Executive post a real test for PKS: Observers

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The victory of Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) candidate Nur Mahmudi Ismail in the Depok elections will be a concrete test for the party and himself as to how far they can curb corruption and set nondiscriminatory policies.

Former executive director of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) Smita Notosusanto said the PKS had never played a role in the executive branch so its clean track record was of a little value.

PKS has long been known as a clean party in the legislative branch.

"Being in the executive is a much tougher job because they must directly deal with policies. Now, they are keeping the money. It's very different from a role in the legislative branch when all you have to do is express ideas," she told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Smita cited an example of how Nur Mahmudi was linked to a markup scandal, a problem that has not been cleared up until now, when he was a minister of forestry.

Muslim scholar Nur Mahmudi was minister of forestry in Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid's Cabinet.

He is also a popular Muslim intellectual and former president of the Justice Party (PK), which later evolved into the PKS. He is now a lecturer at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB).

Local elections officials said on Thursday that Nur Mahmudi won the Depok mayoral elections, reaffirming PKS' hold on the fast-growing regency.

Nur Mahmudi garnered 232,610 or 43 percent of total ballots casts, while Golkar Party candidate Badrul Kamal had 206,781 votes, or 38 percent of the vote.

Smita said that Nur Mahmudi's tasks as mayor, however, were made easier by the fact that PKS also dominated the legislative election.

PKS won the legislative election in Depok in 2004, winning 24.49 percent of 722,225 votes.

"However, Nur Mahmudi and PKS can't just put forward agendas as the combined votes from other parties are much bigger than PKS' own votes. So, any proposed policies will be fought closely in the legislature," Smita said.

Meanwhile, political analyst and Depok resident Wawan Ikhwanudin rejected suggestions that Depok would become "greener" or lean more heavily toward Islam following the election of Nur Mahmudi.

"PKS has less than one third of the legislative seats and Nur Mahmudi only won by several thousand votes over Badrul. In addition, Depok residents are very heterogeneous and too smart to be forced to obey any sectarian policy," he told the Post.

He also argued that PKS' domination was also weakened by the fact that they had difficulties in selling many of their proposals to other parties.

Another Depok observer, Adnan Topan Husodo of the Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), agreed that besides curbing corruption, Nur Mahmudi and the PKS must work hard to be more tolerant toward proposals of other parties.

"Curbing corruption can't be done alone. They need support from other parties. There will be a backlash if they force policy that does not accommodate the interests of other ideologies as they won't get support from other parties," Adnan told the Post.