Gefarina Johan tastes bitter political pill

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

On May 5, a newspaper in the United States, The Washington Times, printed a story about the failed political bid of a woman in Indonesia.

The woman, who had tirelessly campaigned in her electoral district, failed to win a seat in the House of Representatives (DPR) because her name was second on her party's list of candidates. The candidate who did get a seat was a male who had done little to win the hearts of voters.

The story carried a bitter irony as the woman, whose political career had been dashed, was the chair of a women's political movement that had campaigned successfully for a greater role for women in the country's political system.

But the Washington-based newspaper would not run a story just about this failure, and in fact devoted the space to highlight the woman's and her organization's campaign to help promote the interests of women through the political process.

The woman, Gefarina Johan, chair of the Women's Political Caucus of Indonesia (KPPI), was the subject of the story because she, on behalf of her organization, accepted the first Madeleine K. Albright grant from the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), a Washington-based, non-governmental organization that promotes democracy.

The US$25,000 grant, which was named for the former U.S. secretary of state in the Clinton administration, was the first to be given to a women's organization. It is part of the NDI's campaign to promote the equitable participation of women in politics and government, called the Win with Women Global Initiative.

"The grant has a great significance for the women's movement in Indonesia, because we can tell the world that there is a live and strong women's political movement that has managed to push the agenda of more participation for women in politics," Gefarina told The Jakarta Post.

Two years earlier, after establishing a coalition of participating members and like-minded NGOs, the KPPI successfully campaigned for the inclusion of an article in Law No. 12/2003 on general elections, urging political parties to fill out their lists of candidates with at least 30 percent women.

Although the 30 percent benchmark is not compulsory, Gefarina said the article was an indications that the women's political movement had started to gain ground in the country.

Gefarina, who has been active in the movement since its inception, said the article was an important milestone for the Indonesian women's movement, considering that Indonesian society and political parties in particular are very patriarchal.

"The cultural obstacles for women's participation is formidable. There is a long tradition in political parties of being unfriendly to women and I was the victim of such a situation. I was a deputy secretary-general of my party and yet I failed in my bid for office," she said. Gefarina is the deputy secretary-general of the National Awakening Party (PKB).

Gefarina gave another example in which a fellow activist saw her candidacy for a Cabinet post shelved by her party leader in favor of a male party executive.

"Simply because she is a woman," she said.

Many women in the country still do not understand or believe that they could be better off having more women represent them in the decision-making process.

"They do not seem to share my view that society in general would be better off if women were given a greater role in the decision-making process. In cases like the outbreak of polio, tuberculosis, malnutrition, which stem largely from poverty, women can do more because they have that kind of sensibility. They are the ones who watch their husbands die of tuberculosis or their children perish from malnutrition," she said.

To change politically incorrect views of women and to reach a wider audience with its awareness-raising campaign, Gefarina said the KPPI would use the grant to build a far-reaching network throughout the country. Currently, the KPPI has local affiliates in 22 provinces and expects that by the end of 2005 it will have affiliates in all of the country's 32 province.

The local affiliates, which are modeled on the structure of the central KPPI, consist of eight political parties that passed the electoral threshold and smaller political parties that have their own representatives in the respective provinces, as well as local women's NGOs.

She said that although members of the KPPI still maintained their loyalty to their political parties, all the members attempted to set aside short-term interests in favor of the women's cause in general.

"When it comes to fighting for women's interests we have spoken in unison," she said.

Gefarina is lucky to have the PKB as her political vehicle, which, unlike most political parties in the country, promotes the advancement of women in society.

"The PKB's standing order requires that all branches must have women who are involved in the party's day-to-day activities," she said.

Currently, the 42-year-old mother of one also holds a key position in the women's organization of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country's largest Islamic organization.

The organization does not differentiate between men and women when it comes the betterment of ummat (general public).

"Back in the 1950s, the NU sent five representatives to the lower house, outdoing the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), which only had four," she said.

However, against the conventional tradition that prevails in the NU, Gefarina received her political and leadership training from the Association of Islamic Students (HMI), an organization considered anathema to the NU's age-old tradition.

A graduate of Jamia Milia Islamia University in New Delhi, India, Gefarina now teaches political science at the Islamic State University in Jakarta.

At one time, Gefarina led the HMI's women corps, a position she despised as it eternally relegated women to the sidelines of organizational affairs. "Why does it have to be a separation between male and female members, to a point where there has to be an individual organization for women?" she asked.

She initiated a movement to campaign for women's equality in the organization, albeit with little success.

"Women deserve bigger roles -- other than those related to domestic matters such as cooking and producing schedules for the organization," she said.