Hidayat gives Assembly new role

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

One day before the People's Consultative Assembly held a session to swear in president-elect Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, numerous national newspapers ran pictures of Hidayat Nur Wahid, the new Assembly speaker, making a bed he had installed in his newly occupied office.

Hidayat was pictured stretching a white sheet over the bed. On top of the bed lay a prayer rug, a symbol of piety for Muslims.

The new Assembly speaker was trying to demonstrate his commitment to spurning the royal suite in a luxury hotel nearby, provided for him during the Assembly session.

Although it is doubtful that Hidayat ever slept on the bed during the session (as Susilo's inauguration barely lasted for two hours), what he intended to do was to provide an example of modesty to Assembly members, who are notorious for their lavish spending of public money.

"The message is clear that we want to reduce state expenditure. We hope the example we are setting will be followed by other state officials," Hidayat said before the Assembly session commenced.

The royal suite was not the only sacrifice in his campaign for a modest lifestyle. Hidayat also said that Assembly leaders would no longer be given Volvo sedans as their official cars.

Although the effectiveness of his campaign remains to be seen, it has shone like a beacon of virtue through the miasma of greed that characterizes corrupt politicians and state officials.

Given the reality that after the sweeping constitutional change the Assembly is no longer the highest state institution, Hidayat was aware that a new role was needed and he desired that the MPR leadership would become the symbol of a new, moral approach to governance.

"We need to have a new format for the Assembly leadership, given the new institutional context," he said after his inauguration as Assembly speaker.

What Hidayat and the Assembly leaders have initiated was followed by other state institutions, however superficially. The Corruption Eradication Commission later asked President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to prohibit state officials from receiving gifts.

The campaign may not have had the slightest impact, had it not been for Hidayat's own striking example.

Elected, surprisingly, as Assembly speaker in early October after a neck-and-neck contest against a candidate nominated by the Nationhood Coalition, Hidayat was the leader of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), a lively political entity well- known for its anticorruption platform.

The party strove for the integration of Islamic values in people's everyday lives, before embracing a more inclusive platform.

Hidayat, who resigned from the party leadership two days after being elected Assembly speaker, is also a preacher aside from his day job as a lecturer at Jakarta-based Syarief Hidayatullah State Islamic University.

Never wanting to become a politician, Hidayat's plunge into political life began with a brief stint at the Al Haramain foundation, the founding institution for the then Justice Party (PK).

Al Haramain was once declared by the U.S. government as an institution under close watch for its alleged links to overseas terrorist organizations, an allegation that was later proven untrue.

The U.S. government later took Al Haramain off its list.

Hidayat took over the party leadership in 2000 from then party leader Nurmahmudi Ismail, who was appointed forestry minister by president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid.

Upon the establishment of the PK, founding members wanted Hidayat to assume the party leadership, but he turned down the offer and chose to lead both the party advisory council and the party's highest lawmaking body, the majelis syura.

Under his leadership, the PK underwent a transformation from a party known for its staunch Islamist platform to a more inclusive party that embraced religious piety in the fight against corruption.

The transformation yielded a significant gain for the PKS as the former party was renamed before the election. In the April 5 legislative election, it garnered 45 seats in the House of Representatives, an astronomical rise from the seven it won in the 1999 election.

Nationwide, the party now commands 1,112 council members, from 191 in the 1999 to 2004 term.

With a constituency large enough to tilt the balance in the direct presidential elections, the PKS threw its weight behind Susilo in the election runoff, saying that the incumbent, President Megawati Soekarnoputri, did not deserve its support, as she had failed to solve the country's problems.

The engagement with Susilo will likely stand in the next five years, as the PKS was given ministerial posts in the United Indonesia Cabinet and pro-Susilo parties came together to endorse his Assembly speakership nomination.

Hidayat, however, countered a suggestion that the Assembly would become an institution that would validate attempts to impeach or defend the President.

"Do not view the MPR as a gatekeeper for thwarting or building momentum for an impeachment," he said in response to a question posed by The Jakarta Post.

Born in the Central Java town, Klaten, on April 8, 1960, Hidayat has been immersed in religious education for almost all his life.

His grandfather was a local religious leader affiliated with the second-largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, while both parents were activists in the same organization.

After graduating from Gontor modern Islamic boarding school in Ponorogo, East Java, he went to Saudi Arabia to pursue Islamic studies at Medina Islamic University. He abandoned his desire to study medicine at Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University.

He stayed there until he obtained a doctorate from the same university in 1992.

Hidayat now lives with his wife and three children in a modest house in the southern outskirts of Jakarta. In his spare time he enjoys playing two of the country's most popular sports, soccer and badminton.