Prospect of an Islamic presidential candidates

Prospect of an Islamic presidential candidates

Muhammad Qodari, Indonesian Research Institute (LSI), Jakarta,
qodari@hotmail.com

A compromise has finally sealed the law on presidential
elections. That compromise has also opened opportunities for a
large pool of presidential candidates. This is due to the
stipulation in the law that a political party or a combination of
political parties winning a minimum of 3 percent of the seats in
the House of Representatives (DPR) or 5 percent of the national
vote will be eligible to nominate a pair of presidential and vice
presidential candidates.

Imagine if the law stipulated a much stricter requirement on
seats and votes, say 20 percent as initially proposed by the
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) and the
Golkar Party. Both nationalist-secular parties would be the only
parties to win 20 percent of the total vote and seats.

Given that the results of the 2004 legislative elections will
likely not be much different from the elections in 1999, there
would have been no more than three pairs of candidates in the
first round of the presidential race.

PDI Perjuangan and Golkar would each nominate their own
preferred candidates. Golkar is not likely to join forces with
PDI Perjuangan. The former New Order ruling party would propose
its own candidates, hoping they would survive to the second round
of the election, along with Megawati Soekarnoputri and her
running mate. What about the second round? That's a whole other
battle with different strategies.

But who would be the third pair of candidates? The pair would
most likely represent a coalition of Islamic political parties.
None of the Islamic-based political parties won more than 15
percent of seats or vote in 1999. Again, taking into account that
the voting pattern next year will likely resemble 1999, Islamic
political parties will have to form a coalition in order to be
able to nominate their own candidates. The only exception would
be National Awakening Party (PKB), which may prefer to join
forces with either PDI Perjuangan or Golkar.

As the new law has stipulated a threshold of 3 percent of the
seats in the House or 5 percent of the total vote, it is likely
that we are going to see a very different set of presidential and
vice presidential candidates in next year's election. First off,
there will be many more pairs of candidates.

This is especially true for the Islamic camp because the law
will allow prominent Islamic-based political parties, including
PKB, the United Development Party (PPP) and the National Mandate
Party (PAN), to meet the threshold. Smaller Islamic parties such
as the Crescent Star Party (PBB) and the Prosperous Justice Party
(PKS, formerly the Justice Party or PK) may have to work extra
hard to meet the threshold, but they have the potential.

Five Islamic political parties, of course, does not
necessarily mean five pairs of candidates, against two pairs from
the nationalist camp -- PDI Perjuangan and Golkar. Some
coalitions may be formed, within the same or across ideological
lines.

It is almost impossible to predict all the different scenarios
that could occur. Will the PKS merge with the PBB, considering
both have the same conservative Islamic leanings? Or is it going
to continue its current cooperation with PAN (together PAN and
PKS form the Reform Faction in the House)?

Yet another coalition is possible as the PKS may become the
leader of the "minor" Islamic political parties -- parties with
very small numbers of votes, to the extent that they are not
eligible by themselves to nominate candidates.

Yet all these scenarios may be too good to be true. Would the
PKB really join a coalition with PAN given the long rivalry
between their respective main bases, the two largest Islamic
organizations in the country -- Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and
Muhammadiyah?

Despite the fact that the current vice president and chairman
of the PPP, Hamzah Haz, is an NU follower and perhaps more than
half of PPP's votes in 1999 came from NU members, it is also
unlikely that the PKB would form a coalition with the PPP for
numerous reasons: the NU's past disappointment with the PPP and
the rivalry between the PKB's main figure, former president
Abdurrahman Wahid, and Hamzah Haz, to name just two.

History has shown that in this Muslim-dominated country,
Islamic political parties tend to compete rather than cooperate
with each other. This is because each political party has claimed
to be the "true" Islamic party.

There have also been rivalries among Islamic political leaders
-- even within the same political party. Unity has never been the
"trademark" of Islamic political parties. Five Islamic political
parties united in the early 1970s to form the PPP. Ironically,
this unity was imposed and engineered by former president
Soeharto and his political operators.

If the law on presidential elections stipulated 20 percent or
more of the total vote or seats in the House as a condition for
nominating presidential and vice presidential candidates, we
would probably see the first "formal" coalition signed by Islamic
political parties with a common purpose to nominate Islamic
candidates (an informal and very loose coalition, the "axis
force" led by Amien Rais, was formed in 1999 to support
Abdurrahman Wahid's candidacy against Megawati in the
presidential election).

However, given the newly approved presidential election law,
and also the country's past record, a "united Islamic front" is
once again just a hope, not a reality.