Alfian , The Jakarta Post , JAKARTA | Mon, 03/16/2009 10:49 AM | Election 2009
Muslim-based parties may have seen a significant decline in their popularity, but they can still determine who will win the presidential election, observers say.
Research released last week by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) suggested that the popularity of Islamic parties such as the United Development Party (PPP), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the National Mandate Party (PAN) ranged between 2.91 and 4.15 percent only, far lower than three main secular-nationalist parties — the Democratic Party (PD), the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), and the Golkar Party, which ranked highest in the survey.
“Although the Islamic parties are considered medium-level participants in the legislative elections, they will play significant roles in the presidential election. With the PD, PDI-P and Golkar likely to nominate their own presidential candidates, the support from the Islamic parties will be crucial in determining who will win the presidency,” CSIS researcher Sunny Tanudwidjaja told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
The Democrats have said firmly that they will support Chief Patron President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s reelection bid. The PDI-P has similarly pledged to nominate party leader Megawati Soekarnoputri as its presidential candidate. Golkar looks certain to endorse Vice President Jusuf Kalla’s move to win the presidency.
“The presence of the Islamic parties is more meaningful in this kind of situation,” Sunny said.
A coalition of Islamic parties formed an axis to help Abdurrahman Wahid win the presidency over PDI-P’s Megawati Soekarnoputri in the 1999 presidential election.
Political observer and Chairman of Paramadina University’s Center for Islam Yudi Latif shared Sunny’s views.
JP/Ipunk
“The big parties will badly need support from these Islamic medium parties to meet the electoral threshold of 25 percent of popular votes to nominate presidential candidates,” he said.
The PPP, the country’s oldest Islamic party, has hinted at the possibility of cooperating with Golkar after the heads of the two parties. Suryadarma Ali and Kalla, held a closed-door meeting last week.
Chairman of the PKS Tifatul Sembiring said the party was open to cooperating with any bloc, but acknowledged that the party suited Yudhoyono’s party.
”We have less barriers in cooperating with the Democratic Party,” Tifatul told The Post.
There have been no clues as to which parties the PAN and the PKB, riddled by an internal rift, will form alliances with.
Yudi said that if all Islamic parties could form a political bloc they could amass a total of 25 percent of the popular vote, meaning that they could nominate their own presidential candidate. He quickly added that this was unlikely to happen in the 2009 presidential election.
“It’s still difficult for these parties to find solidarity among themselves because of their different points of view on Islam. The constituents of Islamic parties would rather swing their votes to other nationalist parties than to other Islamic parties which have different point of view,” Yudi said, citing the PKB as an example.
According to Yudi, internal conflict will drive a half of PKB supporters to cast their votes for other parties with secular-nationalist ideologies.
Both Yudi and Sunny highlighted internal conflict and the lack of strong leadership as the main
obstacles to the growth of Islamic parties.
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