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Fractured student movement losing power to effect change
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Police fire tear gas at students demonstrating against proposals to extend the presidential term limit, in Jakarta on April 11. (AFP/Adek Berry)
I
ndonesia’s student movement is struggling to retain its role as an agent of change, as previously united fronts fragment and alliances with the governing elite are nurtured, not avoided.
Over the past five years, a number of student demonstrations have been staged in protest of state policies deemed detrimental to the welfare of the people and to democracy. However, these protests have either been ignored by policymakers or have been met with state violence.
During the 2019 #ReformasiDikorupsi (reform corrupted) protests in opposition to several controversial pieces of legislation, for instance, university students took to the streets in cities across the country alongside workers’ and farmers’ unions.
The students opposed the electoral candidacy of former graft busters, as well as plans to revise the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Law and the Mining Law. They also called for ongoing human rights abuse cases to be resolved and for state security forces to withdraw from Papua.
But the biggest student protest since 1998, in which five people were killed, failed to overturn even one government policy.
The KPK was defanged despite massive waves of protest, largely because the political elite banded together to support the controversial changes to the institution, said Wijayanto, the director of the Institute for Research, Education and Information on Economics and Social Affairs (LP3ES).
"The elite in general support the new law. The oligarchy is still very much united on the revision," he said recently.
