INDONESIA's Islamist parties won two gubernatorial polls this month in the key provinces of North Sumatra and West Java, but the surprise victories are unlikely to signal a swing towards religious parties in elections next year. For decades, Indonesia has seen a tug of war between those who want Islam to play a greater political role in the world's most populous Muslim country and those who believe the country should remain secular. But analysts said disenchantment with the country's two big political parties, rather than a swing towards politicized Islam was the main reason voters opted for candidates backed by Muslim parties, including the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). “This phenomenon has nothing to do with PKS or Islam,” said Sukardi Rinakit of the Sugeng Sarjadi Syndicated independent think tank. “Voters are tired of seeing the same faces. They want fresh blood.” The PKS, which started as an Islamic movement in university campuses, won an April 13 election for governor in West Java province. Ahmad Heryawan, 41, beat the incumbent from Golkar Danny Setiawan and former security minister Agum Gumelar, who was backed by former president Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) -- by a big margin. Another candidate supported by PKS and two other Islamist parties is all but assured of victory in last week's gubernatorial poll in North Sumatra, where about 40 percent of the population is non-Muslim. In both cases, the winning candidates were young and relatively unknown, and therefore not associated with the many and myriad corruption scandals that have dogged successive regimes in Indonesia dating back to Sukarno's New Order. West Java is Indonesia's most populous province and the heartland of the Golkar party, former President Suharto's political machine, which still holds the most seats in parliament. Golkar, and PDI-P -- both strongly secular and nationalist -- are currently the largest parties in the 550-strong parliament, with 128 and 109 seats respectively. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former general who came to power in the first direct presidential election in 2004 and whose party formed a coalition with Golkar, has not yet said if he will run again in 2009, but is widely expected to do so. PDI-P has nominated Megawati as its presidential candidate. A number of Islamist parties emerged following the end of Suharto's 32-year autocratic rule in 1998. Six of them control about 243 seats in parliament, but they are generally modernist, if socially conservative, in their ideology. Only the far western province of Aceh uses Shariah law in a country where more than 85 percent of the population of 226 million professes Islam. Despite a sense of optimism after a democratic revolution following the fall of Suharto in 1998, many voters today are sceptical about the main political parties and their ability to tackle corruption, and soaring fuel and food prices. “We're seeing the emergence of a competing culture and voters are in the mood for change,” Rinakit said. “It's going to be a national phenomenon.” Pundits have predicted in the past that Islamist parties were unlikely to do well in parliamentary and presidential elections, only to see them increase their appeal. “The main reason is voters are not satisfied with old faces and they want alternative leaders,” said Muhammad Qodari, director of the private Indo Barometer survey agency. In the 2004 parliamentary elections, the PKS won 7 percent of the vote, giving it 45 seats, after it shelved its conservative Muslim agenda in public and focused on what irks Indonesians most -- graft, injustice and unemployment. The party narrowly lost an election last year for the governor of the capital, Jakarta. The PKS has focused on a campaign for a “clean and caring” society and had never explicitly stated it would impose Islamic law if it won elections, although some were suspicious about its Islamic agenda. PKS secretary general Anis Matta said fears among non-Muslims that the party would impose strict Islamic law were unfounded and he expressed confidence it would improve its numbers in the 2009 general elections. “I think the debate over Shariah is over. We have made it clear that we are operating under the framework of the constitution and the unitary state of Indonesia.” __
