The decline of political Islam in Indonesia

Asia Times Online
28 March 2006


Southeast Asia

The decline of political Islam in Indonesia
By Andrew Steele

JAKARTA - Islam maintains a more visible place in secular Indonesia
than it has in years. New mosques are popping up everywhere, while
more and more women wear jilbabs, or Islamic headscarves, than
before. That rising tide of Islamic expression in daily life,
however, is not translating into greater support for the country's
many mushrooming Islamic political parties, particularly the Partai
Keadilan Sejahtera, or the PKS.

The PKS's impressive showing in the 2004 legislative election, in
which the party increased its representation in Indonesia's main
legislative body, the DPR, to 45 seats from the seven seats it won in
1999, caught many political pundits off guard. Questions arose about
whether Indonesia's move toward more democracy would steer the
country in a less secular, more Islamic, direction.

The party's "clean and caring" campaign message struck a chord with
many voters who had already grown tired of the ineffectiveness of
Indonesia's better-known political parties, including former
president Suharto's old guard Golkar, former president Megawati
Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle, or PDI-P,
and former president Abdurrahman Wahid's National Awakening Party, or
PKB.

However, voters have always been suspicious that the PKS would
eventually push for sharia law and other pieces of conservative
legislation that would move Indonesia in the direction of a more pro-
Islamic state. True to form, the PKS has recently thrown its
legislative weight behind an outrageous anti-pornography bill which
aims to push secular Indonesia in the direction of the intolerant,
fundamentalist regimes seen in the Middle East.

Shifting its focus from corruption-busting to promoting a more
Islamic fundamentalist agenda in Indonesia's secular society has
affirmed fears that the party was all along masquerading behind anti-
corruption issues to push forward their hardline religious views.

Public opinion polls, academics and former PKS supporters say the
party in its current manifestation is falling out of favor with the
more democratic-minded Indonesian electorate. Widespread perceptions
that the party is consumed with internal disputes and petty power
struggles have greatly undermined the party's credentials for
affecting political, economic and social change.

In fact, there are growing indications that the party is losing,
rather than expanding, its popular support base. A recent survey by
the Jakarta-based Lembaga Survei Indonesia (LSI), an independent
polling agency, points to a party in peril. LSI conducted a year-long
survey in 2005, asking Indonesians which political party they would
chose if legislative elections were held that day.

The trend line shows an unmistakable and steady decline for the PKS,
running from a January, 2005 high of 10.1% to a dismal 2.7% by year's
end, the second-lowest rating for any major political party. The
quantitative results are eye-opening, particularly considering the
still prevalent impression among Jakarta's political pundits that the
PKS is actually growing in numbers.

Significantly, PKS campaigned in 2004 on an anti-corruption ticket,
hoping to attract voters to its self-professed squeaky clean image.
Disenchanted by former strongman Suharto's corrupt and abusive 32-
year rule, that message resonated soundly at the polls. Since being
elected, however, the PKS has not yet uncovered any major corruption
scandals, analysts note.

Although President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's popularity has dropped
in recent months, the fact that no major corruption allegations have
surfaced against him or his government has shifted popular attention
toward jump-starting the economy, spearheading education drives and
improving access to health care.

On all those fronts, the PKS doesn't bring much to the legislative
table, according to Indra Piliang, a researcher at the Jakarta-based
Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS. "What is the
PKS's contribution?" He added that the party was increasingly
beginning to resemble Indonesia's many other opportunistic political
parties.

Marriages of convenience

Indeed, the PKS has failed to sustain or commit to any broad-based
political ideals, and increasingly party leaders seem bent on mere
survival. According to PKS's own internal data, the party has entered
at least 54 different political coalitions supporting particular
governor, mayor or regent candidates across the archipelago. Among
them, analysts say, there is no discernible common political or
social thread among the PKS's mishmash of coalitions.

On Bali, for example, it backs the mayor of Denpasar in a coalition
consisting of Golkar, PAN, the obscure PKPB and PKB party. In South
Kalimantan, PKS supports the regent of Balangan alongside PPP, PDI-P,
PD and the PKB. The PKS-backed Riau Governor Ismet Abdullah, a
Suharto-era New Order holdover, causing some analysts and others to
question whether PKS's standards have completely diminished.

"People are starting to see PKS as just another party because they
are supporting anyone who might get into power," Indra said. "Their
affiliation with regional governments and their participation in
coalitions will make it hard for them to maintain their clean and
caring message."

More significantly, the PKS's once clean image has recently been
tarnished by corruption allegations surrounding its senior members.
In Depok, which lies just south of Jakarta, PKS candidate Nurmahmudi
Ismail recently won a fiercely contested mayoral race, in which the
Indonesian Supreme Court finally ruled in PKS's favor after rival
Golkar challenged the integrity of the results.

Nurmahmudi, who campaigned on the party's anti-corruption message,
has been questioned since in two high-profile graft cases. The most
recent case involves a suspect permit he issued for a 1 million
hectare palm oil plantation in East Kalimantan while he served as
forestry minister in 2000-01 under then-president Abdurrahman Wahid.
The inquiry into the permit involves allegations that only 2,000
hectares are being used for palm oil, while the remainder of the area
was illegally logged.

On March 14, Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission, or KPK,
called the mayor in for questioning. While he has not been charged or
declared a suspect, his political opponents are demanding an
explanation. Nurmahmudi has remained silent on the case, while the
PKS's head in Depok said the questioning was a "normal process",
according to news reports.

Innocent or guilty, the allegations have not been lost on Depok
residents who backed the PKS precisely for their corruption-busting
credentials. "The PKS has started to play," said one PKS supporter,
signaling his perception that the PKS is no longer a party of
corruption fighters.

PKS has been widely recognized as one of the best-organized political
parties in Indonesia. At the same time, it also lacks strong
candidates and a well-developed political support base across the
country. "Their organizational structure is among the best," Indra
explained. "But to get mass support they are not that good because
they have a very limited market - like Muslims in the cities and
college campuses."

Democratic bellwether

Political analysts are looking forward to the Jakarta governor race,
most likely to be run in late 2007, as an important litmus test
measuring the popularity of PKS and other Indonesian Islamic parties.
For the PKS to be a democratic force, analysts agree that it must
first get its house in order - and fast.

A spiraling internal dispute between the party's non-secular members,
who control the spirit and core of the party, and a smaller, more
moderate secular faction that joined after becoming disenchanted with
the corruption in other political parties, threatens to derail its
future election hopes.

There are some indications that party elders understand the political
necessity to tone down its increasingly hardline message. Information
recently surfaced that the party is considering fronting former
Indonesian TV star Rano Karno as its candidate in the Jakarta
gubernatorial race - hardly the face of fundamentalist Islam.

But if the latest LSI poll is any indication - and historically its
research has been - it's going to take more than cosmetics to
reinvigorate Indonesia's largest, floundering, Islamic party.

Andrew Steele is the Managing Editor of the fortnightly Van Zorge
Report on Indonesia based in Jakarta. He may be reached at
asteele@vzh.co.id

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)