'iyah, director of the IT Tender Commission at the Logistics Division of the General Elections Commission (KPU), told me during a visit I paid to her office.

Slightly defiant, she points to numerous cases of what she says is misinformation tarnishing her image and integrity.

Take, for instance, the well-known multimedia observer who asserted in a leading newspaper that the training provided to 15,000 data-entry clerks for the legislative elections had involved additional spending worth Rp 121 billion.

"We spent Rp 2.5 billion on the training itself, Rp 13.5 billion on transportation, operational costs and the regional KPU secretariat," Chusnul asserted.

She was appointed a KPU member in 2001, and was given charge of the branch of the Logistics Division responsible for coordinating and monitoring. Her jobs only started after the Tender Commission, aided by a special team of consultants, had decided how the KPU should work.

She also heads the IT Tender Committee, just like eight other commission members, each of whom heads a Tender Committee for the procurement of specific goods and services.

While she is responsible for the purchase of 8,005 computers for over 416 regencies and 4,176 districts in 32 provinces, and installing a high-tech network for an electoral data center and data recovery center in Jakarta that stores gender-specific data on voters throughout Indonesia -- the first such system ever in Indonesia -- Chusnul hopes to lay the foundation, an embryo, for e-government in post-election Indonesia.

The set up and the running of the system was carried out by young Indonesian technology specialists from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and a U.S. graduate from the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT).

She dismisses accusations that up to Rp 50 billion in state funds had been corrupted during the course of the project.

Preposterous, she says, adding that all the money was spent on setting up and equipping the data center and data recovery center.

She says the Rp 154 billion spent procuring 8,005 computers and the money spent on the data center and data recovery center was far less than the Rp 462 billion originally budgeted for the procurement of just 4,000 computers -- something that she says attests to her tight control over spending.

Denying rumors about her role in the tenders for ballot boxes, printing services, vehicles, ink, etc., she repeatedly insists, "I am not on the tender committees that handled all of these."

She does not deny that she has been tempted. "There was this senior official who told me to just directly award an IT project to Telkom", she revealed. But undeterred by the official's status, she says she flatly refused. "Everything has to go to tender."

Yet, the rumors persist.

Telkom's position as the sole server for the distribution of election results, for instance, gave rise to suspicions of shady dealing.

Chusnul retorts furiously: "... only Telkom (the state-owned telecommunications company) responded out of all the firms to which the KPU sent invitations regarding their participation in providing text message services for the announcement of election results at the usual price of between Rp 250 and Rp 350."

"I am doing my best to ensure clean management," says Chusnul, "and in this I am guided by God."

She also resolutely stands by gender justice, women's rights and the importance of women being appointed to decision-making positions -- all of which are preconditions for the creation of the democratic world that she wishes to see.

No doubt her parents' vision and way of life have had an enduring impact on her own outlook and life.

"Although you are a girl, you must aim for the highest levels of education," her father used to say. And Chusnul, the eldest of seven children, did just that.

She obtained a teaching certificate from the Lamongan Teacher Training College in East Java, and is a graduate of the School of Politics at the University of Indonesia.

Aware of the importance of continuing to pursue her education, she sought a scholarship, obtained it and went to Australia where she was awarded a PhD in political science from Sydney University. She also took short courses on urban politics (in Australia), federalism and U.S. politics (in the United States), and democracy (in the Philippines).

In 1998, she returned to Indonesia and found herself back at her alma mater as a lecturer in political science. Soon she was elected the director of the University of Indonesia's Graduate School of Political Science.

A onetime member of Kalyanamitra, an early feminist non- governmental organization (NGO), she became friends with many activists, joined the Suara Ibu Peduli organization, demonstrated against the regime, joined a women's group trying to persuade then President B.J. Habibie to denounce the widespread rapes of ethnic Chinese women during the 1998 riots, and became the coordinator of the Women's Coalition for Peace and Justice, which organized the first women's congress after the demise of the Soeharto regime.

Politics and organization are nothing new for Chusnul. Her father, a teacher of civics, was a Muhammadiyah activist, while her mother, a housewife who managed to somehow make both ends meet, was active in Aisyiah, Muhammadiyah's women's wing.

Involved in conflict resolution activities, she was a founding member of the PeKa Women for Peace and Justice group, which facilitated the All-Aceh Women's Conference for Peace in Aceh in 2000, Gerakan Perempuan Sadar Politik, the Indonesian chapter of Transparency International and the Tifa Foundation (a partner organization of the Open Society Institute).

She is also a board member of the Common Ground group. She joined women protesting against the World Bank, and signed a declaration condemning religious and political leaders for their statement that a woman could not be a leader (1999).

A practicing and enlightened Muslim, her knowledge of the Koran is stunning, and she is able to quote it by heart.

Rising to prominence in the space of barely five years, political scientist and feminist Chusnul remains determined to see her ideals fulfilled.