Suryadharma’s actions had earned him the ire of his own party members and leaders, and the talk about town was of an internal party coup that was aimed at removing him from his post as PPP president. The following day, the beleaguered leader took his chances and attempted to remove five senior PPP leaders who had stood up against him, and later reiterated his support for Prabowo.
What this shows is that even within the ranks of the Islamic parties of Indonesia, there remain pockets of dissent and differences of opinion that cut deep, making it difficult for the Islamic parties to come together as a solid, cohesive bloc.
In the course of the same week, leaders of other Islamic parties had also tried to bring the organisations together, on the grounds that as a combined force, the Islamic parties had garnered 32 per cent of the popular vote, thus, making them the biggest voting bloc. That attempt likewise failed to produce concrete results, and so, nobody is any wiser as to how and where the Islamic parties will turn when the presidential race gets going.
This tells us several things about the Islamic parties of Indonesia today and gives us the opportunity to measure their advance in Indonesian society.
For starters, it ought to be noted that the Islamic parties — Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (PKB), PPP, Partai Amanat Nasional (PAN) and Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) — have effectively dropped the Islamic state idea from their respective political agendas. Speaking to senior leaders of the parties, such as Zulkifliemansyah of the PKS, I was told again and again that the Islamic parties needed to get out of their own shells of dogma and orthodoxy, and to come up with practical programmes and solutions for real-life issues and problems, such as wealth distribution, traffic congestion, poor infrastructure and job creation. The Islamic parties have come to realise that empty slogans about piety and the good moral life no longer win them votes, and that the Indonesian electorate wants to see accountable and responsible governance instead.
Secondly, it should also be noted that the different parties have very different ways and means of dealing with issues that they regard as paramount to their, and voters’, interests. In this respect, the Islamic parties also have collective identities and memories that differentiate them from each other, and do not wish to be conflated into one homogeneous mass.
The PKB for instance, draws its strength — still — from the backing of the largely traditionalist Nahdatul Ulama movement which remains strongest in central and eastern Java.
The PAN party on the other hand is backed by the Muhamadiyah, which remains a largely urban, professional movement with its network of Muhamadiyah universities across the archipelago.
The PKS is seen as a campus-based modern activist party-movement that has its own cadre system too. These parties are wary of the fact that there is the tendency for them to “poach” each others members, and so there has always been some element of rivalry between them.
And the PPP, which dates back to the Suharto New Order era, carries its own fair share of historical baggage, too.
In the coming two months we are likely to see the parties of the country battle it out among themselves to form instrumental coalitions and to present their own presidential candidates to the electorate. The main question then will be how will the Islamic parties behave, and which of the three mainstream national parties will they support: the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDI-P), Golkar or Gerindra? And in the course of doing so, will they be suggesting their own choice for vice-presidential candidate?
The success of the Islamic parties — unexpected to say the least — has put them in a position where they can offer their own candidates for high office, and this may well turn out to be a presidential race where the Presidential nominee comes from a secular national party and his vice-presidential candidate from an Islamic one.
The upshot of it all is that the elections of Indonesia are far from over, so all eyes will remain on the internal political convulsions within that vast archipelago, up to the end of July at least.
Members of the An-Nadzir Muslim sect casting their ballots during the parliamentary election in Gowa, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, on April 9. Nearly 187 million people voted in the single-day legislative election, a huge feat in the still-young democracy.
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