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Islamic political parties presiding over their own demise
Once considered a threat by some, political Islam is now under threat
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Once considered a threat by some, political Islam is now under threat. Come April 9, Islamic parties may find themselves impaled by their own expectations.
Studies by the Centre for Strategic & International Studies and the Indonesia Survey Institute suggest a dry harvest for the nine competing Islamic parties, with optimistic projections at 23 percent, or worse dropping to 15 percent of votes.
There is a waning interest in political piety unseen since the final year of Soeharto’s repression of the 1997 election.
Grand speeches are unlikely to save the United Development Party (PPP), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) or the National Mandate Party (PAN) from sliding to 5 percent or less, as haughty divisions halve the National Awakening Party’s (PKB) 10.5 percent returns from the previous election.
The emerging “green” of Indonesia’s political canvas is suddenly awash with the “blue”, “red” and “yellow” of the Democratic Party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Golkar Party, who are expected to sweep half of all votes cast.
The giddy heights of Indonesia’s first election in 1955 are a fading memory of Islamic parties surging toward 43 percent of votes.
When former president Soeharto “simplified” the party system, the amalgamation of Islamic parties under the PPP still received 29 percent of votes in the 1977 election. That marked the highest turnout ever for a single Islamic party.
The first democratic election in four decades saw political Islam return in force by winning 34 percent of total votes in 1999.
But the absolute numbers told a more nuanced story.
Only by combining the 24.5 million votes of the two biggest Islamic parties of 2004, the PKB and the PPP, could it be comparable to second placed Golkar’s 23.3 million votes, and far behind election winner PDI-P’s 35.4 million.
Five years later, Islamic parties again raised their tally to 38 percent.
But the spectacular rise of the PKS in 2004 — jumping from 2 percent under the Justice Party in 1999 to 7.3 percent — concealed the diffusion of support for Islamic parties.
Apart from the PKS, the support base for Islamic parties became thinner.
The PKB, the PPP and the PAN saw their collective votes drop by 3.4 million, in a deficit caused by the PKS’s rise, the emergence of new Islamic parties such as the Reform Star Party (PBR) and an appealing nationalist option in Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party.
“Either [religious] fanaticism is declining or voters are more rational,” PKB chairman Muhaimin Iskandar replied when asked by The Jakarta Post about the falling popularity of Islamic parties.
The truth, perhaps, is a bit of both.
Islamic parties are divided within and among themselves.
Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah are irreconcilable currents, while the likes of the PKS young upstarts refuse to conform to traditional streams.
The solidity of today’s Islamic parties are no match for the Masyumi and NU parties that in 1955 placed second and third, just below Sukarno’s Indonesian Nationalist Party, but above the Indonesian Communist Party.
Internally there is divided leadership and lack of leadership as fissures plague the Muslim political elite.
The PKB, which has the strongest block of votes from its 30 million NU members, is split between former NU chairman Abdurrahman Wahid and official party leader Muhaimin. Not to mention the PKNU, which also claims to be an NU based party.
Wahid has in fact urged his followers to vote for the Gerindra Party instead of the PKB.
At a time when voters often seek to be led, leadership is a significant deficit among Islamic parties.
Other than the obsolete names of Wahid and former PAN chairman Amien Rais, there are few of equal political caliber to replace them.
This is in part because the next generation have not acquired the same cache as their elders, but also because the “old” guards refuse to let go.
Related to this is the inability of Islamic parties to break new ground beyond their established strongholds.
The PKB is primarily perceived as NU-based, while the PAN is overshadowed by Muhammadiyah.
Others like the PPP are scrounging the fringes seeking the disconcerted masses from the two.
The PKS is an example of how a party with momentum in 2004 failed to break new ground beyond its urban support.
Fermented as a “militant underground” student movement, the PKS did well in networking a disgruntled middle class.
But in an open political competition, “guerrilla” movements are no match for armies.
In recent weeks, the PKS has begun projecting itself as a more pluralist party to attract a wider voter base. Its TV ads include women not wearing headscarves.
It has also made inroads in rural areas of East Java by distributing fertilizers and farming seeds.
Whether this will be enough to save its gains is questionable.
The PAN has also done the same by moving away from the cultural-religious symbolism. It has done so somewhat uniquely, by being the party that has recruited the largest number of celebrities.
Despite the fear of a religiously conservative Indonesia over the past 10 years, these developing trends lend credence to the view that Muslims across the archipelago are too syncretic and moderate to opt for right-wing politics.
The rise of political Islam in 1999 and 2004 served as a surrogate for political dispossession rather than the birth of fundamentalism.
When the main course becomes tiresome, voters will seek “options”.
The resurgence of the PDI-P, the reinvention of Golkar and the advent of the Democratic Party serves much of what voters seek in 2009, creating a much-needed retrenchment of political piety, entrenchment of secular democracy.
The most potent role open for Islamic parties will be in the regions, where politics is more fractious.
They will also play the role of kingmaker/spoiler in the coming months, as a president will seek coalitions to form a government.
Political Islam is not dead, but its contribution is being put in its proper place: on the fringes of national politics.
