NU Congress Organisation Commission Discusses AD/ART Amendments

The Organisation Commission of the 35th Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Congress is discussing a number of strategic matters, including proposed amendments to the Anggaran Dasar dan Anggaran Rumah Tangga (AD/ART) and the method for electing the PBNU leadership.

Secretary of the Steering Committee (SC) of the 35th NU Congress, Muhammad Nuh, said in Jombang on Saturday that the discussion of these matters was being held behind closed doors to give delegates more room to deliberate freely.

“The session is closed; we cannot be joined by outside parties. During the ‘cooking’ process, no one may join, but once it is finished, we can all enjoy the results,” he said.

According to him, besides the Organisation Commission, the sessions of the Programme Commission and the Recommendation Commission were also being held behind closed doors.

The closed forum is part of the congress’s internal mechanism to keep the deliberation process focused until it produces a formulation agreed upon by the participants.

Nevertheless, the SC assured that the results of the commission sessions would be conveyed to the public once the discussion and decision-making stages are complete.

“I will convey the results later,” said Muhammad Nuh.

He said all matters discussed by the Organisation Commission had been inventoried by the SC to be deliberated and decided upon in the congress forum.

According to him, organisational matters and other issues that could potentially give rise to differences had been discussed beforehand in a series of pre-congress meetings.

The preliminary discussions were held to minimise differences while deepening and enriching the material before it was brought to the congress forum.

“So that at this point, in the commission now, it is relatively richer, with more understanding. Hopefully the differences will also become smaller, because the congress is a place for differences. If it were a place for agreement, it would be over,” he said.

The 35th NU Congress is holding a number of commission sessions in parallel, including the Bahtsul Masail ad-Diniyah al-Maudlu’iyyah Commission, Bahtsul Masail ad-Diniyah al-Waqi’iyyah Commission, Bahtsul Masail ad-Diniyah al-Qanuniyyah Commission, Organisation Commission, Programme Commission, and Recommendation Commission.

The results of each commission’s discussions will then be brought to the plenary session for ratification.