Ten of thousands of people dressed in white robes and with their heads covered gather at Jakarta's largest mosque for a dzikir akbar: a gigantic group prayer. Spread over the ground floor and four galleries they chant religious texts in Arabic. Outside vendors offer religious DVDs and other religious paraphernalia to the mosque-goers.
Indonesia, nominally the biggest Muslim country in the world, is becoming more and more Islamic. Mass prayers hardly existed here five years ago; now big and small dzikirs have become a favourite pass-time. Films, books, songs and soap operas with religious themes are popular. More and more women are wearing the headscarf, and entire families do the umrah, the "minor" pilgrimage to Mecca.
Islamic parties disappoint
Only politics seems to be lagging behind. Not one political party has chosen an Islamic leader as the running mate candidate in Wednesday's election. Religious parties won less than 30 percent of the vote in April's legislative election, down from 40 percent in the last two elections. How can it be that religion is gaining influence in Indonesian society but not in its politics?
At a Starbucks in a gleaming shopping mall, campaign strategist M. Razikun reflects on the disappointing result of his PKS, a conservative Islamic party that had counted on getting 12 to 15 percent of the vote but is now stuck at 8 percent in the polls. Islam has nothing to do with it, says Razikun. He thinks the voters were turned off by the fact that the PKS joined the current government.
The decline of the Islamic parties was a favourite theme in the Western media coverage of the Indonesian election campaign, but is was much less so in local coverage. Indonesian political experts say voters were disappointed not so much by political Islam as by the Islamic parties themselves.
"Muslim voters are becoming more rational," says Din Syamsuddin of Muhammadiyah, an Islamic movement representing dozens of millions of Muslims. "The Islamic parties have failed to live up to Islamic values and in representing the interests of Muslim voters."
Voters expect Islamic politicians especially to be above reproach, but several Islamic parties were recently involved in corruption scandals. They were alsounsuccessful in pushing agendas that Islamic parties are usually big on, such as the fight against corruption and poverty. Popular figures like Amien Rais and Abdurrahman 'Gus Dur' Wahid broke with the PAN and PKB parties respectively, and those parties are now being torn apart by infighting.
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"People no longer see the difference between Islamic and non-religious parties," says Din Syamsuddin, "so they're just voting for the best party."
Moderate Islam
The difference between Islamic and non-religious parties is also getting smaller. The PAN party has so many celebrities on the ballot that is has become known as the artists' party. The PKS, which in 2004 campaigned for the introduction of some elements of sharia Islamic law, now has unveiled women and tattooed men on the ballot. The sharia has been dropped entirely as a political agenda. "We want to attract more voters," campaign strategist Razikun says.
Indonesia is after all still a moderate Muslim country. "Any party wanting to create an Islamic state in Indonesia will always be a minority party," says Islamic scholar and political analyst Bahtira Effendy. "It will never happen."
The absence of Islamic leader on the ballot for the presidential election is also a result of the requirement for candidates to form a coalition representing at least 20 percent in parliament. Only the incumbent president Yudhoyono was free to choose his own candidate for vice-president. Yudhoyono ended up picking Boediono, an economist, in part because he didn't need an Islamic running mate to get enough votes.
Still, Islam is an important theme in this year's election. All the candidates have to pass the religious test if the want to get elected, and they've all sent someone to visit Munzir al Musawa of Majelis Rasulullah, the organisation behind the mass prayers. President Yudhoyono has even formed his own dzikir organisation.
Of all the candidates, the Jusuf Kalla and Wiranto ticket is doing the best job of looking Islamic. They've involved Islamic organisations in their campaign and their billboards show their wives properly veiled, unlike many other candidates' wives.
Symbolism
President Yudhoyono also scores high on Islamic symbolism. He always suspends meetings when it's time for the prayer. But there is some doubt as to the Islamic credentials of his running mate Boediono. Last week the Kalla team spread the rumour that Boediono's wife is a Catholic, prompting Boediono's team of accusing Kalla of defamation.
But it's not just the Islamic symbolism: the large, non-religious parties are also becoming more Islamic in their policies. Yudyohono recently signed a controversial anti-pornography bill, which makes sexy dancing or depicting women naked an offence. He has been criticised for being soft on Islamic organisations that break the law under the pretext of defending Islam, like the FPI, a group known for smashing cafes during Ramadan.
At the local level too sharia laws have been introduced in more traditional regions, not by the Islamic parties but by supposedly non-religious parties like the PDI-P or Golkar, says political analyst Effendy.
"The Islamic parties are not the only ones looking after the interests of the Muslims. There are may Muslim activists in the Golkar, Partai Demokrat and PDI-P parties," says Din Syamsuddin. What's more, Islamic organisations like Nahdlatul Ulama or Syamsuddin's own Muhammadiyah also wield a lot of influence on government policy.
In short: it is not because the Islamic parties are doing badly in the polls that Islam has become less important in Indonesian politics. Syamsuddin: "If anything, it has become more important."
