Antara

Said Agil Siradj has been reelected to lead the country's largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), until 2020.

During a plenary meeting of the NU executive council (PBNU) for electing a new leader in Jombang town square on Thursday, Said collected 287 votes followed by As'ad Ali with 107 votes and Sholahudin Wahid (Gus Sholah) with 10 votes.

A second plenary meeting was not held due to As'ad's decision to back away from the candidacy, although he received more than 99 votes, which is the minimum requirement for a second plenary meeting, and chose to support Said instead, as reported by kompas.com.

At the end of the meeting, the meeting leader, Akhmad Muzakki, who is the council secretary of NU's East Java branch, read a mandate letter from Mustofa Bisri (Gus Mus), which previously has been elected as rais am (supreme leader), explaining his refusal to accept the position.

The rais am position was later given to Ma'ruf Amin, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) deputy chairman, which received the most support with 333 votes at the council of selected senior ulema, dubbed Ahlul Halli Wal Aqdi (AHWA) forum.

As reported by Antara news agency, the newly elected NU chairman is set to focus on a social agenda during his leadership.

"I want NU to focus on education, health and democratic economy," said Said.

Said added that he would try to guard and support NU's ideology of an Islam that was tolerant and democratic and transmit this message to younger generations to prepare them for the uncertain future ahead.

"Our younger generations will be facing radical ideologies. That is our challenge and we will guard [our interpretation of Islam] so that the moderate and tolerant [teachings] can be useful not just for the people of NU but also for all Muslims in the world," he said. (kes)(+++)

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