Muslim-based parties eye presidential poll

Muninggar Sri Saraswati and A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Leaders of three Muslim-based parties -- the National Awakening Party (PKB), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) -- held a closed-door meeting on Tuesday evening to iron out differences ahead of the July 5 presidential election.

PKB chief patron Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, PAN leader Amien Rais and PKS leader Hidayat Nurwahid met at the Nadhlatul Ulama (NU) headquarters in Central Jakarta.

The three said the meeting was a friendly gathering of leaders of Muslim-based political parties.

"It is just a friendly meeting. We did not discuss any specific political issues, just general issues such as how to save the nation," Nurwahid said after the meeting.

Gus Dur said the 45-minute meeting would be followed up with more meetings to be attended by PKB executives.

The meeting came one day after Amien announced plans to run in the July 5 direct presidential election, despite his party's sluggish performance in the April 5 legislative election.

It also came after Amien, who is the speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly, and Hidayat established the Save the Nation Axis on Tuesday morning.

Amien facilitated the formation of the Central Axis in 1999, a loose grouping of Muslim-based parties that successfully blocked Megawati Soekarnoputri from capturing the presidency even though her party won the general election.

Both Amien and Hidayat denied the Save the Nation Axis was another Central Axis.

"We agreed that the Save the Nation Axis is not a second Central Axis," Nurwahid said.

Amien said the new axis would also include mass organizations, but did not go into detail.

Meanwhile, Muslim Abdurrahman from the Muslim organization Muhammadiyah said on Tuesday he regretted what he saw as attempts by Amien to use the country's second largest Muslim organization to advance his political ambitions.

"It is a pity that such a big organization is being used by certain people (to further their political ambitions). The party does not seem to be PAN but rather PAM, or Partai Amanat Muhammadiyah (Muhammadiyah Mandate Party)," Muslim said.

Muhammadiyah, which has about 30 million members across the country, announced on Monday it would support Amien's presidential candidacy and urged members to vote for him in the July 5 election.

Muslim predicted that Amien would not enjoy a strong showing in the election, as Muhammadiyah members belong to a large number of different political parties.

The country will hold its first ever direct presidential election on July 5, with a runoff on Sept. 20 if necessary.

Parties and coalitions that win at least 3 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives or 5 percent of the total vote in the legislative election will be eligible to nominate candidates for the July 5 election.