Gus Dur's move not seen to help Golkar win votes

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)