Future strategy for the Prosperous Justice Party

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.