Leadership dispute causes crisis at legal aid body

Leadership dispute causes crisis at legal aid body

By Ariel Heryanto

SALATIGA, Central Java (JP): The dispute over the recent election of a new leader for the Foundation of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute seems to have reached a serious stage. This is the impression media reports give. It is obvious, however, that no one wants the respected foundation to break apart.

The dispute should be seen in a wider context, rather than limiting attention to the prominent figures involved in the crisis.

What is astonishing is the resemblance of the case to last year's leadership crisis at Satya Wacana Christian University in this town. Although not a carbon copy, the similarities are too stunning to be ignored.

Are the similarities merely a coincidence? How have societal changes due to rapid industrialization affected each conflict? Will leadership crises hit other middle-class institutions?

The two institutions were struck at the peak of their progress. Indeed, what happened to the legal aid body this month can be seen as an explosion of years of vent up problems. This was also the case at the university. The many conflicts have surprisingly burst into the open on a devastating scale and with an alarming impact.

There was no direct intervention from outsiders, as has happened at many other troubled middle-class institutions. This point is important especially due to both institutions pro- democracy leanings.

It is equally wrong to see the conflicts as a catastrophe in democracy. Apparently such a conflict is a result of over achieving.

If the institutions had not grown so rapidly the conflicts would likely not have taken place. Success led to prominent figures and vested interests.

It is also interesting to ask if efforts to institutionalize democracy must undergo a conflict with the very spirit of democracy itself. Are pro-democracy elements, which tend to romanticize radicalism, at odds with organizational discipline that tends to demand compromise and consensus?

Many more resemblances can be found in the two leadership crisis. Like the legal aid body case, the trigger of the explosion at the university was what was seen as the undemocratic election of its leader. Both leadership elections were rejected after requests were made to postpone the election process. In both cases the elections were held anyway.

The two candidates at the two institutions resemble each other. Both candidates are considered willing to compromise with the authorities, while their rivals are seen as more loyal to the group's ideals.

Like at the legal aid body, the final election process at the university was monopolized by an elite body. The special right to choose the chairman, entrenched in both institutions, is not the problem. Only in this decade has the special right created problems due to changes at both institutions in their interaction with outside parties.

It is remarkable that the elite bodies have a similar way of thinking and similar language. The legal aid advisory council agreed to disagree with its opposition but asked them "not impose their will". This was also the argument used by the university's elite body when it made a controversial decision on the election of the rector.

Following the controversial elections, those who were responsible for the election as well as the elected leaders of both institutions responded in the same manner. They admitted violating the election procedure and admitted the election was not approved by all sides. Nevertheless, they asked the protesters not to make an issue of it, let alone demand another election.

They asked all parties to accept the decision and support the newly elected leaders in order to bring peace to both the institutions. The request was rejected outright at the university. The legal aid body has not reached a conclusion.

The legal aid body's conflict basically concerns only two groups. The university's conflict pits the foundation personnel and the rector against the foundation's elders, and the lecturers against students.

The Church, the founder of the university, is also involved. Its decisions have repeatedly been ignored by the foundation and the new rector. The crisis caused thousands of students and their parents to suffer.

In the legal aid body the advisory council complained about terror and door-pounding harassment from protesters. At the university, the intimidation was targeted at those who rejected the new leadership. The university was the first institution to experience a leadership conflict in the 1990s. Others seem to be following suit.

The new university rector quickly declared his wish to embrace all his detractors. Exactly the opposite has happened. Violence and iron-hand policies were employed to crush the rector's opponents, and hundreds of million rupiah of lecturers' pay was expropriated. May the legal aid body be spared this misfortune.

The writer is a sociologist and a researcher living in Salatiga.