PKB looking for support of minority, non-Muslims

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

National Awakening Party (PKB) chief patron Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid said his party was secular and would need the support of non-Muslims and minority groups to win this year's elections.

Being secular was in line with a nation that comprised people of diverse religions, ethnics, languages and personalities, Gus Dur said.

The country's former president said national solidarity would only materialize if minority groups -- including those who had been neglected -- were heard.

"I'm not talking nonsense when I say (the PKB) are open to minorities. Several PKB legislative candidates are from minority groups," Gus Dur told a media conference at the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) headquarters on Jl. Kramat Raya in Central Jakarta.

The NU is the country's largest Muslim organization, which Gus Dur headed before he became president in 1999. NU clerics, including Gus Dur, founded the PKB in 1998.

Accompanying Gus Dur at the conference were A.B. Susanto, a Catholic Chinese-Indonesian and Maj. Gen. (ret) Ferry Tinggogoy, also a Catholic. The two men are the PKB's top-ranked legislative candidates, representing Jakarta and South Sulawesi respectively.

Ferry was a member of the Indonesian Military/National Police faction at the House of Representatives until he retired in 2002.

Other non-Muslim legislative candidates from the PKB include Bara Hasibuan, who quit Amien Rais' National Mandate Party.

The PKB will fight 23 other parties for 550 House seats in the general election, scheduled for April 5. The party has nominated Gus Dur as its presidential candidate, although it has not registered him with the General Elections Commission as required by the law.

The presidential elections will take place on July 5, with the run-off on Sept. 20.

Nationalist-based parties, such as the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and the Golkar Party, finished first and second respectively in 1999 and are expected to maintain their domination in the upcoming elections.

Many pre-election opinion polls have predicted Muslim-based parties will fare no better than their achievements in 1999.

In a political move to win support from their constituents, several Islamic-based parties fought for the recognition of sharia, or traditional Islamic law, in the Constitution in 1999.

However, NU leaders and their counterparts from Muhammadiyah, the second largest Muslim organization, opposed the proposal, saying that minority groups had existed long before the country's independence.

Gus Dur said the NU had recognized the rights of minority groups for a long time.

"As the largest Muslim organization, the NU has to recognize minority groups, showing them they have place here (in Indonesia).

"Pluralism among NU's followers is important. We raise this issue not only because of the general elections, which are drawing near but also because we have to maintain our diversity -- the basis of building our nation," Gus Dur said.

Gus Dur has won international awards for promoting tolerance.

Asked whether the PKB's approach to minority groups was supported by other NU clerics (kyai), Gus Dur said: "Can I do something without prior approval from the kyai?"