SPOTLIGHT
POLITICS, ISLAM, AND ELECTIONS
IN INDONESIA
BY DR TEMJENMEREN AO*
T
he 12th General Elections held on April 17, 2019,
are the fi fth successive elections held since the 1999
referendum, which brought to an end the three decades
of authoritarian rule in Indonesia. In this election, for the
very first time, over 185 million Indonesian electorates
simultaneously voted for their Members of Parliament and
their President. The Indonesian Parliament consists of the
House of Representatives (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat/DPR)
with 560 members and the Regional Representative Council
(Dewan Perwakilan Daerah/DPD) with 132 members; both
houses are elected for a fi ve-year term.[1] The Presidential
election is between the incumbent President Joko Widodo
along with Maruf Amin, for the post of the Vice-President,
and Lt Gen (ret) Prabowo Subianto, with Sandiaga Solehuddin
Uno, the current Deputy Governor of Jakarta, as his running
mate.
While Indonesia remains on the path of democratic
consolidation, being the largest Muslim nation in the world,
one would assume a close linkage between Islam and politics.
This also brings into the picture the future of the State’s
continued adherence to the fi ve principles or Pancasila in
which ‘belief in one God’ constitutes one of the principles.
Sukarno made the argument that if the new state was based on
‘belief in God’ then it would be neither an Islamic nor a secular
state but a ‘religious’ state. Therefore, all religions, including
Islam, in Indonesia would be free to practice their religious
obligations.[2] This emphasis by its founding father, enabled
Indonesia right from its inception as a Republic, to strike a
balance between religion and the state. While sections of the
Indonesian wanted the implementation of Islamic Shari’ah, the
government since the time of Sukarno has been consistently
practicing secularism in terms of their governance. Under
Sukarno’s Guided Democracy (1957-65) and Suharto’s New
Order (1966-1998), there has been an emphasis on non-
religious nature of the State and its policies.[3]
Islam in Indonesia was introduced in 600 AD and was
relatively moderate, as it had the infl uences of Hinduism and
ancient Javanese religions. At the end of the 19th century,
waves of ‘reformist’ conservative Islam came from West Asia,
seeking to modernise Islam in Indonesia. Since then, tensions
48 • Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist • Vol 7 • Issue 4 • April-May 2019, Noida