Public, elite divided over Yogyakarta's special status
Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta
Councillors in the provincial legislative council are divided over Yogyakarta's future directions in the fields of public administration, politics and culture.
A part of the legislature is supporting the bill on Yogyakarta's special status recently submitted to the legislative council, which gives the gubernatorial and deputy gubernatorial positions to the Yogyakarta sultan and the Pakualaman raja respectively.
The councillors argue that the two royal families deserve the top positions and that the bill is aimed at preserving the province's unique traditional and cultural heritage.
"The nation should entrust the provincial administration to the Yogyakarta sultan and the Pakualaman raja, who have given up their own powers and privileges, and assigned them to the Indonesia unitary state. We should not forget the historical aspect," Totok Daryanto of the Reform Faction told The Jakarta Post here on Wednesday.
He said a majority of local people did not want their royal families to be reduced to the level of commoners as, according to Javanese thinking, both sultans and rajas were "the representatives of Almighty God on earth."
He also lauded the bill for establishing regional autonomy for the province as a whole instead of for its regencies and municipalities as was the case in other provinces based upon the regional autonomy law, saying that the granting of regional autonomy to the Yogyakarta regencies would reduce Yogyakarta's status as a royal territory based on tradition and age-old cultural values.
Another group of councillors, however, argue that the office of governor and the office of provincial chief executive should be separated.
This group of councillors are of the opinion that Yogyakarta province should be headed by a governor and deputy governor while day-to-day administration should be the responsibility of the head of government and provincial administration secretary.
"This proposal is aimed at preserving Yogyakarta's historical and cultural heritage while simultaneously developing democracy. As things stand, it will be difficult for the provincial administration to become fully accountable and it will be difficult for local people to criticize the government should the administration continue to be led by the sultan," Achmad Subagya of the United Development Party faction said, stressing that the proposal was based on the combination of the traditional feudal system and the democratic political system.
He added that despite the presence of the royal families in the administration, democracy could be upheld by handing the responsibility for administrative over to commoners.
He explained that the governor and the vice governor would perform mainly ceremonial duties while the head of government would be responsible for the day-to-day running of the administration.
Bambang Cipto, a political analyst from Yogyakarta's Muhammadiyah University, concurred with Achmad Subagya and said that the chief executive should be elected by the provincial legislative council in accordance with the law.
"Given such a system, we would be able to maintain the sultanate for a long time to come while the legislature would elect the provincial administration's chief executive," he said.
Bambang also said the special status proposed for the province should place emphasis not only on the political and cultural fields but also on the educational sector as Yogyakarta drew students from all over the country as well as many foreign countries.
"Yogyakarta would be unique not only for its political system but also its development programs in the tourism and education sectors," he said.