Winning votes in East Java, among other key provinces, will be a deciding factor in the upcoming presidential election, as it was in the last two races. Because the province is a stronghold of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). Anies Baswedan has turned to National Awakening Party (PKB) leader Muhaimin Iskandar as running mate in the hope of winning this big voting bloc.

As it is crucial to win in East Java, political party alliances have been looking for vice-presidential candidates that can attract NU votes. Apart from Muhaimin, who has close ties to NU, other potential 2024 VP picks include East Java Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa, who heads NU’s women wing Muslimat PP; Yenny Wahid, daughter of former president and NU chairman Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid; as well as Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD, who grew up in East Java and also has an NU background.

Anies’ decision to join hands with Muhaimin was clearly a maneuver aimed at reining in votes from East Java and the PKB. According to a survey by Kompas’ research arm Litbang Kompas, NU and the PKB’s shared history allows the latter to enjoy a relatively high electability rate among NU respondents in East Java. Although the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) boasts the highest electability rate in this voting bloc with 32.9 percent, the PKB is runner-up with 18.6 percent, followed by the Gerindra Party at 13.7 percent.

Among the three presidential frontrunners, namely Prabowo Subianto of the Gerindra Party and Ganjar Pranowo, who is being nominated by the PDI-P, Anies currently has the lowest electability rate in East Java, as per the Litbang Kompas survey. However, the question remains whether Muhaimin is the right figure to pull in NU votes. Previously, when he mentioned that NU leaders in East Java approved of the Anies-Muhaimin pairing, NU central board (PBNU) chairman Yahya Cholil Staquf immediately denied that the organization had endorsed any presidential or vice-presidential candidates. Prior to that, he also stressed that the PKB was not representative of NU.

Friction among the NU elite is also becoming more apparent. After Yahya reiterated that NU was a religious mass organization and did not partake in practical politics, Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, who is Yahya’s brother and once led NU’s Ansor youth wing, urged the public to ensure they do not elect a presidential candidate with a divisive history. Many viewed this statement as a dig at Anies, who has been accused of winning the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election by resorting to divisive identity politics.

Muhaimin still has a rocky relationship with NU, which is mainly due to a conflict he had with his uncle, the late Gus Dur. This is why, according to Yenny, her father’s loyalists within the PBNU are not fond of Muhaimin, given that they felt he hijacked the PKB from Gus Dur, the party’s cofounder, in 2005. Yenny herself is not on friendly terms with Muhaimin.

Swaying the NU vote might have been easier for Muhaimin under the leadership of Said Aqil Siradj’s leadership. The former PBNU chief admitted that even though NU should remain neutral in politics, its followers should be inclined to vote for the PKB as the party was born from the Muslim organization.

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