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.