YOGYAKARTA – Academic script and Yogyakarta’s Specialty draft law from government that include the concept of pararadya or governor/vice governor are recommended to be evaluated and corrected due to their incompatibility with the philosophy and culture of Yogyakarta community. In addition, the specialty of Yogyakarta does not only lie on the position of governor and vice governor, but also in the aspect of land, finance, and culture.
Those emerged in aspiration gathering of RUUK DIY (Yogyakarta’s Specialty Draft Law) by Commission II of House of Legislative Body (DPR) and Commission I of DPD RI (Regional Representative Body) with academicians at UGM Senate Hall on Thursday (10/3).
UGM sociologist, Prof. Sunyoto Usman, said the discussion of the draft law is not just to respond to the past or answer the present context, but also to address challenges faced by Yogyakarta and Indonesia in the future. He mentioned that currently the existing points of specialty have mostly been agreed as they had been discussed by the previous Parliament. However, the position of governor and vice governor is still a matter of debate in the parliament and government. "Based on general opinion in the society, it leads to appointment of governor, but if later the result is different, this will cause significant sociological impacts," he said.
Professor of Law Faculty of Universitas Gadjah Mada, Prof. Dr. Sudjito expressed his concern about the commitment of the members of the House in the discussion of the draft law. He expected that members of the Commission II are able to absorb the aspirations of people and not only bring momentary political interests. Sudjito added, preparation and absorption of aspiration should be performed bottom-up (by society), not top down (from government). "Don’t let the people’s aspirations be politicized," he said.
On that occasion, Sudjito also assessed the draft law of Yogyakarta Specialty currently needs to be reviewed and improved since there are many unclear terminologies found. One of them is the term ‘main governor’. In many countries, this concept is not found. "This is just a trick to replace the term pararadya to main governor," he said.
Meanwhile, political analyst Ari Dwipayana, M.Si, said that discussion of draft law of Yogyakarta Specialty is an important part of the discussion of Indonesian problems associated with asymmetric decentralization that has been done in Aceh and Papua. "The Draft does not only respond to short-term interests or the 2014 election, but for long-term interests," he added.
Chairman of Commission II of DPR RI, Chairuman Harahap, told the visit to UGM is to explore the aspirations of academicians as a checklist of issues for discussion of the draft in each faction in the House. "Commission II had already received many suggestions from experts of politics, law, sociology, governance and land affairs. Our visit to UGM is because we see many intellectuals at UGM who have independent and original thinking," he said.
The discussion guided by UGM Executive Secretary, Drs. Djoko Moerdiyanto, MA, was attended by 18 members of the House and 9 members of the DPD, namely, Ganjar Pranowo, Nurul Arifin, Alexander Litaay, and Taufik Effendi. Meanwhile, from the DPD were Hafid Ashrom, Dani Anwar, and Paulus Sumino.