Gus Dur's move not seen to help Golkar win votes
JAKARTA (JP): The dominant Golkar will not benefit from the high profile public appearances of its deputy chairperson Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana and enigmatic Moslem leader Abdurrahman Wahid.
Ulil Abshar Abdalla, a member of the NU's research and development department, told The Jakarta Post that the gatherings would not lure NU members away from their traditional political affiliation with the Moslem-oriented United Development Party (PPP) in the May 29 election.
Hardiyanti, better known as Tutut, recently visited Islamic boarding schools in Central and East Java run by the influential Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) that Abdurrahman chairs.
Abdurrahman accompanied President Soeharto's eldest daughter Hardiyanti, to NU masses twice in Semarang, Central Java and Sidoarjo, East Java, within the past two weeks.
Critics, including the PPP chairman Ismail Hasan Metareum, said that Gus Dur, as Abdurrahman is popularly known, had moved closer to Golkar and would influence his masses to vote for the dominant party.
Despite the criticism, Abdurrahman has planned to invite Hardiyanti to other NU meetings in Madiun, East Java, this weekend and in Kebumen, Central Java, on April 20.
Next month's election, the sixth held under the New Order since 1971, will contest Golkar, the PPP and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), who will be vying for 425 of 500 seats at the House of Representatives.
Ulil predicted that the PPP's performance in the election would not be affected by their appearance in public.
Abdurrahman is known for his criticism of the government.
The 30-million-strong NU was a powerful political party until the 1971 election. The government cut the number of poll contestants from 10 to only three in 1973, forcing NU to merge with three other Moslem parties to form the PPP.
Abdurrahman led NU to its original statute as a socioeducational organization in 1984. Since then the NU has shunned politics but given its members the freedom to affiliate with any party.
"For NU masses, voting in a general election is part of religious duty. As Moslems, they want to show their political identity," he said.
"Gus Dur will never verbally ask NU members to channel their political aspirations through Golkar because he knows it will be an unforgivable mistake," Ulil added.
A number of NU leaders lost popularity in the past decade after they joined Golkar or plotted a massive departure of NU members from the PPP to Golkar.
Long rivalry
Ulil said that Abdurrahman's publicly debated maneuver represented an arch rivalry between Moslem traditionalists and modernists dating back from the Old Order era from the 1950s to the 1960s.
"Gus Dur is attempting a show of force and maintaining a balance of power between the two Moslem mainstreams. He (Gus Dur) just wants both Moslem modernist groups and the government to reckon NU as an influential organization," said Ulil.
The government has always preferred Moslem modernists than their traditionalist counterparts as partners in administering the state, according to Ulil.
He said Moslem modernists, including members of the Association of Indonesian Moslem Intellectuals (ICMI), are more skillful than the traditionalists in administrative jobs.
The country's largest Moslem modernist group is Muhammadiyah, which, like NU, gives its members the freedom to affiliate with any political party.
The PPP is also dominated by the modernist group, Ulil said.
"I agree to the way Gus Dur is seeking a balance and maintaining pluralism among the country's Moslem groups," he said.
Moslems make up almost 90 percent of Indonesia's 200 million people. Consequently, it would be dangerous if an Islamic faction controlled politics.
"A major political group dominated by people of the same religion usually has extraordinary power to force their will," Ulil said. (amd)