Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08JAKARTA939
2008-05-13 03:53:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Jakarta
Cable title:  

MODERATION, PRAGMATISM EXPLAIN ISLAMIC PARTY'S

Tags:  PGOV KDEM KISL ID 
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PP RUEHBC RUEHCHI RUEHCN RUEHDE RUEHDT RUEHHM RUEHKUK RUEHLH RUEHPW
RUEHROV
DE RUEHJA #0939/01 1340353
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 130353Z MAY 08
FM AMEMBASSY JAKARTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8979
INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS PRIORITY
RUCNISL/ISLAMIC COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 5024
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 2475
RUEHLM/AMEMBASSY COLOMBO 1004
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 1824
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RUEHWL/AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON 2631
RUEHBAD/AMCONSUL PERTH 0782
RUEHHK/AMCONSUL HONG KONG 2664
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RHHJJPI/USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 JAKARTA 000939 

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP, EAP/MTS, EAP/MLS
NSC FOR EPHU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/13/2028
TAGS: PGOV KDEM KISL ID
SUBJECT: MODERATION, PRAGMATISM EXPLAIN ISLAMIC PARTY'S
SUCCESS

REF: A. JAKARTA 893

B. JAKARTA 846

C. JAKARTA 801

D. (04) JAKARTA 7259

JAKARTA 00000939 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: Pol/C Joseph Legend Novak, reasons 1.4 (b+d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 JAKARTA 000939

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP, EAP/MTS, EAP/MLS
NSC FOR EPHU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/13/2028
TAGS: PGOV KDEM KISL ID
SUBJECT: MODERATION, PRAGMATISM EXPLAIN ISLAMIC PARTY'S
SUCCESS

REF: A. JAKARTA 893

B. JAKARTA 846

C. JAKARTA 801

D. (04) JAKARTA 7259

JAKARTA 00000939 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: Pol/C Joseph Legend Novak, reasons 1.4 (b+d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: Lean, clean and Islamic, the Prosperous
Justice Party (PKS) has emerged as the darling of Indonesian
politics. PKS's brand of moderate pragmatism and its ability
to mobilize its grassroots base has enticed the major parties
to court PKS as a potential partner for the 2009 national
elections. Still, while PKS seems poised to be the third
largest party in 2009, it has yet to dispel its conservative
Muslim stigma, as moderates struggle with Islamists for
control of the party. Its ideology aside, PKS's rise is
serving as a model to other parties of good governance and
effective grassroots campaigning. END SUMMARY.

A PARTY THAT'S IN THE NEWS


2. (C) PKS is in the news mainly because its candidates
recently won two key gubernatorial elections (see ref C),
leaving many to wonder about the party's ideology and
platform. Born out of the Indonesian student Muslim movement
of the 1990s, PKS members tend to be young, (20 to 40 years
of age),well-educated (many with technical, business and
economic degrees),and tech savvy. PKS was dominated by
Middle Eastern educated Islamist leaders in its early years
(ref D). Today, Western-educated moderates are increasingly
taking control, according to several PKS members of
Parliament (MPs) and political observers who spoke recently
with DepPol/C.


3. (C) Several of these party leaders have participated in
USG exchange programs and said these visits opened their
horizons. The extremists are gradually being isolated and
pushed out of the party, said MP Zulkiflimansyah (Zul),the
leading spokesperson for the party's more moderate faction.
PKS Deputy Chairman Fahri Hamzah told us that Arab-educated
PKS members see the world differently and are more extreme.

A CLEAN REPUTATION


4. (C) PKS's platform of anti-corruption, clean governance
and social welfare resonates. While rumors of corruption
within PKS are increasing, even its critics admit that PKS is

the cleanest party of all the others. For example, almost
all the gifts that politicians have turned over to the
National Corruption Commission (KPK) have come from PKS,
according to Raja Juli Antoni, director of the Maarif
Institute, an NGO founded by Mohammadiyah, the country's
second largest Islamic organization. PKS officials discussed
with us their party's rigorous internal system to monitor
corruption.


5. (C) PKS's recent upset electoral victories in two key
gubernatorial elections and its charm offensive, have gotten
everyone's attention (ref C). In January, PKS held its
annual party congress at a beach hotel on the mostly Hindu
island of Bali, which party organizers said was done
purposefully to demonstrate PKS's inclusiveness of all
faiths. Finance Minister Sri Mulyani spoke at an April
launch of the PKS's 643-page policy tome, praising its
advocacy of free market systems. Then, on May 5, the PKS
tenth anniversary party was attended by over 100,000,
including President Yudhoyono, Golkar Party Chairman Akbar
Tanjung and other presidential aspirants (ref A).


6. (C) PKS leaders told DepPol/C that they support a secular
government and that they privately opposed the recent
recommendation by official bodies to ban the Islamic
Ahmadiyah sect (ref B). Even in its early days, PKS never

JAKARTA 00000939 002.2 OF 003


supported Shariah law, they note. Instead PKS advocates the
"Medina Charter," which they say is historically based on
tolerance of non-Muslims, including Jews. The Medina Charter
appears to allow PKS to maintain its Islamic values plank for
conservative Muslims while still appealing to
secular-nationalists as a party of tolerance.

ARE THEY MORE RADICAL THAN THEY LET ON?


7. (C) Still, some Indonesian secular-nationalists distrust
PKS as a "sheep in wolf's clothing" with intentions to impose
conservative values on Indonesia should it gain power. This
distrust is due to PKS's origins as an Islamic party,
according to Mohammad Sobary, director of the governance
reform organization Kemitraan. PKS, and its precursor the
Justice Party (PK),were never radical but PKS did join with
extremist groups on some causes, such as calling for the
release from prison of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir (co-founder of the
terrorist Jemmah Islamiyah group),promoting conspiracy
theories re the 2002 Bali bombing, and organizing the March
2003 "Million People March" against the invasion of Iraq.
PKS's more recent support of the controversial
anti-pornography bill and what some see as regressive moral
laws have further fed suspicions.


8. (C) On the other hand, contacts who have worked directly
with PKS told DepPol/C that PKS leaders they have met are
predominantly moderate. Most Shariah-based laws passed at
the local levels were passed by Golkar Party governments, not
PKS. In the West Java elections won by PKS, PKS was the only
party whose candidates did not wear Islamic caps, for
example. For its part, PKS blames its Islamist stigma on a
smear campaign by political opponents.

YOUNG AND NIMBLE


9. (C) PKS is effective because it is young and adaptable.
To begin with, it developed a culture of open communication
through its student movement origins, contacts have told us.
PKS is the most adept at using the Internet and SMS to
communicate with its members. When the International
Republican Institute (IRI) conducted training with local
political leaders, PKS would send more people than its
allotted quota and genuinely learned from the training, while
the other parties would send fewer people, and the wrong ones
at that.


10. (C) PKS also holds weekly discussion sessions at which
they review both spiritual and worldly issues, such as how
women can monitor elections polls. They conduct regular
social welfare programs. PKS can reach large numbers because
it has low operating costs. One health clinic it held gave
inoculations to 200 persons at a cost of about a dollar per
person, using volunteer doctors and donated medicine, one NGO
trainer observed. Because of its white collar composition,
PKS also is able to raise money internally because its
entrepreneurial members know how to make money. (Note: On
the other hand, a PKS official admitted to DepPol/C that the
party is still accepting money from Saudi Arabia, "because
Saudi has a lot of money to give and we need it for our
charity projects.")


11. (C) PKS also carries out regular political polling and
bases its platform on that polling, political analysts say.
Thus, PKS was the first party to focus strongly on the hot
button issues of poverty, economic development and
infrastructure, and this stance helped it to win recent
elections. PKS has played down Islamic values issues because
its polls showed that these issues do not matter to most
people, PKS leaders admitted.

FUTURE SUCCESS OR NOT?


JAKARTA 00000939 003.2 OF 003



12. (C) Still, PKS's ability to maintain momentum and its
record of good governance is far from assured. It knows that
its successes in local elections will not automatically carry
over into the 2009 national elections. Political observers
all agree that PKS's goal of 20 percent of the vote in the
May 2009 Parliamentary elections is unrealistic but some
agreed that between 12 and 15 percent is achievable. Others
are doubtful they can get even 10 percent. Antoni noted that
PKS got 7 percent in 2004 but that an October 2007 poll by
the respected Indonesian Survey Institute showed that PKS was
supported by only four percent of the voters.


13. (C) PKS is hampered by internal divisions between
conservative and moderate elements and unless the party can
open itself up to a mass, secular base, it cannot hope to
expand beyond 15 percent, observers agreed, an assertion
acknowledged by PKS leaders. PKS's current base of urban
Muslim intellectuals is too limited, said political scientist
Dewi Anwar Fortuna. PKS's run of recent successes was due to
its selection of winning local personalities as candidates
rather than party ideology, she added. Voters also chose PKS
as a no-confidence vote for the establishment parties, others
observed.

IS THE SHINE WEARING OFF?


14. (C) Finally, as PKS grows and wins elections, its sheen
is dulling a bit. Rumors of corruption are cropping up both
locally and nationally, several observers said. PKS also has
not performed well in some places where it controls the local
government, such as in Depok city on the outskirts of Jakarta
which PKS itself acknowledges is a failure in good
governance.


15. (C) As for presidential aspirations, all the PKS leaders
and observers we spoke with said PKS will probably not be in
position in 2009 to nominate someone for president. A vice
presidential nomination is a possibility, however. (Note:
See septel on PKS' star politician, Hidayat Nur Wahid.)
Meanwhile, PKS continues to court all the major political
parties and all the parties are wooing PKS. PKS leaders said
any alliance is possible but that this will not play out
until after the 2009 Parliamentary elections. The best bet
at this point would be for PKS to stick with President
Yudhoyono (PKS is currently a member of his governing
coalition) with a PKS running mate as one of several viable
options. Over all, in terms of its mid- to long-term impact
on Indonesian politics, PKS's rise is serving as a model to
other parties of good governance and effective grassroots
campaigning.

HUME