PD encourages competitors to avoid exploiting religion
The Jakarta Post | Fri, 05/29/2009 6:17 PM
The Democratic Party (PD) calls for all participants competing in the July presidential election to respect the religious values by not exploiting them in each competitor's respective campaigns.
"We ask for all participants, including our own allies, to fully respect the value of religion," PD central board political department chairman Anas Urbaningrum said in Jakarta on Friday.
"Exploiting such values for short term political purposes will not only endanger the dignity of religion itself, but also the pluralistic character of our nation," he added.
The preference of conservative Muslim voters toward PD's presidential candidates - incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his running mate, former Bank Indonesia governor Boediono - is said to be declining due to the fact that their wives are very rarely seen wearing the traditional Muslim headdress, known as jilbab, in public.
A political expert from the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), Burhanuddin Muhtadi, said that PD's reaction towards the issue as over-reacting.
"I think PD is over-reacting [encouraging their competitors to not exploiting religious values]. Our society is smart enough to judge which candidates are exploiting the values to their advantages and which aren't," he said.
However, Anas denied that his party reaction was meant as a response to a certain issue.
"Our only wish is to uphold the value of religion together with our allies and our competitors as well. This statement has nothing to do with voters preference or anything else," he said.(hdt)
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