Women's Caucus blasted for self-interests

Fitri Wulandari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A group of female legislators fighting for equal political opportunities in the House of Representatives has been criticized for failing to carrying out its mission due to its own political interests.

Political observer Andi Mallarangeng said on Saturday that the Women Caucus, which was set up in July by 44 female legislators, was still unable to rid its members of their party's political interests.

According to him, the political parties still adopted the patriarchal culture, making it difficult to accept wider roles for women in politics.

"Consequently, they cannot fight for a common platform, namely, putting women's interests in the power structure," Andi told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar, entitled Male Feminist: A Solution or Problem, at the National Library.

The seminar was sponsored by the Women's Journal Foundation (YJP) to celebrate the Anti-Violence Against Women Day that falls on Nov. 25.

The caucus, whose members are made up of legislators from all factions in the House of Representatives, has demanded between 20 percent and 30 percent of all House seats be reserved for women.

Andi said legislators were yet to move to address the issue of women's political roles as they had not understood the function of their organization.

"Through the Caucus they could have had a cross-party mechanism to fight for their common platform," said Andy, who is a member of the National Election Commission (KPU).

"However, they are divided on each other and finally ignore their fight for the common platform," he added.

Andi urged the caucus to be independent and stay away from the interests of their respective political parties.

However, Caucus member Nurdiati Akma denied Andi's criticism, saying that although her colleagues brought their respective party's interests, they tried to work the issues through.

"It's true we bring our party's interests. But if our party's interests conflict with the Caucus, we always try to work them out with our respective parties," Nurdiati told The Jakarta Post.

Nurdiati said female legislators currently only made up nine percent of the total number of 500 legislators in the House. The Caucus, she added, would consistently fight hard to address the issue of gender imbalance in politics.

Nurdiati, who is a deputy secretary of the Reform Faction in the House, said the Caucus had started to work on its agenda, such as providing political education to the grass roots.

The members have also held discussions with their respective parties to formulate strategies to increase the number of women's seats in the Legislature.