[nasional_list] [ppiindia] The decline of political Islam in Indonesia

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**http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HC28Ae03.html


Mar 28, 2006 
  

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

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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