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lthough religious conservatism has gained ground following the demise of the Soeharto authoritarian regime, Islamic-based political parties would not reap the benefits, analysts said.

Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Department of Politics and International Relations chair Philips Jusario Vermonte said that since the 1999 general election, none of Muslim-based parties had gained enough votes to control the legislature and the trend would continue into 2014 and beyond.

Philips said that the open political system introduced in 1999 had paved the way for Islamist movements to thrive, yet direct elections had allowed individuals to cast their votes independent of ethnic and religious affinities.

'€œDirect elections encourage people to become more moderate and rational,'€ Philips said during a seminar to launch the book Sejarah Islamisasi di Jawa dan Penentangnya dari 1930 sampai Sekarang, written by historian MC Ricklefs, which is the Indonesian translation of the last volume of his trilogy Islamisation and Its Opponents in Java c. 1930 to the Present, at the CSIS building in Central Jakarta.

Ricklefs himself said that of around 250 million Indonesians, 100 million live in Java, and the number of Javanese Muslims is the second largest in the world after Muslims in the Middle East.

He said that the awakening of Islam in Java was part of a global phenomenon that had also happened to other religions.

Philips said that the Muslim population of Java alone could determine the result of a nationwide election.

'€œWith such a huge proportion of Muslims, Java and Islam are important geopolitically in terms of the electoral factor,'€ Philips said.

Philips said that Muslim-based political parties had failed to capitalize on this demographic.

'€œIslamist parties should be able to channel Muslims'€™ aspirations through electoral processes,'€ he said. Only through such processes could some conservative elements be moderated.

Pollsters earlier predicted that a slump in the popularity of Islamist parties in the 2014 general election would be unavoidable.

Late last year, the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) found that if the general election were to take place at the time of the survey, major Islam-based political parties '€” namely the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), National Awakening Party (PKB), National Mandate Party (PAN) and United Development Party (PPP) '€” would all get less than 5 percent of the vote each and collectively would only garner 21.1 percent of the popular vote.

There have been talks about reviving the so-called '€œcentral axis'€, which successfully defeated a major nationalist political coalition in 1999.

As survey conducted by CSIS in 2012 found that society was getting more conservative.

According to the survey, 68.2 percent of respondents did not want people from different faiths to build places of worship in their neighborhoods. (hrl)