Women demand recognition in politics

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Gender-biased politics in Indonesia could be substantially changed if political parties were required to let women make up 30 percent of legislative candidates, analysts said on Saturday.

They demanded that the proposal be accommodated in the general elections bill now being deliberated in the House of Representatives.

Chusnul Mar'iyah, Smita Notosusanto and Andi Mallarangeng were of the opinion that such a quota was the minimum requirement if Indonesia was to promote the role of women in politics and the high-level decision-making processes.

"The quota is a must for women. We want the government and legislators to adopt it as part of an affirmative action approach," Chusnul told reporters after a seminar held in conjunction with the celebration of noted activist Saparinah Sadli's 75th birthday.

Given such a move, women could contribute their ideas to the deliberation process and avoid discriminative articles being inserted into bills.

Deliberation of the electoral bill began on Thursday but the debate with the government will only start on Monday.

The bill, expected to be passed into law later this year, does not provide for a quota for women candidates in elections.

Chusnul said that at present women legislators in regency and provincial councils accounted for around 2 percent to 3 percent of the total number of legislators.

"The highest percentage is about 12.5 percent in a place in Sumatra. Bali has no women legislators in the provincial legislative council," Chusnul said.

At the national level, women only accounted for 9 percent of the total legislators in spite of the fact that they made up more than 50 percent of the total voters.

Women's activists have repeatedly criticized the small number of woman involved in the political parties and the high level decision-making processes. This was due to various reasons, they said, including lack of access, networking, education and cultural support.

In the past, women were usually encouraged to involve themselves in social activities such as through the Organization for Family Welfare (PKK), which activists claimed to be part of the systematic marginalization of women in politics.

Supporting women's long-standing demands, Andi said women deserved a greater role to make amends for their marginalization in the past.

"We agree that we must help the weak, the marginalized. Therefore, women deserve affirmative action, and that's the job of the state," he said.

Andi is also one of the founders of the Unity, Democracy and Nationhood Party which was established last month, along with Ryaas Rasyid.

But Andi criticized women for their reluctance to become deeply involved in politics.

"We really need more women in politics," he said.

Meanwhile, Smita said women activists would step up their campaign across the country to push legislators to pass an electoral law that required 30 percent of legislative candidates to be women.

Without such a quota, she said, many policies would only disadvantage women.

"At present, we see that many regencies fail to involve women in politics. This has resulted in policies that are harmful to women," she said.

Citing an example, she said West Sumatra, South Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara had implemented discriminatory policies by banning women from going out after 9 p.m.

She also suggested transparent criteria for the selection of legislative candidates in the 2004 elections, thus creating fair competition between men and women.