The United Development Party (PPP) on Tuesday said it would actively approach other major Islamic parties to form a coalition to support a presidential candidate ahead of Indonesia’s 2014 election.
PPP deputy secretary general Arwani Thomafi said that his party would approach other Islamic parties in the House of Representatives: the National Mandate Party (PAN), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), along with the Crescent Star Party (PBB), which occupied legislative seats during the 2004-2009 period but was ousted from the House in the 2009 elections.
“An axis made up of Islamic political parties will have strategic power and offer an alternative, especially when facing a coalition made up of the PDI-P [the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle], the Golkar Party or the Democratic Party,” Arwani said in Jakarta on Tuesday.
The PPP was optimistic that an Islamic party coalition could be formed, according to Arwani.
“We’ve established good communications with one another,” he said
PPP deputy chairman Dimyati Natakusumah, meanwhile, said that during the pre-reformasi era, all Islamic parties had been unified under the PPP as a result of former President Suharto’s three-party policy, under which only three political parties were allowed to compete in legislative elections.
Dimyati said the history should mean a new Islamic coalition, dubbed Chapter Two of the Central Axis by many, was possible.
The Central Axis was the name of a similar coalition formed by Islamic parties in 1999 just after the collapse of the New Order regime in support of the presidency of Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, leader of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and the founder of the PKB.
Gus Dur was elected the fourth president of Indonesia through a legislative election with the backing of the Islamic party coalition.
The PKB and PKS, however, have shown indifference with the PPP’s plan.
“This is not a new thing. This is an old discourse and it is hard to realize,” PKB deputy chairman Marwan Jafar told Indonesian news portal liputan6.com.
He said it was particularly hard for the Islamic parties to form a coalition because each of them already had their own presidential candidate in mind.
“We’ll see after the legislative elections; because we only decide on presidential and vice president candidates after legislative elections,” Marwan added.
PKS chief patron Hidayat Nur Wahid similarly said it was too early to combine power to support a certain candidate for the presidential post, as results of legislative elections that will proceed presidential elections next year would surely affect parties’ policies concerning their presidential candidates.
If any coalition were to be be formed, Hidayat said, “The first agenda shouldn’t be the presidential election.”
“It should be about uniting the ummah [Muslims in Indonesia] so that they trust there remain [people] who fight for them,” Hidayat added, according to kontan.co.id.
The four Islamic parties at the House — PPP, PKS, PKB and PAN — won a combined 24 percent of the vote during the 2009 legislative elections, after which they joined the Democrat-led coalition.
Author/Autor:Markus Junianto Sihaloho
Source/Fuente:http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/ppp-seeks-new-islamic-coalition-for-...
