NGOs seek support through mass media

NGOs seek support through mass media

By Joko E. Anwar

JAKARTA (JP): Legislators and employees of the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR) office were reportedly annoyed when
hundreds of forms kept coming through their facsimile machines.

They can probably expect many more until the scheduled
Assembly session in August.

The forms saying "Yes! I agree to a direct presidential
election!" turned out to be from the Center for Electoral Reform
(Cetro).

The non-government organization, along with 12 other groups,
organized the campaign seeking support for a direct presidential
election in the 2004 general elections.

They've published a pro-direct election advertisement that
occupies a whole page of the May 15 edition of Tempo weekly news
magazine. The ad can also be found in the May 15 editions of
Kompas, Jawa Pos, Pikiran Rakyat, and other national
publications.

Beneath photographs of Indonesia's three former presidents and
President Abdurrahman Wahid, the text of the ad begins, "Of these
four presidents, not one was elected directly by the people."

A form is provided in the ad so that readers can state their
support and fax the slips to fax numbers at either MPR or Cetro.

MPR's mailing address is also provided.

Yoyok Prakoso, Cetro's director of advocacy, said that the
strategy was drawn from experience.

"We learned that if we collected the statements of support
first and then handed them to MPR, they wouldn't bother to look
at them," Yoyok said on Saturday.

He was referring to Cetro's efforts in gathering public
support for an open presidential ballot among MPR members last
October when MPR decided to conduct a closed presidential ballot.

Among the participating NGOs in the campaign are the
Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), the Independent Election
Monitoring Committee (KIPP), the Indonesian Coalition of Women,
the Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi), and the Indonesian
Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI).

Rp 600 million had been allocated to the campaigns.

The funds were obtained from the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) and the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID).

Another Cetro activist, Hadar Gumay, said, "Making a petition
through the mass media is better than gathering a lot of people
for street rallies."

He said a rally could be used by a third party to create
riots.

While people have welcomed freedom of expression since
Soeharto stepped down in 1998, excesses like the closing of toll
roads and rioting have led to little sympathy for protesters.

Readers meanwhile showed mixed reactions to the new campaign.

An avid reader of Kompas, Adamsyah Wahab, said that he
supported the relatively new way of gaining public support,
saying it "makes people look at things more intelligently."

"I'll send the form in," he said.

Tempo reader Nurul Ayu Kesuma said that while she supported
the campaign, she was less enthusiastic about sending in the
form.

KIPP activist Mulyana W. Kusumah said that the public, which
now had sufficient political awareness, was ready for a direct
presidential election.

Such a mechanism would be enacted by an amendment in the 1945
constitution.

The constitution rules that a president is invariably elected
by members of MPR.

The campaign, Mulyana added, will try to add increasing
pressure to MPR's ad hoc committee which is assigned to make
amendments in the constitution.

They are expected to include the policy of direct presidential
elections in their amendments, and Mulyana wants to make sure
they follow through and actually draw up the amendment before
2004.

According to Yoyok, last Friday almost 1,000 forms of support
had been faxed to MPR.

"We already received complaints from MPR leaders through their
public relations officials about the incoming faxes to their
offices," Yoyok said.

Regardless of complaints, the public should be free to use the
fax numbers, he said.

Hadar said that Cetro would change the fax numbers on the
forms, replacing them with MPR's public relations office fax
number, because the fax numbers in the MPR's leaders' offices had
already been turned off.

Hadar said that the campaign would run several more times in
the print media, until the MPR general session in August.

Some radio versions of the campaign were being made, he added.

An activist from the City Network (Jarkot), Mariole, said,
however, that street rallies were still much more effective in
sending a message to the government and MPR.

"(Campaign through mass media) won't replace the role of
street rallies," Mariole told the Post.

Rallies put stronger pressure on government legislators to
change their policies, he added.