The Malaysian Insider

JAKARTA, Nov 22 — Indonesia's up-and-coming Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) will have to walk a fine line between its syariah-based principles and political reality if it is to emerge as one of the big boys in next April's parliamentary elections.

PKS leaders say they are aiming to capture 20 per cent of the vote, up from 7.3 per cent in 2004. That is perhaps an unrealistic target for an under-funded party, whose refreshingly modern approach to politics is often offset by doubts over its true calling.

For PKS to match the 2004 performance of the two largest parties — Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI) — would represent a truly historic swing. In fact, considering its less than stellar position in current opinion polls, PKS would be doing well if received just 12 per cent.

Party strategist Kemal Stamboel says the PKS is pinning some of its ambitious projection on splits within the National Awakening Party (PKB) and two other major Muslim-orientated parties — United Development (PPP) and National Mandate (PAN).

“There's a lack of clear understanding among some of them about what a political party is for,” he notes. “Our party does not think it should (exist) purely for the purposes of attaining power.”

Despite a recent survey showing a surge in support for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democrat Party, only Golkar and PDI-I appear to stand any chance at this point of winning 20 per cent of the total seats or 25 per cent of the popular vote — the new threshold for nominating a candidate for next July's presidential elections.

But Stamboel believes the playing field has been levelled by the financial crisis. Major political donors like Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie have suffered heavy losses and are apparently unable to pour unlimited funds into campaign coffers. Bakrie's position as a leading financier for both Golkar and Yudhoyono's party is seen as one reason the Government sought to help him with his current business difficulties.

PKS does not appear to have any major benefactors. It relies instead on student and teacher volunteers and monthly membership fees from its 1.5 million members. But as a relatively new party, it does have the luxury of choosing young, electable candidates, instead of the old political hacks the more established parties feel they must reward.

Certainly, PKS has performed well in local elections, winning 99 out of 154 positions on offer — mostly in coalition with other parties. Its best performances have come in the West Java gubernatorial election and in municipal contests in the Jakarta suburbs of Depok and Bekasi. However, the party was trounced in the recent mayoralty race in the capital's middle-class enclave of Tangerang, where Christian ethnic-Chinese residents regard it with suspicion. That also applies to a broad cross-section of Muslim voters, only 20 per cent of whom have consistently supported parties seeking a greater role for political Islam.

The PKS has worked hard at creating a new pluralist paradigm. The architect of the approach has been secretary-general Anis Matta, the 40-year-old father of seven who captured nearly 45 per cent of the vote in his southern Jakarta constituency. But the policy, which has the support of the influential chairman of the PKS advisory council Hilmi Aminuddin, may also have sown confusion among some.

PKS television advertisements commemorating National Heroes Day recently featured a picture of former President Suharto among a gallery of what it called “teachers of the nation”. Responding to charges of political opportunism, a party spokesman insisted that Suharto's contribution to the nation deserved to be recognised.

Only days before, PKS's strong backing for the passage of the anti-porn legislation renewed fears that its platform of reform belied a very different agenda. The party claimed that its motive for supporting the anti-porn legislation was to protect women and children. But it then had to struggle to explain why a Saudi-educated PKS politician defended an affluent Muslim cleric's marriage to a 12-year-old girl.

PKS makes no apologies for its religious roots, saying it is merely applying the purest of syariah principles to maintain the party's moral character. But even among its members, there is ongoing debate over how far that should go.

“Don't expect us to be a party of angels,' says Stamboel, who will be making a bid for his first parliamentary seat in West Java's Garut-Tasikmalaya constituency. “But we are trying very hard not to work against what is said in the Quran.” — Straits Times