ISLAMIC HORSE TRADING RUNS AMOK

Indonesia Media

The four major Indonesian Islamic parties of Indonesia have now signed up on their coalition with the Democratic Party led by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) which will fight, and probably win, the direct Presidential elections on July 8thand join the new coalition government on October 21st.

Yet political observers are calling recent maneuvers of these parties ´shameful´, accusing them of horse-trading.

Four Islamic-linked parties, the PKS, the National Awakening Party (PKB), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the United Development Party (PPP), have united with the Democratic Party in a coalition of 23 parties representing about 46 percent of the voters in the April 9th general elections.

Jeffrey Winters, an Indonesian expert at the North Western University in Chicago Said “Politicians from many parties, not just Islamic ones, had acted without principles.”

Burhanuddin Muhtadji of the Indonesdian Survey Institute said that the PKS had clearly demonstrated ´how politically inconsistent they can be, considering recent threats and backflips´. (Jakarta Post 18.05.09).

He was referring to reactions from PKS and PAN when SBY appointed a technocrat, Governor Boediono of the Bank of Indonesia, as his Vice Presidential running mate and not a candidate from the religious parties.

Finally Jeffrey Winters commented on the coalition talks leading to the three-horse presidential race, “Behind the scenes, large sums of money were the central issue of the negotiations in every aspect of the process I observed or discovered through interviews, while the horse-trading was under way.”

The Golkar party has allied with Hanura, and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has allied with Gerindra to fight the Democratic led-coalition.

But it is the press treatment of the Indonesian Islamic parties since the start of the April general election campaign that has been inconsistent.

First the Islamic parties were going to crash to defeat after attacks on jaipong dancing and the anti pornography bill. They were only going to get 14 percent of the votes down from 38 percent in 2004.

Then their natural vote was to be 25 percent and they got 27 percent.

Then they were going to become irrelevant because their vote was down.

Then they were going to be too relevant because they represented a quarter of the voters and had become the main prop of the Democratic-led coalition.

Then the PKS was as a danger to democracy because it was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Then there were Islamist extremists under the bed in the main Muslim mass organizations, the Nahdlatul Ulama and the Muhammadiyah and in the mosques.

Then these extremists had all admitted the details to interviewers hired by a North American foundation, which produced a report and also arranged trips to Israel.

Then this report, published in the election campaign, was found to be linked to an Islamic Party which had split and lost most of its members, and did not win any seats.

Then the PKS found time in-between the horse-trading to negotiate a political contract with the Democratic Party supporting international economic reform, an anti-poverty program, anti-corruption measures, reform of public administration and support for small and medium enterprises.

The new Democrat-led coalition also says it will oppose conflict of interests between family businesses and public functions, support state intervention in the economy, and support a buy-Indonesian goods campaign.

Meanwhile the PKS was reported as concerned the Vice Presidential candidate might be too neo-liberal on economics and not Islamic enough. But in the end they accepted the deal.

Critics of the SBY-PKS line-up also said the Democratic Party was too lightweight on ideas compared to the Islamic parties, which might dominate.

The four Islamic parties hold 166 seats in the House of Representatives, while the Democrats hold 148, less than half the seats in the coalition they lead, out of 560.

So the world may come to an end in October, according to press reports, when this new Government comes to power, dominated by powerful, unprincipled, inconsistent, heavyweight Islamic Trojan horse traders who have run amok. So have your holidays soon.

But the PKS, the leading Islamic party, has already been in power with the Democrats for five years. And the world did not end. Now Indonesia has to help save the world because its economy is one of the strongest. How can that be? What a relief! Better than being hit by a horse.

 Dr. Terry Lacey is a contributor editor for Indonesia Media, he is a development economist who writes from Jakarta on modernization in the Muslim world, investment and trade relations with the EU and Islamic banking.