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Prosperous Justice Party PKS

The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) contested the 1999 elections as the Justice Party (PK), founded in 1998. Because the PK won only 1.4 percent of the popular vote in 1999 (seven DPR seats), the law required it to change its name in order to contest the 2004 elections. The PK drew on networks of university campus-based Quranic study groups as its organizational backbone. Nearly all of its leaders had advanced degrees, mostly from universities in the Middle East and the United States. The party’s emphasis on Islamic law limited its appeal in 1999.

The PK spoke frequently of its vision for managing religious pluralism in Indonesia as being based on the Medina Charter, promulgated in AD 622 by the Prophet Muhammad, who guaranteed protection for Christian and Jewish communities. Many non-Muslims in Indonesia, however, interpreted this as a form of second-class citizenship under Islamist rule. Despite the party’s low vote total, President Wahid appointed its leader, Nur Mahmudi Isma’il, minister of forestry. Nur Mahmudi set an unusual precedent in Indonesian politics by stepping down from the party presidency upon entering the government, in order to concentrate on his role as a minister. The PK also enhanced its influence by joining the PAN to form the Reformasi Bloc in the DPR and the MPR.

The party also set about expanding its base as part of its transformation from the PK to the PKS. The PKS is unusual in that it is the only true cadre party in Indonesia. It requires prospective members to study party doctrine and regulations and to take an oath of loyalty to those principles. The party has disciplined or expelled members for violating these principles. Party members may also attend regular training programs. The party’s support base remains more heavily urban and more highly educated than the general voting population, but it has begun to make inroads in rural areas.

The PKS quintupled the PK’s 1999 share of the vote in 2004 to 7.3 percent of the popular vote (45 DPR seats), largely by emphasizing themes of anticorruption and good governance in its campaign and de-emphasizing Islamic law. Although all the parties campaigned on fighting corruption, the PKS came across as the most credible in this regard, for two reasons. First, the party exploited its reputation for religiosity as a source of morally based and clean governance, and some voters differentiated between this and the establishment of Islamic law. Second, PK leaders and legislators had developed a track record in the 1999–2004 term.

Minister of Forestry Nur Mahmudi attempted to purge the industry of some of its most unsavory practices and business partners. Although he did not last long in office, and his efforts met with only limited success, they helped burnish the PKS’s reformist credentials. Provincial and district legislators across the country had continued the New Order practice of voting themselves large allowances, often ostensibly for official vehicles or uniforms. PK legislators made a point of very publicly returning these questionable allowances to the local treasury or donating them to a mosque or community group. The party used the newspaper clippings describing these actions in its 2004 campaign. The PKS also developed a reputation for conducting peaceful and orderly campaign rallies, and for cleaning up after its followers when the rallies were over. These actions made the party especially popular in Jakarta, where it won the largest share of votes in the 2004 legislative elections.

The party’s success landed its president, Hidayat Nur Wahid, the position of MPR speaker for the 2004 term. Following party regulations, he stepped down from his leadership role upon accepting this government position. In 2005 Nur Mahmudi Isma’il was directly elected mayor of Depok, the city on the western outskirts of Jakarta that is home to Universitas Indonesia. The party intended to use these positions to demonstrate its commitment to clean governance, setting its sights on eventually winning the presidency.

The party had to contend, however, with widespread voter suspicion, among both non-Muslims and moderate Muslims, that the PKS’s de-emphasis of Islamic law was simply a tactical rather than a truly strategic shift. The party’s stated support for such radical figures as Jemaah Islamiyah spiritual leader Abu Bakar Ba’asyir reinforced these concerns. These limits on the party’s appeal were vividly demonstrated in 2007, when it failed to win the governor’s race in Jakarta despite its 2004 plurality victory in the city’s legislative elections.

The PKS won more positions in various levels of government, inevitably finding that it has to make hard choices and compromises, and its appeal to its more puritanical core constituency has begun to suffer. The PKS no longer enjoys the same level of credibility in fighting corruption, and thus it has lost its uniqueness and increasingly come to be viewed as just one more party on the spectrum. Although in 2009 it bucked the overall trend of major parties losing voter support, its gains were hardly as spectacular as in 2004. In 2009 its vote share rose slightly to 7.9 percent (57 DPR seats), making the PKS Indonesia’s fourth-largest party.