Yogyakarta, November 12th 2021─The Corps of Political and Government Students (KOMAP) of FISIPOL UGM held a KOMAP Open Podium entitled “Where Will the KM UGM be Taken? on Friday (12/11). The event, which took place through Zoom Meeting, presented seven teams of student party representatives. Among them are the Kampus Biru Party, the Boulevard Party, the Srikandi Party, the Future Leaders Party, the Sayang Mama Party, the Gotong Royong Party, and the Bunderan Party. Mahardhika, the student of the Department of Politics and Government, led and guided the event.\KOMAP Open Podium is motivated by the political configuration of the UGM which is currently in turmoil, especially in 2021. The turmoil arose because of the student government of UGM policy which drew criticism among students. Among them was the action of the Student Organization of the Student Family of UGM (BEM KM UGM) which invited the Governor of Central Java, Ganjar Pranowo, as a speaker when the agrarian conflict in Central Java was heating up.
“In the event, discussions related to agrarian conflicts, especially in the Wadas area, were not discussed so that it became a polemic among KM UGM students,” Mahardhika said.
On another occasion, BEM KM also attended a meeting with the Coordinating Minister for Maritime and Investment Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia, Luhut Binsar Panjaitan. The meeting sparked a debate due to miscoordination with KM UGM. In addition, the internal management structure of KM UGM has also received a lot of criticism, one of which is violating the Rector’s Regulation Number 1 of 2017 concerning the Administration of UGM Student Organizations article 14 paragraph 2 which states that students may not hold positions when they have passed the trial. However, the BEM KM said that this was allowed in the Statutes of Association and Bylaws (AD/ART).
The controversy by BEM KM sparked distrust of the faculty institutions of UGM who were the members of the KM UGM reform coalition and sparked many public narratives about the disbandment of UGM main entities, namely BEM KM and Student Consultative Assembly (MPM KM UGM). Some student entities also consider the student government not to be a control function and demand it be disbanded.
“There are at least four demands made by the KM UGM reform coalition, ranging from regret over the counterproductive policies of BEM KM, demands for confessions and apologies, prosecution of the BEM KM entity to hold an extraordinary congress, to an invitation to all UGM students to be involved in reform and create KM UGM to be more democratic,” Mahardhika said.
From the several polemics above, each team of student party representatives that will fight in the UGM’s political battle, conveyed their responses and criticisms of the student government of UGM. In addition, they also discussed several alternative policies that could be offered to replace the student government. One of them is that the topics discussed are systemic problems that do not only occur at UGM, but also at other universities. Therefore, BEM KM UGM needs to fix various shortcomings and don’t let the same mistakes happen again.