These days, the image of Nurhayati ' the wife of United Development Party (PPP) deputy chairman and former public housing minister Suharso Monoarfa ' smiling in a green woven outfit and white headscarf can be seen in many parts of the West Java city of Tasikmalaya.

Nurhayati, a PPP candidate who is running for a seat in the House of Representatives (DPR), representing the 11th West Java electoral district that covers Tasikmalaya regency, Tasikmalaya municipality and Garut regency, seems to be very keen on grabbing the attention of local voters as she has her posters and banners placed at strategic spots, such in the rear windows of public minivans, in traditional markets and at street intersections.

Her strategy might work but the public response has signaled that she definitely needs to do more. A number of locals interviewed at the Cisayong traditional market said they were aware of her running for a seat in the legislature, but admitted that they had no idea who she actually was.

Located some 250 kilometers southeast of Jakarta, Tasikmalaya ' administratively divided into a municipality and a regency in 2001 ' is well-known as a stronghold of the PPP and other political parties promoting an Islamic platform.

Established in 1973 as a result of the merger of four Islamic political parties, the PPP, now the oldest Islamic party in the country, has never lost an election in the region since then. Apart from securing the most seats in both Tasikmalaya regional councils in the 2009 general elections, the party also managed to help its candidates win Tasikmalaya's latest regency and mayoral elections, held in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

The PPP's dominance in Tasikmalaya has also outshone its performance at the national level. As a result of the 2009 legislative election, the PPP currently has 38, or 6.8 percent, of 560 seats in the House, making it the country's sixth largest political party overall and third largest Islamic party behind the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the National Mandate Party (PAN), both established in 1998 in the wake of reformasi.

Head of the political science department at Tasikmalaya-based Siliwangi University, Akhmad Satori, said the PPP's solid and consistent performance in the city rested on the support of local Muslim clerics. 'Traditionally, people in Tasikmalaya, especially villagers, have a high level of respect for religious leaders,' Akhmad said. 'This makes it easy for local clerics to introduce politics in a very symbolic way. Clerics, for example, could make members of their congregations think that they are not fully Muslim if they don't vote for the PPP or other Islamic parties.'

Data shows that Tasikmalaya is home to more than 600 pesantren (Islamic boarding schools), the highest number in West Java province. Most of these boarding schools, according to Akhmad, are affiliated with Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country's largest Muslim organization known for its support of education, cultural engagement and socioeconomic development in rural areas.

The PPP's confident expectation of scoring another easy win in Tasikmalaya can be seen from the way the party is placing its candidates in the 2014 legislative election. Data from the General Elections Commission (KPU) shows that only three out of 10 PPP legislative candidates representing the 11th West Java electoral district are permanent residents of Tasikmalaya or Garut. The other seven, like Nurhayati, live in Jakarta and have only begun intensively visiting the region recently.

There are currently 473,000 registered voters in the Tasikmalaya municipality and 1.3 million in the Tasikmalaya regency. In the 2009 general elections, over 80 percent of registered voters in Tasikmalaya cast their vote, higher than the level of election participation at the national level, which stood at 71 percent.

The PPP, however, is not the only political party eyeing up a slice of this pool of voters. Apart from the PPP, Tasikmalayans have provided considerable support for other political parties with Islamic platforms, including PAN, the PKS, the Star Crescent Party (PBB), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the now-defunct Reform Star Party (PBR).

In previous elections, for example, each of the five Islamic parties managed to garner between 3-16 percent of the total vote in the Tasikmalaya municipality.

Irman Nurmansyah, an official with the Muhammadiyah Youth Wing's Tasikmalaya chapter and a PAN supporter, believes there is a chance that smaller political parties in Tasikmalaya could break the PPP's dominance in the near future. 'In the long run, the increasing number of young and well-informed voters will mean that Islamic parties, especially the PPP, will need to convince voters through good campaign programs and not just take advantage of the voters' emotional attachment to their religion,' he said.

Siliwangi University's senior political science lecturer and political consultant Edi Kusmayadi shared this view, saying that Islamic parties in Tasikmalaya should encourage their legislative candidates to intensify direct interaction with potential voters and not simply rely on the support of local Muslim clerics to increase their chance of winning.

' JP/Hasyim Widhiarto

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