22 islam, politics and change
The pan would ‘no longer use Islamic attributes’, while the pkb stressed
that it had never ‘introduced itself as an exclusive Islamic party’. Speaking
on behalf of the pks, a political party that owes part of its success in the
past to its image of being a ‘clean’ party, i.e. its leaders not being tainted
by corruption, the chairman of the pks faction in Parliament, Hidayat
Nur Wahid, underlined the importance of impressing the electorate with
the party’s ‘commitment to good governance and corruption eradication’.
A few days later the chairman of the pks would be arrested on suspicion
of corruption. Shortly after the arrest of Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq, a sex
scandal followed when a close political friend of his, Ahmad Fathanah,
was arrested in a hotel – in bed with a girl who certainly was not his
wife. In November of that year, Ahmad Fathanah was found guilty of
corruption by the Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court and sentenced to 14
years in prison. In March 2014, the Jakarta High Court added two years
to the sentence. In December 2013 Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq got 16 years.
Some pks members tried to belittle the incident by calling the friend
a ‘secret agent whose mission it is to ruin the party’s image ahead of the
2014 elections’.²
The ppp (Partai Persatuan Pembangunan/United Development Party)
and pbb (Partai Bulan Bintang/Crescent and Star Party) refused to
change their religious approach. The ppp announced that it would not
recruit non-Muslim candidates and seemingly intended to reach out to
fundamentalist groups, such as the fpi (Front Pembela Islam/Front of the
Defenders of Islam) and even the mysterious Al-Zaytun boarding school,
linked to a sect brainwashing its members and aiming at the establishment
of an Islamic state.³ The pbb lashed out against ‘hypocritical, pragmatic
politicians’ who were prepared to cast aside their ideology just to win
seats.⁴
In April 2014 the pks and pbb saw their share of the vote drop
compared to the general elections of 2009. The pks obtained 6.8 per cent
of the votes instead of 7.9 per cent; the pbb 1.5 instead of 1.8 per cent. The
ppp performed slightly better and saw an increase from 5.3 to 6.5 per
cent. The pan and pkb also saw their positions improve. They gained 7.6
and 9 per cent (instead of 6 and 4.9 per cent) of the vote respectively.
The Jakarta Post, 13 May 2013.
The Jakarta Post, 14 March 2013, 1 April 2013.
Maklumat Partai Bulan Bintang, 23 January 2013 (http://bulan-bintang.org/
maklumat-partai-bulan-bintang, accessed 12 May 2013).