66 islam, politics and change
politicians to enjoy lavish lifestyles. The tensions were so high that a
few critical jt activists were actually excommunicated or expelled from
the party for criticising this behaviour. Indeed, some even left the jt
and organised their own groups criticising the pks and jt leadership for
misleading the organisation and betraying the Muslim Brotherhood’s
political mission.⁷⁹ However, some of the more skilful politicians were
able to secure support both from high ranking party officials, by providing
a significant cash supply badly needed by the party in the increasingly
capital intensive political competition, as well as from younger jt activists,
by opening channels for funds, networks and careers.⁸⁰
4.2 Coalitions and Government Formation
Similar to what happened in terms of political mobilisation, the pks
also experienced changing perceptions and behaviour with regard to
political coalitions in government formation. Initially, during the early
years of its history, the pks’s leaders understood the government as an
institutional mechanism for formulating and implementing policies,
and assumed that political parties would pursue policies following their
particular ideology and programmes. Later on, they started to learn
that coalitions, just like gathering votes, are instrumental to political
objectives and thus should be pursued in their own right. Again, this
change also marked the emergence of internal divisions between activists
who perceived political activities as an integral part of dakwah activities
and thus should be pursued in line with Islamic principles, and those
who perceived politics as instrumental to dakwah objectives and thus
argued that the end justifies the means.
The first joint venture the party participated in was the formation of
the Communication Forum of Islamic Parties (fsppi, Forum Silaturrahmi
Partai-Partai Islam) in 1998. It demanded that the government should
repeal Laws No. 3/1985 and No. 8/1985 that required organisations to
adopt Pancasila as their sole foundation and it was successful in this.
Secondly, fully recognising their minimal calibre, eight of the Forums’
members – ten minus the ppp and pbb – agreed to pool their remaining
votes in the election in order to get additional seats, the so-calledStembus
Accoord; a term borrowed from the Dutch.⁸¹
The second political move was to join pan to form the Reform Faction
(Fraksi) in the Parliament. This is rather interesting as pan is actually not
Email correspondence with an ex-jt member.
Arief Munandar, ‘Antara Jamaah dan Partai Politik’, 98–99.
Permata, ‘Islamist Party and Democratic Participation’, 240–241.