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Development Unity Party PPP

Because of its distinctive party logo associated with Islamic religious politics, PPP is popularly known as the Ka'bah Party. The Development Unity Party (PPP; often erroneously referred to as the United Development Party) was the umbrella grouping formed when the government compelled four Muslim parties to merge in the 1973 restructuring of the party system. The four components were Nahdlatul Ulama, the Muslim Party of Indonesia (PMI), the Islamic Association Party of Indonesia (PSII), and the Islamic Educational Movement (Perti). The PPP’s constituent parties neither submerged their identities nor merged their programs. As a result, no single PPP leader emerged with a platform acceptable to all the sectarian and regional interests represented by the PPP. Despite their manifest differences representing divergent santri streams, however, the PPP’s parties had the common bond of Islam, and it was this that gained them the government’s close attention.

The dominant partners were Nahdlatul Ulama and the PMI; the latter was a resurrected but emasculated version of Masyumi, which had been banned in the Sukarno era and continued to be proscribed under Suharto. The return of modernist Islamic interests (represented by the PMI) to mainstream politics was stage-managed by the government, which apparently favored the PMI within the PPP to counterbalance the appeal of Nahdlatul Ulama. In 1984 the government forced the PPP to adopt Pancasila (as opposed to Islam) as its basic ideological principle.

The decline in Nahdlatul Ulama’s influence in the PPP, together with constraints on the Islamic content of the PPP’s message, confirmed the traditionalists’ perception that Nahdlatul Ulama should withdraw from the political process and concentrate on its religious, social, and educational activities. The theme of Nahdlatul Ulama’s 1984 congress was “Back to Nahdlatul Ulama’s Original Program of Action of 1926.” While constitutionally accepting Pancasila as its sole ideological principle, Nahdlatul Ulama opted out of the Pancasila political competition by holding that political party membership was a personal decision and that individual Nahdlatul Ulama members had no obligation to support the PPP.

Nahdlatul Ulama’s withdrawal from the PPP combined with Megawati’s rise in the PDI to shift some of the opposition votes from the PPP to the PDI in the 1987 and 1992 elections. In the 1997 elections, after her forcible ejection from the PDI offices in 1996, Megawati instructed her supporters to vote for the PPP. This was called the “Mega-Bintang” campaign (bintang means “star,” the party symbol for the PPP, which after 1984 was no longer allowed to use the Kaaba in Mecca as its symbol), and it greatly weakened the PDI, to the PPP’s benefit.

One consequence of these election results was that in late 1998 and early 1999, as the DPR debated the package of laws for the 1999 democratic elections, the PPP positioned itself as the voice of the reformasi movement within the legislature and forced several important changes to those laws. For instance, Golkar proposed an electoral system it called “proportional plus” that would in essence have established single-member districts in many parts of the country.

Given Golkar’s overwhelming resource advantage at the time, it could have swept many of these seats and possibly maintained its grip on power. Instead, the PPP was able to use its position in the DPR to mobilize public opposition to this proposal, which was dropped in favor of retaining proportional representation in order to encourage political pluralism. In light of the founding of rival parties such as the PKB and the PAN, this tactic helped save the PPP from fading into political obscurity as has the PDI.

In 1999 the PPP was allowed to restore Islam as its ideological basis and the Kaaba as its symbol, and it won 10.7 percent of the popular vote (58 DPR seats) to become the fourth-largest party. The PPP supported Wahid for president and was rewarded with several cabinet positions. During the constitutional-reform process following those elections, the party supported the reinsertion of language calling for Islamic law to be established for Indonesian Muslims, in part to protect its right flank from smaller but harder-line Islamist parties.

This is one of the markers that distinguishes “Muslim” from “Islamist” parties: the PKB and the PAN opposed this proposal, which eventually was soundly defeated. Party leadership rivalries caused a faction to break off and form the Reform Star Party (PBR). The PBR proved to be one of the few splinter parties to gain any significant share of votes in the 2004 legislative elections, winning 2.4 percent (13 DPR seats). The split, combined with voter disappointment with the performance of all the major parties, caused the PPP’s vote share to drop to 8.2 percent (58 DPR seats), but it still maintained its position as the fourth-largest party by popular vote.

The PPP supported a rival ticket in the first round of the 2004 presidential election, although it threw its weight behind Yudhoyono and Kalla in the second round and again garnered several cabinet seats as a result. In 2009, although the PBR won only 1.2 percent of the vote and no DPR seats because of the electoral threshold, the PPP vote share slid to 5.3 percent (38 DPR seats) as a result of overall voter dissatisfaction with Muslim and Islamist parties.

Rifts among the top leadership have been a major part of the PPP’s history and probably one of the main reasons why the party has continued to lose popularity, especially after the downfall of the New Order regime. 1979 saw conflict between Djaelani Naro and the NU faction within the PPP: PPP politician Djaelani Naro declared himself chairman with the support of the New Order government. Naro, formerly a prosecutor and a member of Parmusi, led the PPP after the merger of Parmusi into the PPP. However, this led to a rift between Naro and the NU faction within the PPP, reaching its peak in 1982. Eventually, NU withdrew from political involvement within the PPP in 1984. This decision had a significant impact on the PPP's performance in the 1988 elections.

Thee three-way conflict between Suryadharma Ali-Romahurmuziy-Djan Faridz took place during the leadership of Suryadharma Ali and it began in 2014, stemming from disagreements over the PPP's presidential candidate choice. Suryadharma's sudden support for Prabowo Subianto during the 2014 presidential campaign caused a split within the PPP, with two factions emerging. Suryadharma was later embroiled in a corruption case, leading to his removal from office.

After years of dual leadership, PPP faced internal turmoil again in 2022. The party's advisory council decided to remove Suharso Monoarfa from the chairman’s position. This decision followed a period of public scrutiny and unrest related to Suharso Monoarfa's leadership. A special committee within the party concluded that Suharso should be removed from the position, and this decision was supported during the party’s national congress held in Banten.

In the 2024 election, the party won 3.87 of the popular vote, a decrease from 4.52 percent it won in 2019. It was the first time PPP lost all the seats in the parliament. Referring to Article 414 of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections, political parties that fail to attain at least four percent of valid national votes cannot translate their votes into seats in the legislative body. Consequently, the United Development Party (PPP) failed to qualify for the House of Representatives (DPR RI) for the first time due to its inability to surpass the parliamentary threshold of four percent in the 2024 DPR RI Legislative Election. PPP garnered 5,878,777 votes, accounting for 3.87 percent of the total valid votes, similar to other parties such as the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) with 2.80 percent, Perindo with 1.28 percent, Gelora with 0.84 percent, Hanura with 0.72 percent, Labor with 0.64 percent, Ummah with 0.42 percent, PBB with 0.31 percent, Garuda with 0.26 percent, and PKN with 0.21 percent.

PPP DPP Chairman Achmad Baidowi, or Awiek, stated that his party respected the results of the national recapitulation announced by the KPU as part of the election stages. However, Awiek mentioned that the PPP would file a lawsuit regarding the results of the national-level vote count recapitulation by the KPU to the Constitutional Court. This is because internal PPP data shows that PPP’s vote share exceeded the parliamentary threshold of four percent (Sinambela, 2024). PKS Secretary-General Aboe Bakar Alhabsyi also admitted that he accepted the KPU’s decision regarding the national election results. However, it does not rule out the possibility of challenging the election results to the Constitutional Court.

By 2024 the Muslim-based party was banking on the planned revision to the 2017 General Elections Law, particularly the provision on the 4 percent electoral threshold, for a chance to rejoin the legislature in 2029.