internal dynamics of the prosperous justice party and jamaah tarbiyah 65
part of dakwah activities, and therefore should be funded exclusively by
morally accountable funds, while politically they accused pks politicians
who received funds from non-Muslims of collaborating with enemies
and thus betraying their own mission. Both proponents and opponents
supported their opinion with religious arguments backed with quotations
from religious books and authorities.⁷⁶
Later on the pks exhibited another trend of behaviour in political
mobilisation, namely transacting votes with other political resources.
Following the rules of the game in a multi-party democratic system,
pks politicians quickly learnt that the options available for election
participants are not only either to win or lose, but rather to win a
bigger or smaller prize according to whatever they got. In democratic
politics, for a political party votes are like money for business companies
and transferable into other resources. Once pks politicians got this
idea, they started to exchange their votes for other resources, offices or
money. This is known as ‘political dowry’ (mahar). They play the game
effectively, and most of the time smoothly, especially during gubernatorial
and district/mayoral elections, because they have loyal voters. In the
2007 Jakarta gubernatorial election, the pks received 30 billion rupiah
(us$3 million) for nominating Let. Gen. (ret) Adang Darajatun, former
vice-commander of the Indonesian police.⁷⁷ While in the last 2012 Jakarta
gubernatorial election, after its candidates lost in the first round, the
pks asked for 100 billion rupiah (us$100 million) from the incumbent
Fauzi Bowo in return for its 500,000 votes; but the latter bargained for
20 billion rupiah (us$20 million), and a deal was reached.⁷⁸
These political actions added more fuel to the existing resistance by jt
conservative activists, since such political transactions enabled certain
A telling example is the case of a pks politician, a holder of a doctoral degree
in Islamic studies from Saudi Arabia. In the 2004 election he lost in his home
district, a traditional Muslim stronghold in Banten province, to a Roman Catholic
North Sumatran politician from the secular party pdi-p. Perplexed by the defeat –
he believed he had had good contact and coordination with his supporters –
he conducted an inquiry into why he had lost. He found that it was because his
rival had given ‘direct aid’ (a euphemism for buying votes) a few days ahead of
the polling day. In the 2009 election, unwilling to repeat the same mistake, he
provided his voters with direct aid and won a seat in Parliament. The politician
opined that money politics is more tolerable than letting a Roman Catholic
politician from a secular party represent his Muslim community. Interview with a
former student who became an expert member of staff of one of the parliamentary
committees.
Interview with Yusuf Supendi, Jakarta.
Tempo, 26 August 2012.