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The PKS experiment
In its recent congress, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) made a bold move by declaring itself as an open party
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n its recent congress, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) made a bold move by declaring itself as an open party. The PKS no longer wants to be perceived as an Islamic party, but instead like the Democratic Party, Golkar Party or the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P); the PKS wants to be perceived as both “religious” and “nationalist”.
The PKS’ change of strategy is a clear attempt to gain more votes in the 2014 legislative and presidential elections. The PKS openly targets to be in the “Big Three” in the next elections.
Only time will tell whether its shift from a dominantly religious to a nationalist-religious party will help PKS realize its ambition. And this is an interesting experiment to watch because no political party in Indonesia that has significant votes has ever attempted to make this “jump”, at least not as openly as the PKS.
There are, however, causes for concern.
First is the rationale behind this strategic decision. The PKS and most other parties in Indonesia
believe that, within a broad spectrum of nationalist and religious ideology, the bulk of Indonesian
voters is at the center of the spectrum. To become a major political party, the PKS needs to move to the center.
Then, there are two questions that still have no clear answers. One is if the bulk of the Indonesian voters are at the center, how big is the size of the median voters group?
Nobody really knows the answer. The next question is whether there is going to be changes regarding the distribution of voters in the next five years.
These two questions are of crucial importance and related to the second cause for concern. The fact is there are already three highly competitive parties, the Democratic, Golkar and the PDI-P, vying for the centrist voters, not to mention other medium-sized parties such as the National Mandate Party (PAN), the National Awakening Party (PKB), the Greater Indonesia Party (Gerindra) and the Peoples Conscience Party (Hanura).
However, only the United Development Party (PPP) and other small parties are competing for the rightist voters, and it is difficult to disagree that the PKS is superior to these parties.
Although almost all of these parties are attempting to penetrate the religious voters by positioning themselves at the middle, the PKS still has the upper hand because of its Islamic credentials.
As a latecomer in the market of centrist voters, the PKS has to provide something new and something better in order to compete successfully.
The PKS was successful in improving its vote from the 1999 to the 2004 election from 1.36 percent to 7.34 percent not by changing its Islamic identity into a centrist one, but by changing its campaign issues.
Meanwhile, the stagnation from the 2004 to the 2009 election should not be used as a basis for strategic changes because of the political “tsunami” called the “SBY [Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono] phenomena”.
Using this logic, changing its religious to a nationalist-religious identity as a party might not be necessary to improve the PKS’ votes in 2014.
The third cause for concern is a set of potentially difficult challenges that will emerge. There are four challenges PKS has to manage.
First is minimizing the contradictions in the party’s rhetoric and behavior in order to secure trust and to establish the party’s brand among the centrist voters.
Second is minimizing defections of party loyalists by showing that the PKS continues to be proactive in promoting their religious aspirations.
Third is accommodating and finding a middle ground with PKS leaders who are against this shift in order to maintain internal solidity.
Fourth is minimizing penetration of opportunistic politicians who have the potential to taint PKS’ image as one of the cleanest parties in Indonesia.
Aside from these factors, three important factors might help the PKS’ strategic change succeed.
First is the declining level of party identification and attachment among the Indonesian voters, which provides a pool of voters who are willing to change loyalty when something new, better, and worth trying is available.
Second and related to the first, is the low level of trust of voters toward parties that encourage them to vote for new alternatives.
Third, it is unlikely that Indonesia will have a figure as dominant as SBY in 2014, which provides an advantage for PKS, which is more of an organization-based rather that a figure-based political party.
In the end, the success of PKS’ strategic shift to the “center” is going to depend less on how the PKS implement its new strategy but more on whether the current three big parties can get organized and maintain their support base when the 2014 election comes around.
The writer is a researcher in the Department of Politics and International Relations at CSIS, Jakarta. He is a PhD. candidate at Northern Illinois University, USA.
