Nurcholish may fall into a presidential trap

Nurcholish may fall into a presidential trap

Kornelius Purba, Staff Writer, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, korpur@yahoo.com

Amid the flurry of several groups now campaigning for the
presidential candidacy of Nurcholish Madjid, the respected Muslim
scholar may have to contemplate his own sermon in which he warned
about the danger of uncontrollable political ambition.

"Be careful with the disease of power," the 64-year
philosopher once said during Friday prayers at his Paramadina
office in Pondok Indah, South Jakarta.

These days, several political parties, like Golkar Party and
the Welfare Justice Party (PKS) are mentioning Nurcholish as
their possible candidates for next year's presidential election.
Business tycoon Aburizal Bakrie is one of the businessmen to have
openly expressed support for Nurcholish.

After years of resisting tempting offers for the presidential
seat, the scholar has risked his reputation as one of the
nation's most respected "wise men", when he announced his
preparedness to race in next year's direct presidential election.

"Frankly speaking I am pleased," Nurcholish said, commenting
on his nomination. Then he indicated that his nomination was also
expected to encourage others to join the race to enable the
nation to get the best choice.

Nurcholish is regarded by many as the most acceptable
presidential candidate compared to other powerful aspirants like
the incumbent President Megawati Soekarnoputri, Vice President
Hamzah Haz and People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker Amien
Rais. Although growing up in a Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) culture in
Jombang, East Java, Muhammadiyah and even more hardline Muslim
groups can accept him. However the acceptability does not have a
direct correlation with capability.

The second largest party, Golkar, has not announced its
candidates, although several names have been associated with the
party like Gen. (ret.) Wiranto. Media mogul Surya Paloh has
announced his ambition, although one Golkar executive jokingly
described Surya's "luxuriant beard" as his main attribute.

Nurcholish sparked controversy in 1972 when he talked about
the necessity for Indonesia to separate religion from politics.
His slogan at that time was "Religion 'yes', politics 'no'", for
which he was loathed by many, and liked by others.

He graduated from the State Institute for Islamic Studies (now
a university) in 1968. With his dissertation, Ibn Taymmiyyya on
Kalam and Falsafa, based on the thoughts of a noted Islamic
philosopher, he received his PhD degree from Chicago University
in 1984.

Nurcholish spent much of his time as a lecturer at the State
Islamic University (UIN), as a researcher at the National
Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and lately as the co-founder of the
Paramadina Foundation think-tank.

No doubt he is respected widely beyond Muslims and many
rightly hope he will become our sixth president. Yet people are
persuading him to join the presidential race, mainly because they
doubt the leadership quality of other big names. Hopefully the
people who endorse his nomination are sincere with no intention
to use the scholar for political bargaining.

Nurcholish's readiness to lead the country is not because of
his ambition but because of his love for the problematic nation.
Yet he lacks experience in government or politics, or in managing
big organizations. He is spotlessly clean from corruption,
collusion and nepotism (KKN), but he has not experienced the
struggle to resist high level KKN attempts, which would involve a
president.

Another greatly respected leader, Abdurrahman Wahid, could
only maintain his presidential seat for less than two years until
July last year. Abdurrahman is an NU leader, and his party, the
National Awakening Party (PKB), is the fourth largest party.

Dozens of people have nominated themselves as the next
president, including labor activist Muchtar Pakpahan. Next year
the president and vice president will be directly elected,
although the legislature is still deliberating the related bill.
The trend is quite encouraging, because voters have more
alternative candidates.

The presidential election is still one year away, and many
changes can be expected. One should remember the political
tradition here, that the name of a favorite candidate can
suddenly disappear from the top list in the last minutes. In
1999, very few people predicted that Abdurrahman would win the
election, given the confident Megawati.

For Amien, next year will be his last chance to enter the
Palace after his embarrassing loss in 1999.

Now, the selling point of Nurcholish as an honest, intelligent
and respectable Muslim leader is far from enough. He is not yet
considered a serious rival, but closer to the election, surely
the other contestants will not let the political novice threaten
their ambitions. Hopefully he'll win and prove his skeptics
wrong.

In 1999, a poll by a national newspaper showed he was the
second most popular presidential candidate in 1999 after
Megawati. Nurcholish commented, "After looking into (the
polling), I then concluded that Mega and I received the high
approval because (we) did nothing."

Will this public judgment persist? Only time will tell whether
Nurcholish's decision to run for the presidency is right.
Whatever the election result, we only hope that he will continue
to play his role as one of the nation's "gurus" given that there
are so few of them.