Future strategy for the Prosperous Justice Party

Last year at a Symposium at Harvard University, I was able to describe PKS's campaign in the general elections, based on its program to promote justice and good governance and to stamp out corruption, and its resulting electoral success. I then went on to write the following:

"To some, the rise of the Prosperous Justice Party will be seen as an ominous political development. It is potentially, however, a fortunate development... As a participant in the political process, the new Prosperous Justice Party must endeavor to deliver on what it promises or suffer the loss its adherents. The full participation of the Party in the democratic process offers a model for the future."

I wrote these words in genuine recognition of the potential that PKS has to offer. Today I would like to address you as members of a political party and as intellectuals. As members of a political party, you have to be ruthlessly realistic; as intellectuals, you must maintain your idealism and vision.

To begin with, realism is essential. Seven percent of the national vote is no guarantee of a political future. Growing this number to 15 percent or even 21 percent by the next election may be within the realm of possibility. Going beyond that to a majority vote will be -- to put it bluntly -- very difficult indeed. An alternate strategy would need to be based on a coalition of parties, with a general congruence of objectives.

Dr. Greg Fealy at the ANU has recently compiled the voting results for Muslim parties at every Indonesian election since 1955. The evidence is clear: no single Muslim Party has ever succeeded in gaining 21 percent of the national vote. In 1955, Masyumis achievement was to gain 20.9 percent of the national vote; by comparison, NU has twice -- in 1955 and in 1971 -- attained just over 18 percent of the vote. More significantly still, it is evident from the figures from past elections, that the total vote for Muslim parties as a whole has never approached a majority in Indonesia. In 1955, this total was 43.9 percent whereas in the recent election in 2004, this total came to 38.3 percent.

It is this historical reality that PKS must recognize and respond to if it is to succeed. Here I believe there are ways of looking at the history of Islam in Indonesia and learning from it. I would invite you as intellectuals to engage in a hypothetical exercise from which one may be able draw lessons for the future. By looking back, it may be possible to look forward.

Let us return for a moment to the early years of the previous century. In 1909, a graduate of OSVIA, Tirtoadisurjo, founded the organization known as Sarekat Dagang Islamiyah. With the support of Haji Samanhudi, that organization was transformed into Sarekat Dagang Islam in 1911 and then under the leadership of H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto, another graduate of OSVIA, Sarekat Dagang Islam became Sarekat Islam. By 1913, this organization -- or rather its separate branches -- had received recognition by the colonial authorities.

In 1914, Semaun introduced strong leftist influences into Sarekat Islam while the following year, in 1915, Haji Agus Salim introduced a commitment to Islamic reform within the context of Pan-Islam. By 1919, Sarekat Islam claimed to have a membership of two million members.

Sarekat Islam at this crucial point was an amalgam of different tendencies, both social and religious with separate orientations that looked either left or right. Its many branches were moving in different directions under their separate leaders.

Eventually, it split into a "Red Sarekat Islam" and a "White Sarekat Islam". Tan Malaka struggled to wield these two factions to a common purpose but without success. So by 1923, when Partai Sarekat Islam was established, one of its chief obsessions was to challenge Red Sarekat Islam branches wherever they were to be found.

I have simplified a complex historical period and glossed other political stirrings of the period, for a purpose: to ask you to ponder what might have happened in Indonesia, if Sarekat Islam had been able to hold together as a single broad-based Islamic party.

Under these circumstances, Indonesia's political history would have been transformed. A Muslim party would have had the determining influence in the national struggle for Independence and that party would have shaped the founding principles of the new nation. Disputes such as those over the Jakarta Charter would hardly have arisen.

Almost certainly external influences would have given rise to a Communist Party but a broadly based Muslim party setting a mainstream agenda could have co-opted the thrust from such a party. The Army would not have been required to form a bulwark against the communists and the debacle of 1965 might never have occurred. A separatist movement like Darul Islam might have arisen but again such a movement would have been marginal to the main agenda of the nation. At its outset, Sarekat Islam gave strong support to Muslim traders and businessmen and one could assume that this agenda would have continued, if Sarekat Islam had held together.

Imaging is an intellectual exercise and I have invited you to indulge in this exercise to make a point. In politics, party unity is critical. A party can build this unity on internally competing tendencies and groupings and is probably richer as a party because of its internal diversity whereas allowing different factions to fracture party unity can only lead to political marginalization.

A party committed to good governance and a concern for society can occupy the mainstream of politics on the basis of -- and without comprising -- fundamental Islamic principles but it must carefully channel its internal debates toward achieving its long term agenda and systematically demonstrate its credentials.

If you were to ask me, can PKS rewrite the previous patterns of Indonesia's political history, I could only answer at this stage that it is far too early to know. Imaging a goal is the first and easiest step in this process. Determining the various means to achieve that goal, thus intelligently defining and engaging with issues of good governance and economic development is the next step in this process.

From the outside, PKS appears to be something both new and different. It possesses a remarkable organizational structure and substantial internal discipline, but its current agenda is by no means clear. On almost all policy aspects of modern governance, PKS's views remain to be articulated in sufficient detail to be considered credible.

Clear policies on health, education, the environment, agriculture, communications or investment are just a few of matters of governance that any party in the 21st century should be involved in formulating and debating if it is to gravitate to the mainstream of politics.

Among Indonesian political parties, PKS is remarkably endowed with the intellectual and technical talent to form 'policy working groups' to consider and formulate ideas on the range of modern governance essential to the future of Indonesia. This is the most pressing task for the immediate future of the party if it is to develop its constituency. PKS has the capacity to do this, even as it debates the broad principles on which it is constituted.

Let me make one final point. Islam is in one of its greatest creative periods and Indonesia is a focal point for this creativity. I would hope PKS is able to call on the full spectrum of this creativity in formulating viable ideas on governance within an Islamic context. PKS has the potential to provide a model for the future.

James J. Fox is a professor at the Australian National University and Director of its Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. This paper is presented at a seminar on PKS on Monday.