KPU head knows when to speak out

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

It has been a year of elections for Indonesia.

Within the space of just six months, the country has held a general election and two rounds of the presidential election involving over five million poll workers, hundreds of thousands of legislative candidates from 24 political parties and five pairs of presidential candidates, not to mention 153 million eligible voters whose constitutional rights had to be honored.

This massive democratic undertaking was accomplished just recently, with the swearing-in of over 12,000 new councillors throughout the country, and the induction of 550 members of the House of Representatives (DPR) together with 174 members of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD).

The climax was the declaration by the General Elections Commission (KPU) that Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was the winner of the presidential election, making him the country's sixth president since independence in 1945.

With the dust finally settled, one person who can make the biggest sigh of relief and laugh the last laugh is the man who has been at the helm of the General Elections Commission (KPU) for the last three years, Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin.

Not only were the general election and the two rounds of the presidential election he helped organize lauded as being fair and transparent by scores of international observers like the Atlanta-based Carter Center and the European Union elections observation mission, he also won praise for organizing "one of the most complex elections" ever undertaken in the world.

At the outset, the job of organizing the general and presidential elections indeed seemed like a "mission impossible". Two laws regulating the elections, Law No. 12/2003 on legislative elections and Law No. 23/2003 on direct presidential elections, were passed less than a year before the campaign for the legislative election started, giving the commission little time to prepare all the materials, and time was not on its side.

Nazaruddin and other KPU members assumed office in April 2001, while local elections commissions (KPUDs) were set up between May and June 2003, with few resources at their disposal.

"We built everything from scratch but managed to organize the election in a timely fashion. Poll workers at all levels deserve the credit," he told The Jakarta Post in a recent interview.

The soft-spoken political science professor also said that amid such a huge endeavor, members of the KPU played only a coordinating role in the day-to-day functioning of the commission's massive bureaucracy.

When asked about how he defined the job of KPU chairman, Nazaruddin said: "The position does not matter much. I simply coordinate the activities of other KPU members," in a self- deprecatory way.

His low-key leadership style has been on display in his rare encounters with the press, as he allows his underlings to do most of the talking on a variety of issues.

Even when corruption allegations were leveled at the KPU by a coalition of non-governmental organizations, Nazaruddin remained silent and made room for his deputy chairman, Ramlan Surbakti, or commission member Hamid Awaluddin to issue rebuttals.

"I will speak only on crucial issues, especially when the independence of the KPU is at stake," he said.

One of those rare occasions was when he made a statement on the readiness of the KPU to hold the legislative election, despite immense logistical problems. He said that his speech lifted the morale of poll workers throughout the country.

However, the statement also led people to perceive him as arrogant for proceeding against all the odds.

He was elected a member of the KPU in March 2001 after a tense standoff between different House factions. He was said to be backed by the Golkar Party faction, while other candidates were backed by other strong political factions in the House.

His membership of the commission can be considered the pinnacle of his foray into the terrain of political science, where it was possible for him to put theories into practice.

"If most elections commissions abroad appoint legal experts as members, it's because elections there are a legal process. A general election is more a political process; therefore, the most suitable person for the job is a political scientist," he said, after a long pause.

Nazaruddin owes his interest in human affairs to his father, who brought news of the latest political developments in the country's capital to their home in Bireuen, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, through a number of periodicals he took home in the early 1950s.

To further cultivate his interest, he enrolled at the school of political science of the University of Indonesia, where he would teach until assuming the KPU chairmanship.

He obtained a master's degree and PhD from Melbourne's Monash University.

He had a hand in the establishment of the Association of Indonesian Political Scientists (AIPI). He was also a full-time researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

Although some of his childhood dreams may have been fulfilled by working with the KPU, he also became disillusioned with the job and said that the current term would be his last.

"I will not accept a second term, even if the House nominates me for the job again after my tenure ends in 2006. I am tired; people simply don't appreciate sufficiently what we do here," he said.

Nazaruddin also said that the job of chairing the commission had deprived him intellectual stimulation.

"I've read hardly any books in the last three years," he said.