Nusye Hanarti wears a nostalgic smile while remembering her experience in 1998, when she joined her aunt, the late senior journalist and activist Siti Latifah Herawati Diah, in a movement for Indonesian women’s political rights.

Alongside other journalists and activists in women’s rights movement Gerakan Perempuan Sadar Pemilu (GPSP), she joined Herawati during the reform era to promote female empowerment before the 1999 general election.

“Together we would carry out campaigns for women not to merely follow their husbands [in election voting] and to be independent voters,” Nusye, 66, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

“My aunt was active in promoting women’s rights in politics. She always said ‘at least 30 percent of parliament should be women’. It was not an easy goal,” she recalled.

Herawati, one of the first board members of the National ...