NEWSDESK
Jakarta/Brussels, 29 November 2006: Ex-guerrillas are running for office in Aceh’s local elections, but differences over candidates have split their leadership, raising questions about the movement’s political future.
Aceh’s Local Elections: The Role of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM),* the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines how and why the rift occurred and its possible impact on and after the 11 December vote. It is based on extensive interviews conducted in Aceh throughout 2006.
“The political distance Aceh has travelled since the December 2004 tsunami is remarkable – that GAM members would be contesting local office and the Indonesian government would permit it seemed unthinkable two years ago”, says Sidney Jones, Crisis Group’s South East Asia Project Director. “But infighting within GAM is complicating its transition from armed insurgency to political movement”.
Acehnese see the December elections as a critical reinforcement of the 2005 Helsinki peace agreement between GAM and the government. For GAM, they are a test of political strength and an indication of how much work it will have to do to win the much more important 2009 elections, when seats in the provincial parliament will be at stake. For the armed forces and many Jakarta-based officials, the polls are a test of GAM’s good faith: will its candidates refrain from suggesting that independence is just around the corner? For many Acehnese in former conflict areas, they are a gauge of whether the peace will hold.
The GAM split could divide its vote to the advantage of established parties and the old political elite, or lead to disarray and disaffection in the ranks, producing splinter groups or even intra-GAM violence. It could set back the movement’s plans to form a local political party. And it could divert attention from pressing issues such as improving the distribution of reintegration funding and ensuring ex-fighters get jobs.
“The rift evident today may be a natural outcome for a guerrilla group catapulted into the political sphere faster than it expected, and GAM may reunite or fracture after the elections”, says Robert Templer, Crisis Group’s Asia Program Director. “Either way, the negotiations that GAM undertook in Helsinki have set the stage for a stronger, more democratic Aceh, whether or not its own people take charge”.
