NU needs leaders with fresh ideas

JAKARTA (JP): Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), facing its biggest challenge yet in maintaining its organization and in sticking to its mission, needs leaders with fresh ideas, one of its senior leaders says.

Ali Yafie, deputy chief of NU's policy making body, said yesterday that in his opinion, 10 years down the track, NU's 1984 pledge to return to its original mission as a socio-religious organization, has not been fulfilled.

NU, once a powerful political party, decided to abandon practical politics altogether in 1984, and concentrate on the original mission laid out by its founders, in 1926, to promote the education of Islam and the welfare of Moslems.

The group's leaders are scheduled to meet for their annual, five-year, congress in Tasikmalaya, West Java, on Dec. 1-5. The issue of the precise role of NU in Indonesian politics has once again drawn a heated debate within, and outside, the organization.

How far, or successful, has the NU been in dismantling its political vest?

"I've been saying that the return to Khittah 1926 has not been thorough," Yafie said, referring to the popular term for NU's Spirit of 1926.

He said since NU had been active in politics for 30 years before 1984, many of its leaders are still accustomed to "thinking politics and viewing politics and they are having difficulties in simply thinking social or viewing social", even to this day.

"Their number," he added, "is not small."

With 34 million supporters, NU is Indonesia's largest Moslem organization, something which no political party can ignore.

NU helped found the United Development Party (PPP) with three other Moslem political parties in 1973, when the government ruled that only three parties are allowed to contest the general election. Many of its leaders decided, in 1984, to abandon politics altogether, because NU had lost the power struggle in PPP leadership.

However, a small band of "NU politicians" remained in PPP and, in September, they launched another bid to takeover the PPP leadership at the party's congress. Predictably, they failed.

New party

Now some of these frustrated NU leaders are demanding that NU, at its congress in December, review its 1984 decision to abandon politics. Some of them have also been talking about forming a new political party.

The mainstream NU leaders have, however, defended NU's hands- off politics policy.

Yafie said even if the Return to Khittah 1926 prevails, NU still has a major problem because the ulemas are not accorded their proper leadership roles in the organization.

Many said that the executive board, which is led by the deputy chief, Abdurrahman Wahid, is virtually running the organization, and the policy making board has been sidelined.

One of the topics to be discussed at the NU congress is the proposal to merge the two boards and end the dualism in the NU leadership.

Yafie however pointed out that the original NU organization in 1926 had both boards.

If NU wants to be consistent with the Khittah 1926, it has to follow not only the original objective and the mission of the organization, but its organizational structure must also be the same, and this means having both boards, he said.

Many senior ulemas of the NU said that instead of merging the two boards, the congress should define the precise role of the two boards. The policy making body makes the policies and the executive body simply executes the policies.

Yafie said the congress must also find a new "drawing card" now that it has abandoned politics altogether.

In the past, NU's participation in politics was a major attraction for people because it offered them a chance to develop their political careers there.

At the last congress, in Yogyakarta, the NU leaders decided that it wanted to be active in the economy, and announced an ambitious plan to establish 2,000 rural credit banks with the intention of helping small Moslem traders and entrepreneurs.

NU struck a cooperation agreement with Bank Summa, which has since gone bankrupt. In the five years since Yogyakarta, only 10 such banks have been put into operation.

"You could hardly call that a success," Yafie said. "The next congress needs to find a new drawing card."

Asked to comment on the leadership of chairman Abdurrahman Wahid, who has held the post for the last 10 years, Yafie said what matters most is the evaluation by congress about his leadership.

Abdurrahman, who will complete his second five-year term at Tasikmalaya, has not stated his intention of whether or not to run again. One camp is urging him to stay on but another camp has launched an equally vigorous campaign to have him replaced.

"I think the most important thing is not who is leading NU," Yafie said. "What should count more is the programs that are being drawn up at the congress, irrespective of who is going to be the chairman."

"I think the congress is wiser than I am in choosing NU leaders, and NU has a whole warehouse of potential leaders." (emb)

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