PKS and PAS: Ideological similarities, different orientations?

PKS and PAS: Ideological similarities, different orientations?

Ahmad Ali Nurdin
Bandung

To compare two Islamic political parties in Southeast Asia,
the PKS (Indonesia's Prosperous Justice Party), and PAS
(Malaysia's Pan Islamic Party), is interesting. Several reasons
can be put forward to justify such a comparison.

First, unlike radical groups that try to enforce Islamic law
on the streets, both the PKS and PAS use the constitutional
process and follow democracy's rules of the game by establishing
Islamic political parties.

Second, the PKS and PAS have played significant roles in
bringing about political change in both Indonesia and Malaysia.
Although the PKS is a new party in Indonesia, many describe it as
the most solid in Indonesia and as having a clean and well-
organized image.

The newly established party gained only 1.4 percent of the
vote and 7 seats in the House of Representatives in the 1999
general election (at that time it was still called the Justice
Party). After it changed its name (as required by the legislation
as it failed to win a minimum 2.5 percent of the vote) to the
PKS, it won 7.3 percent of the votes and 45 seats in the House.

Meanwhile, PAS, an opposition party in Malaysia since its
establishment in 1951, is powerful in Kelantan and Trengganu
states. In the 1999 elections, PAS won state-level control of
both Kelantan and Trengganu. However, it suffered from
embarrassing losses in the 2004 election because of the
popularity of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Third, both the PKS and PAS are widely believed to be
identical as Islamic parties that have an Islamic agenda as their
objectives. However, are these parties' programs, strategies and
their responses to Islam and the state all that similar?

From the historical perspective, one can argue that both
parties have been influenced by Islamic movements in the Middle
East, especially Egypt, as well as Pakistan. The ideological
influence of the Ikhwanul Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood) movement
led by Hasan al-Banna in Egypt can easily be found in both
parties' strategies, programs and pronouncements.

For al-Banna, the founding father of the Muslim Brotherhood, the
Muslim world's decline was symbolized by its acceptance of
Western forms of government. Thus, he believed that Muslims should
return to Islamic values. Returning to Islam implied the
establishment of an Islamic state, according to al-Banna.

The tarbiyah (education) movement model, a cornerstone of the
PKS, has been clearly influenced by the methods the Muslim Brotherhood
used to recruit its members. According to al-Banna, the basic
unit of his organization is the cell or "family". The main role
of each family unit is tarbiyah (education) and dakwa
(propagation). This tarbiyah model, popular among Muslim students
in leading universities in Indonesia during the 1990s, has been
adopted by the PKS to recruit its members.

The influence of Middle Eastern ideology is also found in the
PAS. According to Safie Ibrahim in his book The Islamic Party of
Malaysia: Its Formative Stages and Ideology (1981:74), PAS
ideology has been heavily influenced by the Jamaati-Islami
movement in Pakistan and the Ikhwanul Muslimin movement in Egypt.

However, although both the PKS and PAS share similar
ideologies imported from the Brotherhood movement, they also have
significant differences, particularly as regards their views on
the Islamic state.

PAS positions itself as an opposition party and has often been
oppressed by the government. Meanwhile, the PKS was established soon
after the fall of Soeharto in 1998, which means that as a party
it never experienced Soeharto's iron fist.

Looking at the current political platforms and objectives of
the two parties, it is clear enough that they have different
orientations as regards the relationship between Islam and the
state.

On the one hand, PAS since its establishment has stated that
establishing an Islamic state is its main objective. In Kelantan,
we can see how Islamic law has been being enacted at the state
level.

The PKS, on the other hand, has never clearly stated so far
that its final objective is the establishment of an Indonesian
Islamic State.

Thus, it is understandable that in the last two elections
(1999 and 2004), as pointed out by Greg Fealy and Anthony Bubalo
in their work Joining the Caravan?: The Middle East, Islamism and
Indonesia (2005:70), the PKS has emphasized the "secular" themes
of fighting corruption, socioeconomic equality and the need for
continued political reform instead of Islamic state issues.

However, this is not to say that PKS leaders have abandoned
their earlier commitment to Islamist causes.

The question therefore arises: why do the PKS and PAS
apparently have different orientations when both of them are
strongly influenced by the Ikhwanul Muslimin movement, which
clearly states that fighting for the establishment of the Islamic
state is compulsory? It could be argued that it is the real
socio-political situations prevailing in Indonesia and Malaysia
respectively that lead to these different orientations.

As an established opposition party in a federal system, it is
easier for PAS to fight for it objectives at the state level. If
PAS becomes a successful ruling party at the state level, it will
be easier for it to try to implement its concept of an Islamic
state.

The PKS, on the other hand, is still struggling in Indonesia,
which is a unitary rather than a federal state. Indonesia also
has a presidential system. That is why the PKS is hesitant to
proclaim itself an opposition party or to say that the
establishment of an Islamic state is its main objective. We do
not know what would happen if the PKS become the ruling party --
would an Indonesian Islamic state be its main goal?

Finally, it would be interesting if the parties were to hold
discussions and share information on their respective ideologies
and manifestos. Would it be possible for the PAS to follow and
adopt the PKS strategy of attracting Muslim voters in Malaysia by
emphasizing more secular issues? Or, conversely, could the PKS
learn from the PAS experience in Kelantan and make itself even
more acceptable to Indonesian Muslims (particularly hard-line
Muslims), by proposing an Islamic State as its main objective?

The writer is a lecturer in the School of Theology at the
Sunan Gundung Djati State Islamic University, Bandung.