The Personal Paper

PART FIRST: WHO REALLY I AM?

Who am I really? I am Andrian, you can call me by that name. I grew and developed to know all the difficulties that exist.

From a young age, I began to learn to live alone. Because my family had to move to another city. So, I lived with my cousin for a few months. I learned to know myself and observe the environment. Not all children enjoy childhood, including me.

Since childhood, I have known about bullying, differences, intimidation, discrimination, and others. All these things I accepted and took every problem to the room to lock myself. I learned to recognize how the colonized people felt. I learned how the oppressed survive. I learned how every human being has human rights.

What are you doing? I worked in the election supervisory body since 2019 until now. In 2019, I was assigned to become a public relations practitioner. Specifically, I am tasked with covering the activities of the leadership, documenting the activities of the leadership and writing scripts for news that will be published on the institution's website.

The second year, 2020, the boss moved me from the public relations department to the inter-agency relations department. That year, I was part of the drafting of the cooperation script between the election supervisory body and other government agencies. After that, another boss asked me to help out with public relations work again. If you are too diligent, you will be seen every day.

How do I divide my time? If you ask this, I can answer that I have time to work full time. Ready, I can work to sleep in the office, I replied. On the other hand, I still have time to read articles on human rights, elections, and democracy.

I know, time to study is a necessity, that's why I applied and am still studying in university to get a degree from master of law. I still have time to write and publish opinions or journals or books.

Do I have records of the organization? As a child, I took part in additional activities from school such as scouting. I also participated in the activities of anti-drug students to study and assist the government in socializing the dangers of drugs to life. When I grew up, I became part of the Student Executive Board.

From the records of my life, I once formed a community to monitor public information disclosure and a community to monitor public services in West Sumatra. My main activity so far is being a cadre in the Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPP) of Indonesia. Subsequently, I became a cadre of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI).

Who was the person who shaped, taught, and guided me all this time? There is a person who I consider an important person in my life, he is Samaratul Fuad. You can search for that person on a search engine. Mr. Samaratul Fuad is an idealist, ideologue, thinker, philosopher, defender of human rights, guardian of democracy, teacher of advocates and many more.

Mr. Samaratul Fuad is a person who puts the interests of the community above personal interests. This lifelong activist has never been rich, because the money he has in his hands is split in two, partly to help the struggle of society and another to his family. Mr. Samaratul Fuad is a person who is honest, with integrity, kind, considerate, and has a pure heart.

Am I a person of integrity? I can't give myself a perfect score. If I was forced to say how much I was worth, it was only 80% of the 100% self-integrity indicator. Why am I not perfect? As a child, I once stole chocolate from a neighbor's garden. I once broke the driving rules, you know when people don't wear helmets. I don't know, but people can fully name all my flaws.

PART TWO: INTEGRITY TEST?

If there is fraud during the election, can we tolerate fraud? That can happen, if there is no intention to commit fraud. I gave an example, poor people do not know the law, they do not know that there is a threat of criminal sanctions if they receive assistance from election participants.

Because unreasonable assistance is part of the election crime, namely money politics. In this case, the poor cannot be punished for their ignorance. There are other ways to impose sanctions other than making the poor live in prison for not knowing the laws and regulations.

Another example, election participants are not allowed to invite small children in public campaign activities. What is a problem is that children cannot be prevented from being present when election participants carry out their campaigns. The children were happy because there was a people's party when the election participants held their campaign.

We cannot live alone in this world. We live socially and gather with other people. There are times when people face problems and there is no legal basis to solve the problem. What should we do?

Sometimes we forget the laws that have existed since humans existed. The law is called a habit that has become a mutual agreement, in other parts of the world, it is called customary law. When the problem requires a legal basis but there is no legal product to solve the problem. We can choose to see how customary law is a solution other than legislation. Customary law is a good habit that comes from the wisdom of the ancestors. Customary law gives us solutions to solve life's problems wisely.

PART THREE: DO I HAVE BENEFITS FOR OTHER PEOPLE?

Have I ever carried out activities related to social, political or community activities? Of course ever. I used to be an exercise manager for youth leadership training. As the manager of the training, I lead the instructors, the executive committee, and resource persons to develop concepts and teaching materials.

In that activity, I became the main source of information to be a discussion partner for the training participants. So that training participants get answers that they did not find when the training instructor or resource person could not provide answers during the training. As the training manager, I solve all the problems of the organizers and trainees.

Do the trainees benefit from the training? for students in the village, it is very difficult for them to be able to speak in public. With good training, trainees can express their opinions in public, trainees know how to hold meetings in the organization to determine organizational policies.

The obstacle that we often face is the problem of funding to organize the training. At that time, we made cooperation with partners from organizations. Long term program, I want to run a school for human rights and a school for democracy. Villagers need skills to help themselves.

Will any of my skills and experience help me when I am elected as chairman of the election supervisory body? Organization, I have a network of organizations that can help community participation programs to oversee and monitor the implementation of elections.

My expertise in managing the training can help this institution in running a more effective and efficient election supervisory school as well as arranging follow-up actions after participants finish the fast school.

Community participation is unfinished homework. In other parts of the world, people are concerned about monitoring elections independently. People know the importance of democratic parties and why they vote to elect the president or members of the legislature. Therefore, the program to foster participation is not difficult, it only requires special attention and strong will.

PART FOUR: ATTITUDE TO DEMOCRACY

Officials, leaders, rulers, and political elites may exert influence to take policies from the institutions we lead. Why? It's no secret that in this country, election organizers are elected by the president and members of the legislature. However, political ethics does not allow integrity to stand strong.

There are times when political interests put pressure on election organizers. Likewise, the interests of mass action groups that suppress the organization. We can accept criticism and recommendations, but we have our own opinion to publish policies or make the best decisions. Pressure is not a problem, we can all be friends as long as we are positive best values, not friendship for one-sided interests. Politicians must know that improving democracy is more important than public office.

This is one example of how a candidate for election management writes a personal paper as a condition for participating in the selection of candidates for election organizers in Indonesia