INdonesia, the fourth most populous nation in the world, and the largest Muslim country, has just entered the period leading up to parliamentary and presidential elections. The country officially recognises the day nine months before elections as the beginning of the campaigning period, and political parties are required to sign an undertaking to campaign responsibly. So, last month, 34 officially approved political parties undertook to campaign peacefully and respectfully.
Secular, Christian, Muslim, and Islamist parties are among the number, and their undertaking is likely to be tested. Considerable rivalry exists between liberal Muslim and Islamist parties, each vying to make their mark on the electorate. Islamist parties, however, are likely to garner a much larger share of the vote than in 2004.
In a recent poll of voting intentions carried out by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta, the People’s Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Golkar Party garnered most support, with 20.3 per cent and 18.1 per cent respectively. These two parties have been rivals for the last 30 years. Neither is Islamic.
PDI-P is nationalist and non-sectarian; it looks back ideologically to Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno. Its leader is his daughter, Megawati Sukarnoputri, who served as president from 2001 to 2004.
Like the PDI-P, the Golkar Party is non-sectarian. Its leader, Jusuf Kalla, is the current Vice-President. It presents itself as pluralist, but has been accused of corruption and cronyism.
All signs suggest that the Indonesian electorate yearns for a solution to endemic corruption in government, and Golkar may well stumble at this hurdle. Furthermore, the enthusiasm for democratic reform which swept the country with the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998 has
not abated, although achievements in this area have been modest. The party that can project an image of honesty and a willingness to listen to the people will fare well in these elections.
IF PDI-P and Golkar attract about 40 per cent of the vote, as the poll suggests, that will leave a large slice for other contenders. This is where the Islamic parties enter the equation.
Islamic parties such as the National Mandate Party and the United Development Party are unlikely to make a significant mark. Of greater interest is the National Awakening Party (PKB), created by the former President Abdurrahman Wahid in 1998.
In the last elections, in 2004, the PKB won 52 of the 500 parliamentary seats, and was able to wield significant influence as a third parliamentary force behind PDI-P and Golkar. But the PKB is just emerging from a court case in which its patron and spiritual mentor, the former President Wahid, was locked in battle with his nephew Muhaiman for the post of chairman of the party.
The High Court ruled in favour of Muhaiman, but if this public feud results in a haemorrhage of support, it will significantly reduce the voice of Islamic moderation provided by the PKB.
This would provide a golden opportunity for the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), a self-declared Islamist party, to push its way into third position. In 2004, the PKS gained 45 parliamentary seats, a dramatic increase on its six seats in 1999.
Since then, there have been key changes in its leadership: old mantras of Islamist activism and calls for a sharia state have been replaced by calls for more female candidates in parliament, action against corruption, and democratic reform. This change in tone has had a dramatic effect on PKS fortunes. During the past year, the party has won elections for governor in two key provinces, and it has moved into third place among the parties. Golkar sent out feelers to PKS leaders to explore the possibility of forming a coalition.
Not all Indonesians, however, are persuaded by the PKS. Writing in the Jakarta Post, Jusuf Wanandi of the CSIS is cautious: “Many outsiders, Muslims and non-Muslim, have doubts that the PKS can strive for democracy and pluralism, if internally it is not democratic, as the main decisions are made by a few people at the top (the Majelis Syura) and not by its members through consultative deliberations and decisions of a muktamar, or party congress.”
THE population of 235 million in Indonesia includes some 20 million Christians. The options they have available for distributing their political support are varied. One of the 34 parties approved to take part in the elections, the Peace and Prosperity Party, is Christian, and garnered 12 seats in the 2004 elections.
But not all Christians are comfortable supporting a sectarian Christian party. In the words of Fr Benny Susetyo, executive secretary of the Interreligious Commission of the Catholic Indonesian Bishops’ Conference: “Christians should not think too much of establishing Christian political parties, but instead should try to improve the lives of people, especially needy farmers, fishermen, and labourers.”
The other option for Christians is to support one of the non-sectarian parties. The most obvious candidate is the PDI-P, which was originally formed in the 1970s from an amalgamation of Christian and secular parties. It is committed to the Indonesian state philosophy of “Pancasila”, which endorses a multifaith policy as the basis of the nation. If the PDI-P plays a significant part in the new legislature, Christian interests may well receive a fair hearing.
Professor Peter G. Riddell is Dean of the Centre for the Study of Islam and Other Faiths at the Bible College of Victoria, in Australia. He is the author of Islam and the Malay-Indonesian World (Hurst, 2001).