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Islamic Parties and Democracy in Indonesia

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Islamic Parties and Democracy in Indonesia 10|2013 KAS INTERNATIONAL REPORTS 59 ISLAMIC PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN INDONESIA INSIGHTS FROM THE WORLD’S LARGEST MUSLIM COUNTRY Jan Woischnik / Philipp Müller Following the upheavals in the Arab world and subsequent election successes of Islamic and Islamist parties in various countries, the role political Islam plays in the development and stabilisation of democratic political systems has once again come into public focus all over the world. Interna­ tional observers see the current and future politics of the new actors on the democratic stage as a concrete political test case for the compatibility of Islamic parties with values Dr. Jan Woischnik is such as tolerance, constitutionality, protection of minori­ Resident Represen­ tative of the Konrad­ ties and equal rights throughout the Muslim world. In fact, Adenauer­Stiftung in there have already been instances of parties with a pro­ Indonesia and East nounced Islamic agenda obtaining significant co-governing Timor. responsibilities after system upheavals and subsequent elections. Indonesia is a case in point. The Southeast Asian island nation, home to more Muslims than any other coun­ try in the world, has been a democratic state for more than 15 years – with the decisive involvement of Islamic parties. What kind of parties are these, and what characterises their programmes and ideologies? What did the end of the Philipp Müller is a authoritarian era (Suharto 1998) and the subsequent dem­ trainee at the office ocratic opening­up (reformasi) mean for them, and how in Indonesia and East Timor and a member have they developed since? Were they and should they be of the Konrad­ seen as a challenge or perhaps even as an opportunity for Adenauer­Stiftung’s Indonesian democracy? And not least: What insights can Working Group of Young Foreign Policy Indonesia’s experience with Islamic parties offer to the Experts. countries in the Arab world – despite the cultural and polit­ ical differences – and, by extension, to any international agents entrusted with the promotion of democracy?1 1 | In line with the title of this issue of International Reports, 60 KAS INTERNATIONAL REPORTS 10|2013 POLITICAL ISLAM IN INDONESIA: FROM UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT TO GOVERNMENT BENCHES Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. 88 per cent of the some 240 million inhabitants are avowed Muslims. In spite of this, the Southeast Asian Indonesia’s official state ideology of island archipelago, which was first Islamised Pancasila explicitly permits six reli- by traders from the Indian subcontinent in gious confessions: Islam, Protestant- th ism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism the 16 century, does not have an Islamic and Confucianism. system of government, nor is it an Islamic theocracy. Instead its official state ideology of Pancasila explicitly permits six religious confessions: Islam, Protes­ tantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucian­ ism. The country has had a democratic constitution since the reformasi in 1998. There has been no change in this respect, but there has been talk of democratic stagna­ tion in recent years, which is most noticeable in the fact that the qualitative further development of democratic processes, structures and institutions has come to a halt. Although Islamic mass organisations have also repeat­ edly made political demands since they were founded in the 1920s and 1930s, political parties with a clear Muslim agenda have only existed since Indonesia’s independence from The Netherlands.2 Under state founder and President Sukarno (1945 to 1967) and his successor Suharto (1967 to 1998), Islam was supported as a religion but repressed and marginalised as a political ideology, even though, in contrast to other Muslim countries, it was not declared the arch enemy of the reigning secular political elite. this article mainly deals with Islamic­oriented political parties and only touches briefly on Indonesia’s comprehensive and multi­layered phenomenon of Islamism or political Islam out side the party spectrum. Furthermore, the extremely influential Islamic mass organisations Muhammadiyah and Nahdatul Ulama (NU) are only dealt with in relation to their influence on political parties. Therefore, this article makes no claim to be exhaustive. 2 | Indonesia had already declared its independence from Dutch colonial rule on 17 August 1945. However, subsequent years saw repeated violent conflicts between Indonesia and the long­ruling colonial power the Netherlands, and it was not until after the UN conference in The Hague in 1949 that Indonesia’s sovereignty was also formally recognised. Cf. UN, “World Recognition and Indonesia’s Sovereignty”, http://www.un.int/indonesia/Indonesia/Indonesia/Indonesia­ 2.html (accessed 27 Jul 2013). 10|2013 KAS INTERNATIONAL REPORTS 61 Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: Four Islamic parties are represented in his coalition. | Source: Marcello Casal, Agência Brasil c b. After decades of authoritarian rule, the Asian crisis set the ball rolling and Indonesia experienced a democratic open­ ing­up in 1997, which, in addition to the newly won civil liberties, also allowed the founding of numerous parties. The religio­political scene, which had been forced into the social and humanitarian fields during the Suharto period, awoke from the deep slumber imposed on it during the Orde Baru (so­called “New Order” under Suharto). This led to the founding of 42 parties with Islamic or Islamist symbols or ideology. In the end, 20 of these fulfilled the required conditions to contest the first elections following the end of the Suharto era in 1999.3 Half of them managed to win at least one seat in the national parliament, and some have since played a decisive role in the development and consolidation of Indonesian democracy by generating a considerable share of the votes in some national elec­ tions or by participating in various government coalitions both in the past and the present. Their leading officials and elites occupy important posts in the politics, the cabinet, the administration and the institutions of the Indonesian state. 3 | Bahtiar Effendi, Islam and the State in Indonesia, Ohio University Press, Ohio, 2004, 200. 62 KAS INTERNATIONAL REPORTS 10|2013 ISLAMIC AND ISLAMIST PARTIES IN INDONESIA – ORIGINS, PROFILES AND PROGRAMMES OF THE PKS, PKB, PAN AND PPP4 Four Islamic parties are represented in the six­party coa­ lition under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono from the Partai Demokrat (Democratic Party, PD), which has been governing since 2009. The most successful Islamic party with the most members, and therefore currently the most influential one in Indonesia, is the Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (Prosperous Justice Party, PKS). The PKS was founded by young intellectuals from the Tarbiyah mission­ ary movement and is the successor of the PK party, which did not succeed in entering parliament in the first free elec­ tions and therefore decided to undergo an extensive insti­ tutional and organisational reorganisation. For a long time the founders looked to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood for inspiration for their programme. At the beginning of its parliamentary career it was mainly the educated urban middle classes in Greater Jakarta who voted for the party. However, over the years, it has increasingly also won votes from traditional agricultural areas. The PKS PKS members must undergo years of is the only real cadre party in Indonesia. It training in small groups, which not only conducts systematic youth work to educate includes political lectures, but also med- itation and exercises in confession as future politicians as well as to engage in well as Koran recitation classes. professional recruitment and training meas­ ures. PKS members must undergo years of training in small groups, which not only includes political lectures and topics such as managing election campaigns, but also meditation and exercises in confession as well as Koran recitation classes. Critics call this “ideological/reli­ gious indoctrination”.5 Today, the PKS promotes itself as a moderate Islamic party and campaigns for values such as honesty and justice as well as the fight against corruption, prostitution and drugs. The party emphasises that although its agenda 4 | For reasons of simplicity we will not discuss all of the existing Islamic and Islamist parties here but only the most important parties that are also members of the current government coalition. 5 | Matthias Heilmann, “Islamismus in Indonesien: Der Erfolg der Gerechtigkeits­ und Wohlfahrtspartei und seine möglichen Auswirkungen”, ASEAS – Österreichische Zeitschrift für Südostasienwissenschaften, No. 1, 2008, 21, http://seas.at/ aseas/1_1/ASEAS_1_1_A3.pdf (accessed 9 Sep 2013). 10|2013 KAS INTERNATIONAL REPORTS 63 is characterised by the Islamic background of the party officials, it does not seek to establish an Islamic state. Originally, however, it aimed to introduce an Islamic society based on sharia law by demo­ Up to the 2004 elections, the PKS cam- cratic means. From its founding to the 2004 paigned strongly for the introduction of sharia law, but since then the party elections, the PKS campaigned strongly for strategists have been focussing on the the introduction of sharia law, but since then issue of fighting corruption. it has increasingly distanced itself from such Islamist objectives. Recently, the party strategists and election campaigners have been focussing with notable success on the issue of fighting corruption. In the 2009 elections the PKS obtained 7.8 per cent, the best result
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