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peaking in a post-election press conference Thursday, National Awakening Party (PKB) chairman and Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar could not hide his delight when talking about the results of many quick counts, which placed his party in the April 9 legislative election'€™s '€œbig five'€.

The majority of pollsters have, so far, predicted that the Islamic-based party would secure at least 9 percent of the vote in the election, a significant increase from the 4.95 percent it garnered in 2009.

'€œWe'€™re very sure that the KPU'€™s [General Elections Commission] real count will be even better than that,'€ Muhaimin said.

Established in 1998 by a group of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) clerics, the PKB rose to become the largest party in the 1999 general election, garnering 12.61 percent of the vote. At that time it usurped the power of the dominant United Development Party (PPP), the country'€™s oldest Islamic party.

Supported by a coalition of several Islamic parties, the PKB also endorsed party cofounder and prominent NU cleric Abdurrahman '€œGus Dur'€ Wahid and supported him as he secured the presidential seat the same year.

The party, however, lost significant public support in the following election due to a long-standing conflict over the party'€™s leadership between Gus Dur and Muhaimin, his own nephew, who has led the party since 2008.

Muhaimin attributed the party'€™s successful ascension to being the country'€™s largest Islamic-based party to the support from NU chairman Said Aqil Siradj and an army of celebrity lawmaker candidates.

'€œPak Said was committed to guiding, watching and supervising the PKB,'€ Muhaimin said. '€œThe popularity of our celebrity-turned-lawmaker candidates also helped us create cheap but effective election campaigns.'€

The PKB nominated at least a dozen celebrities in the legislative election, including actor Tommy Kurniawan, model Arzeti Bilbina and singer Theodora Meilani '€œTia'€ Setyawati.

The party also surprised the public with its decision earlier this year to endorse controversial singer and self-styled king of dangdut Rhoma Irama as its presidential candidate.

'€œIt turned out that Pak Rhoma helped the party establish new voters'€™ bases in areas where he has many loyal fans,'€ Muhaimin said.

Many quick counts agree that the PPP secured more than 6 percent of the vote, a slight increase from 5.3 percent in 2009. Pollsters also said that the National Mandate Party (PAN), a party cofounded by Amien Rais, the former chairman of Islamic organization Muhammadiyah, has clinched at least 7 percent of the vote after securing 6 percent last time around.

PPP chairman Suryadharma Ali, however, said he was disappointed with his party'€™s performance as it was expecting to secure 12 percent.

'€œThere are a lot of reasons [for the failure]. One of them is that the party'€™s structure did not work well while other parties'€™ successfully improved their performance,'€ he said.

Most early returns have also found that the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), which many surveys said would be lucky to secure more than 5 percent of the vote '€” after the involvement of its former chairman in a high-profile graft case '€” secured just below 7 percent.

In 2009, the party secured 7.9 percent to become the country'€™s fourth-biggest party behind three nationalist parties: the Democratic Party, the Golkar Party and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

The Crescent Star Party (PBB), meanwhile, emerged as the most underperforming Islamic party with many quick counts finding it to have only garnered around 1.5 percent of the vote, far below the legislative threshold of 3.5 percent.

Jakarta-based pollster Pol-Tracking executive director Hanta Yuda said the majority of public support for the PKB had come from East Java, which has become the party'€™s core stronghold.

'€œIn the 2009 election, many East Java supporters voted for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono'€™s Democratic Party since they saw him as a unifying figure among Islamic-based parties.

The PKB'€™s strategy to promote prominent figures such as [former vice president] Jusuf Kalla, [former Constitutional Court chief] Mahfud MD and Rhoma Irama has partly motivated supporters to vote for the party again,'€ Hanta said.

Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) political observer Firman Noor also praised Muhaimin'€™s efforts to reestablish ties with NU leaders.

'€œThis shows that the PKB has chosen to focus on securing support from NU followers, which have become its traditional voter base. It has also chosen to not highlight issues like pluralism in its campaign, which to some extent, confuses their traditional Muslim supporters,'€ he said.