President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has convened Muslim clerics from regions across the country at the State Palace amid allegations that hard-line Islamic groups are planning large rallies in five cities as part of a plot to overthrow him.

The meeting on Tuesday took place just days after the Jakarta Police arrested five alleged instigators of the latest sectarian rally against Jakarta’s Christian governor, Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, on March 31 on treason charges. The authorities have accused them of trying to oust Jokowi by occupying the House of Representatives.

The five suspects, including Muslim People’s Forum (FUI) leader Muhammad Al-Khaththath, planned to hold big rallies in five major cities — Makassar, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Bandung and Jakarta — sometime between April 20 — a day after the Jakarta election runoff — and the beginning of the fasting month of Ramadhan on May 26, Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Prabowo Argo Yuwono said on Tuesday.

It was the second time police linked a sectarian rally in Jakarta to a plot to oust Jokowi. In December last year, police arrested a number of people accused of trying to use the rally as a means to depose the President.

Tuesday’s meeting is seen by analysts as an attempt by Jokowi to gain support from Muslim clerics to prevent simmering sectarianism that has gripped the capital in recent months from spreading to other regions.

In his opening remarks at Tuesday’s meeting, Jokowi thanked Muslim clerics for doing their job in maintaining harmony in their respective regions and urged them to keep up the good work in order to safeguard the unity of Muslims across the country.

“We rely on ulemas to maintain calmness and to cool down the situation in cities and regencies of the country so that we always maintain a peaceful state of affairs,” said Jokowi.

The 20 clerics invited to the Palace included Irfan Wahid, who heads the Tebuireng Pesantren (Islamic boarding school) in Jombang, East Java, cleric Sanusi Baco, who is an adviser to the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in South Sulawesi, Syukron Makmun, the head of Pesantren Darurohman in Jakarta as well as cleric Aris Ni’matullah, the head of Pesantren Buntet in Cirebon, West Java.

Speaking as the spokesman of the group after the meeting, Syukron said the clerics agreed with Jokowi’s calls for the religious leaders to maintain the harmony of Muslims in their respective regions by stepping up campaigns to promote religious tolerance.

Syukron said the clerics also called on Jokowi to solve any legal cases in the country through legal process without political interference, as that could become a problem. “As we live in a pluralistic country, we want real peace, not fake peace,” he said.

Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, who joined the meeting, said the clerics had not specifically discussed sectarian issues plaguing the Jakarta election, as they were focusing on maintaining harmony across the country.

“They told the President that religious harmony should not only be established through the implementation of law and human rights principles, but what is the most important thing is that we use empathy to build religious harmony,” he said.

Jakarta State Islamic University (UIN) analyst Adi Prayitno said Jokowi had made the right move in embracing regional clerics, because people across the country had been polarized along sectarian lines due to the Jakarta election. By inviting clerics to the State Palace, Adi said, Jokowi wanted to tell Muslims that the government was not “criminalizing” clerics and that the arrests of several figures believed to have orchestrated the anti-Ahok rallies were not politically motivated.

“The meeting with the clerics is part of Jokowi’s attempt to prevent sectarianism [in Jakarta] from spreading to the regions,” he said. “It is meant to calm down the situation ahead of the second round of Jakarta’s election.”

He added that the move also sent a message to the public that the anti-Ahok protesters did not represent the majority of Muslims in the country. (dea)

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