72 islam, politics and change
The next event, and perhaps the most controversial incident during
the political coalition, took place in local politics. Law No. 32/2004
provides that only a party or a coalition of political parties with 15
per cent of the seats in the local legislature can nominate candidates
in local elections. Because the pks is only a minority party in many
regions, it needed to enter into a coalition in order to be able to nominate
candidates. Until 2008, the pks had won in 92 regional elections, either
on its own or as a partner in a coalition. Eight times had this happened
at the provincial level, 84 times at the district level. There are two
important points to be made in this regard: firstly, the pks had won
only five times without a coalition (or 5.4 per cent). The other 87 wins
were in coalition with other parties and in only 12 of these cases (or
13.9 per cent) were the elected leaders pks members. As such, in these
regional elections the pks was either a rather unimportant junior coalition
partner or it recruited candidates from outside the party. Secondly, and
perhaps more interestingly, out of 161 political coalitions it had joined
during 244 regional elections held in 2005–2008, 60 per cent were in
conjunction with Islam-based parties and 40 per cent with secular and
Christian parties: 33 were with the pan (Muslim-based party), 29 with
the Golkar (secular party), 24 with the ppp (Islam-based party), 22 with
the Democrats (secular), 20 with the pkb (Muslim-based party), 17 with
the pbb (Islam-based party), 14 with the pdi-p (secular party), and one
with the pds (Christian party).
4.3 Policy Formulation and Implementation
There are two different perspectives in understanding policymaking
processes: firstly, the normative perspective called ‘policy accountability’,
in which a political party formulates and implements policies that are
in line with its ideology or programmatic platform, even though it
may contradict people’s aspirations and thus could risk voters’ support
for the party in the next election. Secondly, the rational perspective
called ‘policy effectiveness’, in which a party pursues policies that
respond to public aspirations in order to secure voter support in
the next election, even though it may run counter to its ideology or
programmatic platforms. In terms of behaviour, the pks consistently
promotes populist policies that appeal to public sentiments; yet in terms
of understanding it has perceived the policies differently in different
periods. Previously, it opted for populist policies because it regarded
policies as derivative of ideology and programmatic platforms. Later on,
in parallel with its increasingly pragmatic and rational understanding
of politics, it pursued a similar course of populist policies. However,