Five to contest UGM rector election race

Five to contest UGM rector election race

Asip A. Hasani, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

The first rectorial election of Yogyakarta's state Gadjah Mada
University (UGM) is nearing the selection date with only five of
the 13 candidates eligible to contest in the election.

The five candidates will each present their leadership vision
and mission before a number of former UGM rectors on Monday, two
days before the university's academic senate convenes again to
select three of them.

Earlier on Saturday, the senate picked five of the 13 selected
candidates to take part in the election.

Boma Wikan Tyasa, head of the 188-member Senate, and incumbent
rector Ichlasul Amal, whose four-year term will end in March,
were the strongest of the five candidates.

Boma challenged Amal with 57 votes he secured during
Saturday's voting. The incumbent rector only grabbed 41 votes.

The three other contenders were former head of the Civil
Servants Administration Body Sofian Effendi, who is director of
post-graduate studies in public administration; dean of the
faculty of social and political sciences Sunjoto Usman; and dean
of the technology faculty Sudjarwadi.

At least 43 senate members were not present in the closed-door
selection process. However, secretary of the rector electoral
committee Afan Gaffar claimed: "The voting has run very smoothly
and was completed within a short time".

All five candidates are graduates of UGM.

The committee claimed graduates from other universities were
welcome to contest the rectorship race.

In reality though, it excluded at least two "outsiders" from
different colleges in Bandung and Semarang during previous
administrative selections.

A recent poll organized by a UGM student body shows that more
than 71 percent of the 969 respondents, mostly the university's
students, preferred to have a new rector from their own
university.

"The poll result makes sense because an outsider could
endanger the 'harmony' within the university where people of
various ethnic and religious backgrounds study. UGM is unique,"
rector election committee chief Koento Wibisono told The Jakarta
Post.

At least 17 academics had registered with the committee to
join the race, but three of them failed to pass the
administrative selection process. Former finance minister Bambang
Sudibyo withdrew his candidacy for reasons which were unclear.

UGM will be the second state university to hold a rectorial
election for the 2002 to 2007 period after the Bandung Institute
of Technology (ITB) voted for Kusmayanto Kardiman as its new
rector on Aug. 29 last year.

Rectors had previously been appointed by the education
minister with the approval of the president. Under government
Decree No. 153/2001, state universities must elect their new
leaders democratically as part of the implementation of campus
autonomy.

Jakarta's University of Indonesia (UI), Bogor's Institute of
Agriculture (IPB), and Surabaya's Airlangga University are
expected to follow suit in the near future.

UGM, established in 1949 is the oldest state-run university in
the country.

The university currently has around 46,000 students and 2,500
lecturers, including several foreigners.