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"To attract people, an Islamic party must be able to identify their basic needs, not only feed them with jargons of Shari`ah," Minister Muhammad told IOL. |
JAKARTA — The general elections are a critical test for Islamic parties which have been loosing ground to nationalist and secular parties in the world's most populous Muslim country.
"To attract the people, an Islamic party must be able to identify their basic needs, not only feed them with jargons of Shari`ah," Dr. Muhammad Sohibul Imam, central board member of the Islamic-rooted Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), told IslamOnline.net.
Some 171 million registered voters will go to the ballot boxes on April 9 to elect members of both chambers of parliament in the third general elections since the fall of the Suharto.
More than 38 parties, including seven Islamic parties, are contesting the polls, hoping to prove their relevance and gain enough votes to have a political clout.
"People don’t care for Islamic parties, they don’t care about Shari`ah," says Muhammad, the incumbent research and technology minister.
"Whoever can meet their basic needs, people will choose."
The PKS is closely associated with Islamic teachings, but according to it leadership it does not promote the mandatory implementation of Shari`ah.
It is known for its public opposition to political corruption, a stance that was a major factor in the party’s increased success in 2004.
It won 7.2 percent votes in the last election and has 45 out of 550 seats in parliament.
Only parties that achieve the electoral threshold of 2.5 percent of the cast votes or get at least 4.3 million voters will be awarded seats in the parliament.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation with a population of 220 million, around 85 percent of them follows Islam.
It is categorized as the most democratic country in Southeast Asia.
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| "Religious parties are not an issue anymore," Feery told IOL. |
While some Islamic parties are changing tactics to be more appealing, others are sticking to the usual rhetoric to court conservative voters.
"Ulamas must be involved in ruling the country," Ma’ruf Amin, chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Ulemas National Awakening Party (PKNU), told IOL.
PKNU is hoping to make enough gains to earn a bigger role in the country's politics.
But according to a survey by the Indonesian Survey Body (LSI), the PKS and the United Development Party (PPP) will be the only two Islamic parties to make it to the new legislature.
Ma’ruf, the PKNU leader, notes that Islamic parties lost ground in the 1970s, when Suharto dictated pluralism-religious to be the only ideology adopted by political parties.
"Since then, ulamas and Muslim prominent figures have been reluctant to involve in politics because Suharto did not allow using Islam as an ideology of any party."
Ma’ruf says his PKNU was established in a bid to bring back the golden age of Islamic parties marred by secular values.
But many politicians argue that PKNU, like other Islamic parties, will come up empty-handed.
"As we know sectarian parties never reached significant votes, so I don’t think it’s still relevant," Pramono Anung, secretary general of the nationalist-leftist Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), told IOL.
Feery Mursyidan Baldan, deputy chairman of the secular Golkar Party of Vice President Yusuf Kalla, agrees.
"Religious parties are not an issue anymore," he told IOL.
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